long ridge of the Black Mountain reaches an extreme height of 2310 ft. on the Welsh border of Herefordshire. The Malvern Hills on the other side of the county, which, owing to their almost isolated position among lowlands, appear a far more prominent feature, reach only 1395 ft. In western Monmouthshire, again belonging to the south Welsh system, there are such heights as Sugar Loaf (1955 ft.) and Coity (1905 ft.).
In the south midlands of England there are two main ranges of hills, with axes roughly parallel. The western range is the Cotteswold Hills of Gloucestershire and the counties adjacent on the east running S.W. and N.E. Its highest point is Cleeve Cloud (1134 ft.). The uplands of Northamptonshire continue this range north-eastward, decreasing in elevation. The eastern range, beginning in Wiltshire, runs E.N.E. as the White Horse Hills (856 ft. at the highest point), and after the interruption caused by the gap or narrow valley by which the river Thames penetrates the hills near Goring, continues N.E. as the Chiltern Hills (850 ft.). The East Anglian ridge continues the line E.N.E., gradually decreasing in altitude. In the south-east of England, the North and South Downs are both well-defined ranges, but are characterized by a number of breaches through which rivers penetrate, on the one hand to the Thames or the North Sea and on the other to the English Channel. Leith Hill in the North Downs reaches 965 ft., and Butser Hill in the South Downs 889 ft.; Blackdown and Hindhead, two almost isolated masses of high ground lying between the two ranges of the Downs towards their western extremity, are respectively 918 and 895 ft. in height. In the north of Hampshire along its boundary with Surrey and Berkshire, in the southern half of Wiltshire (where rises the upland of Salisbury Plain), in Dorsetshire, and the south of Somersetshire, the hills may be said to run in a series of connected groups. They cannot be defined as a single range, nor are they named, as a rule, according to the groups into which they fall, but the general title of the Western Downs is applied to them. One point only in all these groups exceeds 1000 ft. in altitude, namely, Inkpen Beacon (1011 ft.) in the extreme south-west of Berkshire, but heights above 900 ft. are not infrequent. In the northern part of Somersetshire, two ranges, short but well defined, lie respectively east and west of a low plain which slopes to the Bristol Channel. These are the Mendips (Black Down, 1068 ft.) and the Quantocks (Will’s Neck, 1261 ft.). The Blackdown Hills, in south-western Somersetshire and eastern Devonshire, reach 1035 ft. in Staple Hill in the first-named county. In western Somersetshire and north Devonshire the elevated mass of Exmoor reaches 1707 ft. in Dunkery Beacon; and in south Devonshire the highest land in southern England is found in the similar mass of Dartmoor (High Willhays, 2039 ft.). The westward prolongation of the great south-western promontory of England, occupied by the county of Cornwall, continues as a rugged ridge broken by a succession of depressions, and exceeds a height of 800 ft., nearly as far as the point where it falls to the ocean in the cliffs of Land’s End.
Lowlands.—The localities of the more extensive lowlands of England may now be indicated in their relation to the principal hill-systems, and in this connexion the names of some of the more important rivers will occur. In the extreme north-west is the so-called Solway Plain, of no great extent, but clearly defined between the northern foothills of the Lake District and the shore of Solway Firth. In Lancashire a flat coastal strip occurs between the western front of the Pennine Chain and the Irish Sea, and, widening southward, extends into Cheshire and comprises the lower valleys of the Mersey and the Dee. In the preceding review of the English hill-systems it may have been observed that eastern England hardly enters into consideration. The reason now becomes clear. From Yorkshire to the flat indented sea-coast north of the Thames estuary, east of the Pennines and the slight hills indicated as the Northampton uplands, and in part demarcated southward by the East Anglian ridge in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, the land, although divided between a succession of river-systems, varies so little in level as to be capable of consideration as a single plain. Its character, however, varies in different parts. The Fens, the flat open levels in the lower basins of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse, only kept from their former marshy conditions by an extensive system of artificial drainage, and the similar levels round the head of the Humber estuary, differ completely in appearance from the higher and firmer parts of the plain. The coast-land north of the mouth of the Thames is a low plain; and on the south coast somewhat similar tracts are found in Romney Marsh, and about the shallow inlets (Portsmouth Harbour and others) which open from Spithead. The vales of Kent and Sussex are rich undulating lowlands within the area of the Weald, separated by the Forest Ridges, and enclosed by the North and South Downs. In the south-west there is a fairly extensive lowland in south Devonshire watered by the Exe in its lower course. But the most remarkable plain is that in Somersetshire, enclosed by the Mendips, the Western Downs, Blackdown Hills and the Quantocks and entered by the Parrett and other streams. The midlands, owing to the comparatively slight elevation of the land, are capable of geographical consideration as a plain. But it is not a plain in the sense of that of East Anglia. There is no quite level tract of great extent, excepting perhaps the fertile and beautiful district watered by the lower Severn and its tributary the Upper or Warwickshire Avon, overlooked by the Cotteswolds on the one hand and the Malvern and other hills on the other.
Coast.—The coast-line of England is deeply indented by a succession of large inlets, particularly on the east and west. Thus, from north to south there are, on the east coast, the mouths of the Tyne and the Tees, the Humber estuary, the Wash (which receives the waters of the Witham, Welland, Nene and Great Ouse), the Orwell-Stour, Blackwater and Thames-Medway estuaries. On the west there are Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay, the estuaries of the Mersey and Dee, Cardigan Bay of the Welsh coast, and the Bristol Channel and Severn estuary. In this way the land is so deeply penetrated by the water that no part is more than 75 m. from the sea. Thus Buckingham appears to be the most inland town in England, being 75 m. from the estuaries of the Severn, Thames and Wash; Coleshill, near Birmingham, is also almost exactly 75 m. from the Mersey, Severn and Wash.
The east and south coasts show considerable stretches of uniform uninflected coast-line, and except for the Farne Islands and Holy Island in the extreme north, the flat islands formed by ramifications of the estuaries on the Essex and north Kent coasts, and the Isle of Wight in the south, they are without islands. The west coast, on the other hand, including both shores of the great south-western promontory, is minutely fretted into capes and bays, headlands and inlets of every size, and an island-group lies off each of the more prominent headlands from Land’s End northward. The formation of the coast varies from low, shifting banks of shingle or sand to majestic cliffs, and its character in different localities has been foreshadowed in the previous consideration of the hill-systems and lowlands. Thus in the north-east the coast is generally of no great elevation, but the foothills of the Cheviot and Pennine systems approach it closely. On the Yorkshire coast the Cleveland Hills and the high moors are cut off on the seaward side in magnificent cliffs, which reach the greatest elevation of sea-cliffs on the English coast (666 ft.). The Yorkshire Wolds similarly terminate seaward in the noble promontory of Flamborough Head. From this point as far south as the North Foreland of Kent the coast, like the land, is almost wholly low, though there are slight cliffs at some points, as along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk, on which the sea constantly encroaches. On the south coast a succession of cliffs and low shores may be correlated with the main physical features of the land. Thus in succession there are the famous white cliffs about Dover, terminating the North Downs, the low coast of Romney Marsh, projecting seaward in Dungeness, the cliffs above Hastings, terminating an offshoot of the Forest Ridges, the low shore between Hastings and Eastbourne, to which succeeds the lofty Beachy Head, terminating the South Downs. A flat coast follows as far as Selsey Bill and Spithead, but the south coast
