shire, 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