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