Part 4

_The Weald._--The dissection of the great east and west anticline in the south-east of England has resulted in a remarkable piece of country, occupying the east of Hampshire and practically the whole of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, in which each geological stratum produces its own type of scenery, and exercises its own specific influence on every natural distribution. The sheet of Chalk shows its cut edges in the escarpments facing the centre of the Weald, and surrounding it in an oval ring, the eastern end of which is broken by the Strait of Dover, so that its completion must be sought in France. From the crest of the escarpment, all round on south, west and north, the dip-slope of the Chalk forms a gentle descent outwards, the escarpment a very steep slope inwards. The cut edges of the escarpment forming the Hog's Back and North Downs on the north, and the South Downs on the south, meet the sea in the fine promontories of the South Foreland and Beachy Head. The Downs are almost without population, waterless and grass-covered, with patches of beech wood. Their only important towns are on the coast, e.g. Brighton, Eastbourne, Dover, Chatham, or in the gaps where rivers from the centre pierce the Chalk ring, as at Guildford, Rochester, Canterbury, Lewes and Arundel. Within the Chalk ring, and at the base of the steep escarpment, there is a low terrace of the Upper Greensand, seldom so much as a mile in width, but in most places crowded with villages scarcely more than a mile apart, and ranged like beads on a necklace. Within the Upper Greensand an equally narrow ring of Gault is exposed, its stiff clay forming level plains of grazing pasture, without villages, and with few farmhouses even; and from beneath it the successive beds of the Lower Greensand rise towards the centre, forming a wider belt, and reaching a considerable height before breaking off in a fine escarpment, the crest of which is in several points higher than the outer ring of Chalk. Leith Hill and Hindhead are parts of this edge in the west, where the exposure is widest. Several towns have originated in the gaps of the Lower Greensand escarpment which are continuous with those through the Chalk: such are Dorking, Reigate, Maidstone and Ashford. Folkestone and Pevensey stand where the two ends of the broken ring meet the sea. It is largely a region of oak and pine trees, in contrast to the beech of the Chalk Downs. The Lower Greensand escarpment looks inwards in its turn over the wide plain of Weald Clay, along which the Medway flows in the north, and which forms a fertile soil, well cultivated, and particularly rich in hops and wheat. The primitive forests have been largely cleared, the primitive marshes have all been drained, and now the Weald Clay district is fairly well peopled and sprinkled with villages. From the middle of this plain the core of Lower Cretaceous sandstones known as the Hastings Beds emerges steeply, and reaches in the centre an elevation of 796 ft. at Crowborough Beacon. It is on the whole a region with few streams, and a considerable portion of the ancient woodland still remains in Ashdown Forest. The greater part of the Forest Ridges is almost without inhabitants. Towns are found only round the edge bordering the Weald Clay, such as Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and Horsham; and along the line where it is cut off by the sea, e.g. Hastings and St Leonards. The broad low tongue of Romney Marsh running out to Dungeness is a product of shore-building by the Channel tides, attached to the Wealden area, but not essentially part of it.

_The London Basin._--The London Basin occupies a triangular depression in the Chalk which is filled up with clays and gravels of Tertiary and later age. It extends from the eastern extremity of Wiltshire in a widening triangle to the sea, which it meets along an irregular line from Deal to Cromer. It thus occupies parts of Wiltshire, Hampshire, Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, the whole of Middlesex, the county of London and Essex, and the eastern edge of Suffolk and Norfolk. The scenery is quiet in its character, but the gravel hills are often prominent features, as at Harrow and in the northern suburbs of London; the country is now mainly under grass or occupied with market and nursery gardens, and many parts, of which Epping Forest is a fine example, are still densely wooded, the oak being the prevailing tree. The coast is everywhere low and deeply indented by ragged and shallow estuaries, that of the Thames being the largest. Shallow lagoons formed along the lower courses of the rivers of Norfolk have given to that part of the country the name of the Broads, a district of low and nearly level land. Apart from the huge area of urban and suburban London, the London Basin has few large towns. Norwich and Ipswich, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Harwich and Colchester may be mentioned in the north-eastern part, all depending for their prosperity on agriculture or on the sea; and a fringe of summer resorts on the low coast has arisen on account of the bracing climate. Reading and Windsor lie in the western portion, beyond the suburban sphere of London. The Bagshot Beds in the west form infertile tracts of sandy soil, covered with heath and pine, where space is available for the great camps and military training-grounds round Aldershot, and for the extensive cemeteries at Woking. The London Clay in the east is more fertile and crowded with villages, while the East Anglian portion of the basin consists of the more recent Pliocene sands and gravels, which mix with the boulder clay to form the best wheat-growing soil in the country.

