Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 04.djvu/32

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ENGLAND mum between St. David's Head, in South Wales, and the Naze, in Essex, where it amounts to 280 miles. Area and Population. — The area of England and Wales is 58,311 square miles and the population (estimated 1919), England, 34,045,290; Wales. 2,- 026,202; or a total of 36,070,492. The population of the principal cities in England in 1919 is estimated as follows: London (Greater), 7,258,263; Birming- ham, 861,585; Liverpool, 772,665; Man- chester, 741,068; Sheffield, 473,695; Leeds, 430,834; Bristol, 361,247; Brad- ford, 282,714. Physical Features.^The chief indenta- tions are: On the E., the Humber, the Wash, and the Thames estuary; on the W., the Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay, Cardigan Bay, and the Bristol Channel; those on the S. are less prominent, though including some useful harbors. The greater part of the coast consists of cliffs, in some places clayey, in others rocky, and sometimes jutting out, as at Whitby and Flamborough Head on the E., Beachy Head, the Isle of Portland, the Lizard and Land's End on the S. and S. W., St. David's Head and St. Bees Head on the W., into bold, lofty, and precipitous headlands. The most ex- tensive stretches of flat coast are on the E., in the county of Lincoln, and from the S. part of Suffolk to South Foreland in Kent, and in Sussex and Hants on the S. coast. The chief islands are: Holy Island, the Fame Islands, Sheppy, and Thanet on the E. coast; the Isle of Wight on the S.; the Scilly Isles at the S. W, extremity; and Lundy Island, Anglesey, Holyhead, and Walney on the W. The loftiest heights of England and Wales are situated at no great distance from its W. shores, and consist of a suc- cession of mountains and hills, stretch- ing, with some interruptions, from N. to S., and throwing out numerous branches on both sides, but particularly to the W., where all the culminating summits are found. The N. portion of this range has received the name of the Pennine chain. It is properly a continuation of the Cheviot Hills, and, commencing at the Scottish border, proceeds S. for about 270 miles, till, in the counties of Derby and Stafford, it assumes the form of an elevated moorland plateau. In Derby- shire The Peak rises to the height of 2,080 feet. By far the most important of its offsets are those of the W., more especially if we include in them the lofty mountain masses in northwestern Eng- land sometimes classed separately as the Cumbrian range. Amid these mountains lie the celebrated English lakes, of which the most important are Windermere, 14 ENGLAND Derwent Water, Coniston Lake and Ulls- water. Here also is the highest summit of northern England, Scawfell (3,210 feet). The Pennine chain, with its ap- pended Cumbrian range, is succeeded by one which surpasses both these in lofti- ness and extent, but has its great nucleus much farther to the W., where it covers the greater part of Wales, deriving from this its name, the Cambrian range. Itfj principal ridge stretches through Car- narvonshire from N. N. E. to S. S. W., with Snowdon (3,571 feet) as the cul- minating point of south Great Britain. Across the Bristol channel from Wales is the Devonian range. It may be con- sidered as commencing in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, and then pursuing a S. W. direction through that county and the counties of Devon and Cornwall to the Land's End, the wild and desolate tract of Dartmoor forming one of its most remarkable features (highest sum- mit, Yes Tor, 2,050 feet). Other ranges are the Cotswold Hills, proceeding in a N. E. direction from near the Mendip Hills; the Chiltern Hills taking a similar direction farther to the E.; and the North and South Downs running E., the latter reaching the S. coast near Beachy Head, the former reaching the S. E. coast at Folkestone. A large part of the surface of Eng- land consists of wide valleys and plains. Beginning in the N., the first valleys on the E. side are those of the Soquet, Tyne, and Tees; on the W. the beautiful valley of the Eden, which, at first hemmed in between the Cumbrian range and Pen- nine chain, gradually widens out into a plain of about 470 square miles, with the town of Carlisle in its center. The most important of the N. plains is the Vale of York, which has an area of nearly 1,000 square miles. Properly speaking, it is still the same plain which stretches, with scarcely a single interruption, across the counties of Lincoln, Suffolk, and Essex, to the mouth of the Thames, and to a considerable distance inland, comprising the central plain and the region of the fens. On the W. side of the island, in South Lancashire and Cheshire, is the fertile Cheshire plain. In Wales there are no extensive plains, the valleys gen- erally having a narrow, rugged form favorable to romantic beauty, but not compatible with great fertility. Wales, however, by giving rise to the Severn, can justly claim part in the vale, or series of almost unrivaled vales, along which it pursues its romantic course through the counties of Montgomery, Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester. S. E. of the Cotswold Hills is Salisbury plain, a large elevated plateau, of an oval