ed Wrekin (1335
ft.), Long Mynd (1674 ft.) and the Clee Hills (Brown Clee, 1805 ft.).
The 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.).

[Illustration: Map of England and Wales]

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 Somerset