_The Hampshire Basin._--The Hampshire Basin forms a triangle with Dorchester, Salisbury and Worthing near the angles, and the rim of Chalk to the south appears in broken fragments in the Isle of Purbeck, the Isle of Wight, and to the east of Bognor. On the infertile Bagshot Beds the large area of the New Forest remains untilled under its ancient oaks. The London Clay of the east is more fertile, but the greatness of this district lies in its coast-line, which is deeply indented, like that of the London Basin. Southampton and Portsmouth have gained importance through their fine natural harbours, improved by engineering works and fortifications; Bournemouth and Bognor, from their favourable position in the sunniest belt of the country, as health resorts.

_Communications._--The configuration of England, while sufficiently pronounced to allow of the division of the country into natural regions, is not strongly enough marked to exercise any very great influence upon lines of communication. The navigable rivers are all connected by barge-canals, even across the Pennine Chain. Although the waterways are much neglected, compared with those of France or of Germany, they might still be very useful if they were enlarged and improved and if free competition with railways could be secured. The main roads laid out as arteries of intercommunication by the Romans, suffered to fall into neglect, and revived in the coaching days of the beginning of the 19th century, fell into a second period of comparative neglect when the railway system was completed; but they have recovered a very large share of their old importance in consequence of the development of motor-traffic. Following the Roman roads, the high roads of the Eastern Division very frequently run along the crests of ridges or escarpments; but in the Western Division they are, as a rule, forced by the more commanding relief of the country to keep to the river valleys and cross the rougher districts through the dales and passes. The railways themselves, radiating from the great centres of population, and especially from London, are only in a few instances much affected by configuration. The Pennine Chain has always separated the traffic from south to north into an east coast route through the Vale of York, and a west coast route by the Lancashire plain. The Midland railway, running through the high and rugged country between the two, was the last to be constructed. The most notable bridges over navigable water affording continuous routes are those across Menai Strait, the Tyne at Newcastle, the Severn at Severn Bridge and the Manchester Ship Canal. It is more usual to tunnel under such channels, and the numerous Thames tunnels, the Mersey tunnel between Liverpool and Birkenhead, and the Severn tunnel, the longest in the British Islands (4½ m.), on the routes from London to South Wales, and from Bristol to the north of England, are all important. The Humber estuary is neither bridged nor tunnelled below Goole.

_Density of Population._--The present distribution of population over England and Wales shows a dense concentration at all large seaports, in the neighbourhood of London, and on the coal-fields where manufactures are carried on. Agricultural areas are very thinly peopled; purely pastoral districts can hardly be said to have any settled population at all. There are very few dwellings situated at a higher level than 1000 ft., and on the lower ground the Chalk and the Oolitic limestones, where they crop out on the surface, are extremely thinly peopled, and so as a rule are areas of alluvial deposits and the Tertiary sands. But, on the other hand, the broad clay plains of all formations, the Cretaceous sandstones, and the Triassic plain, are peopled more densely than any other district without mineral wealth or sea trade.

_Political Divisions._--In the partition of England and Wales into counties, physical features play but a small part. The forty ancient counties, remnants of various historical groupings and partings, are occasionally bounded by rivers. Thus the Thames divides counties along nearly its whole length, forming the southern boundary of four and the northern boundary of three. Essex and Suffolk, Suffolk and Norfolk, Cornwall and Devon, Durham and Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cheshire, are all separated by rivers, while rivers form some part of the boundaries of almost every county. Still, it is noteworthy that the Severn and Trent nowhere form continuous county boundaries. Watersheds are rarely used as boundaries for any distance; but, although slightly overlapping the watershed on all sides, Yorkshire is very nearly coincident with the basin of the Ouse. The boundaries of the parishes, the fundamental units of English political geography, are very often either rivers or watersheds, and they frequently show a close relation to the strike of the geological strata. The hundreds, or groups of parishes, necessarily share their boundaries, and groups of hundreds are often aggregated to form larger subdivisions of counties. A wider grouping according to natural characteristics may now be recognized only in the cases of Wales, East Anglia, Wessex and such less definite groups as the Home Counties around London or the Midlands around Birmingham. Configuration is only one out of many conditions modifying distributions, and its effects on England as a whole appear to be suggestive rather than determinative. (H. R. M.)

III. GEOLOGY

For an area so small, England is peculiarly rich in geological interest. This is due in some degree to the energy of the early British geologists, whose work profoundly influenced all subsequent thought in the science, as may be seen by the general acceptation of so many of the English stratigraphical terms; but the natural conditions were such as to call forth and to stimulate this energy in an unusual way. Almost every one of the principal geological formations may be studied in England with comparative ease.

If we lay aside for the moment all the minor irregularities, we find, upon examination of a geological map of England, two structural features of outstanding importance. (1) The first is the great anticline of the Pennine Hills which dominates the northern half of England from the Scottish border to Derby. Its central core of Lower Carboniferous rock is broadly displayed towards the north, while southward it contracts; on either side lie the younger rocks, the coal-fields, the Permian strata and the Triassic formations, the last-named, while sweeping round the southern extremity of the Carboniferous axis of the uplift from its eastern and western flanks, spread out in a large sheet over the midland counties. (2) The second striking feature is the regular succession of Jurassic and Cretaceous rocks which crop out in almost unbroken lines from the coast of Dorsetshire, whither they appear to converge, to the Cleveland Hills and the Yorkshire coast. Lying upon the Cretaceous rocks in the S.E. of England are the two Tertiary basins of London and Hampshire, separated by the dissected anticline of the Weald.

[Illustration: Map of ENGLAND.

Legend:

_Recent & Pleistocene_ _Old Red Sandstone & Devonian_ _Tertiary_ _Silurian_ _Cretaceous_ _Ordovician_ _Jurassic_ _Cambrian_ _Trias_ _Metamorphic Group_ _Permian_ _Volcanic Rocks_ _Coal Measures, Carboniferous_ _Basic Intrusive Rocks_ _Millstone Grit Series & Culm_ _Granite & Acid Intrusive Rocks_ _Lower Carboniferous_]

The older rocks in England occupy relatively small areas. Pre-Cambrian rocks are represented by the gneisses of Primrose Hill and schists of Rushton in Shropshire; by the gneisses forming the core of the Malvern Hills, and by the ancient volcanic and other rocks of the Wrekin, Charnwood Forest and Nuneaton. The slates of the Long Mynd, on the Shropshire border, belong to this system. Cambrian strata appear in Shropshire in the form of sandstones and quartzites; in the Malvern Hills they are black shales, while in the Lake District they are represented by the Skiddaw slates. Next in point of age comes the Ordovician system, which is well developed upon the Shropshire border and in the Lake District. In the same two areas we find the Silurian rocks, shales and limestones with grits and flags. In N. and S. Devon are the Devonian limestones, grits and shales; the corresponding Old Red Sandstone type of the system (marls and sandstones) being exposed over a large part of Herefordshire, stretching also into Shropshire and Monmouth. Next in order of succession comes the Carboniferous system, with shales and limestones in the lower members, grits, sandstones and shales--the Millstone Grit series--in the middle of the system, followed by the Coal Measures--a great series of shales with coal, sandstones and ironstone at the top. This important system occupies a large area in England. The limestones and shales are well exposed in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, the Mendip Hills and at Clifton. The Millstone Grit series is prominent in Lancashire, Derbyshire, N. Staffordshire, Yorkshire and in the Forest of Dean. The Coal Measures rest upon the Millstone Grits in most places, generally in synclinal basins. On the eastern side of the Pennine range are the conterminous coal-fields of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and the coal-field of Durham and Northumberland; on the western side are the Whitehaven, Burnley, S. Lancashire and N. Staffordshire coal-fields. Farther south are the S. Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Coalbrook Dale, Forest of Wyre, Forest of Dean and Bristol and Somerset coal-fields; while much concealed coal lies under younger formations in the south-east of England, as has been proved at Dover. A large part of N. Devon is occupied by the Culm shales, limestones and grits of Carboniferous age. The principal development of Permian rocks is the narrow strip which extends from Nottingham to Tynemouth; here the Magnesian limestone is the characteristic feature. On the other side of the Pennine Hills we find the Penrith sandstone of the Vale of Eden and the Brockram beds of the Lake District. Red sandstones and conglomerates of this age constitute some of the red rocks which form the picturesque scenery about Dawlish and Teignmouth.

The Triassic rocks, red sandstones, marls and conglomerates cover a broad area in the Midlands in Worcestershire, Warwickshire and Leicestershire, whence they may be followed south-westward through Somerset to the coast at Sidmouth, and northward, round either flank of the Pennine Hills, through Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire to Middlesbrough on the one hand, and upon the other through Staffordshire, Cheshire and Lancashire to Carlisle.

The outcrop of the Lias, mainly clay with thin limestones and ironstones, runs in an almost continuous band across the country from Lyme Regis, through Bath, Cheltenham, near Leicester, and Lincoln to Redcar in Yorkshire. Closely following the same line are the alternating clays and limestones of the Oolitic series. Next in order come the Greensands and Gault, which lie at the base of the Chalk escarpment, between that formation and the Oolites. The Chalk occupies all the remaining portion of the south-east of England, save the Wealden area, and extends northward as far as Flamborough in Yorkshire, forming the Yorkshire Wolds, the Lincolnshire Wolds, the Chiltern Hills, the N. and S. Downs, the Dorsetshire heights and Salisbury Plain. But in the eastern and southern counties the Chalk is covered by younger deposits of Tertiary age; the Pliocene Crags of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Lower London Tertiaries (London Clay, Woolwich and Reading Beds, &c.) of the London Basin comprising parts of Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex, Bucks and Berks, and northern Kent. Again, in the Hampshire Basin and Isle of Wight, Eocene and Oligocene formations rest upon the Chalk.

When we attempt to decipher the physical history of the country from the complicated record afforded by the stratigraphical palimpsest, we are checked at the outset by the dearth of information from being able to picture the geographical condition in the older Palaeozoic periods. All we can say is, that in those remote times what is now England had no existence; its site was occupied by seas which were tenanted by marine invertebrates, long since extinct. As for the boundaries of these ancient seas, we can say nothing with certainty, but it is of interest to note the evidence we possess of still older land conditions, such as we have in the old rocks of Shropshire, &c. In the Devonian period it is clear that an elevatory movement had set in towards the north, which gave rise to the formation of inland lakes and narrow estuaries in which the Old Red Sandstone rocks were formed, while in the south of England lay the sea with a vigorous coral fauna. This condition led up to the Carboniferous period, which began with fairly open sea over the south and north of England, but in the centre there rose an elevated land mass from which much of the Millstone Grit was derived; other land lay towards the north. Slowly this sea shallowed, giving rise to the alternating estuarine marine and freshwater deposits of the Coal Measures. Continual elevation of the land brought about the close of the coal-forming period and great changes ensued. Desert conditions, with confined inland seas, marked the Permian and Triassic periods. It was about this time that the Pennine Hills, the Lake District mountain mass, and the Mendip Hills were being most vigorously uplifted, while the granite masses of Cornwall and Devon were perhaps being injected into the Carboniferous and Devonian rocks. From this period, more or less of the Pennine ridge has always remained above the sea, along with much of Cornwall and parts of Devonshire.

In early Jurassic times the sea probably again occupied most of England with the exception of the above-mentioned areas, the Lake District and eastern part of the London Basin; Wales, too, and much of Scotland were land. Elevation gradually caused more land to appear in later Jurassic and early Cretaceous times when a river system, now entirely obliterated, drained into the Purbeck estuary and Wealden lake; but a subsequent depression led to the wide extension of the Chalk sea. By the beginning of the Eocene period we find the sea limited to the S.E. of England, where the London Clay, &c., were being laid down. It was not until quite late in Tertiary time that these islands began to assume anything like their present form. In the earlier part of the Pleistocene period, England and Ireland were still incompletely severed, and the combined activity of certain extinct rivers and the sea had not yet cut through the land connexion with the continent. The last well-marked lowering of the land took place in the Pleistocene period, when it was accompanied by glacial conditions, through which the greater part of northern England and the Midlands was covered by ice; a state of things which led directly and indirectly to the deposition of those extensive boulder clays, sands and gravels which obscure so much of the older surface of the country in all but the southern counties.

Throughout the whole period of its geological history, volcanic

## activity has found expression with varying degrees of intensity along

what is now the western side of the island, with the exception that in the Mesozoic era this activity was in abeyance. We may note the pre-Cambrian lavas and tuffs of the Wrekin district in Shropshire and the somewhat later volcanic rocks of Charnwood; the porphyrites, andesites, tuffs and rhyolites of the Borrowdale volcanic centre, erupted in the Ordovician period, and the Silurian granites of the same region. The volcanic outbursts which followed became feebler in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods and ceased with the Permian. When again the volcanic forces became active, it was in the early Tertiary era; the evidences for this lie outside the English border.

The principal directions of crust movement in England are: (1) north and south, by which the Pennine folds and faults, and the Malvern Hills have been produced; (2) east and west, by which the folds of the Weald and the Mendip Hills, and those of Devonshire have been formed. Another less important direction is N.W. and S.E., as in the Charnwood folding.

Further details of the geology are given under the heads of the counties. (J. A. H.)

IV. CLIMATE

Climate.