way the whole of the south-east of the
island appears to have been covered uniformly with gently dipping beds
of Tertiary sands and clays, beneath which the Cretaceous strata dipped.
At some period subsequent to this deposition there was a movement of
elevation, which appears to have thrown the whole mass of rocks into a
fold along an anticlinal axis running west and east, which was flanked
to north and south by synclinal hollows. In these hollows the Tertiary
rocks were protected from erosion, and remain to form the London and the
Hampshire Basins respectively, while on the anticlinal axis the whole of
the Tertiary and the upper Cretaceous strata have been dissected away,
and a complex and beautiful configuration has been impressed on the
district of the Weald. The general character of the landscape in the
Eastern Division is a succession of steep escarpments formed by the
edges of the outcropping beds of harder rock, and long gentle slopes or
plains on the dip-slopes, or on the softer layers; clay and hard rock
alternating throughout the series.

The contrast between the lower grounds of the Western and the Eastern
Divisions is masked in many places by the general covering of the
surface with glacial drift, which is usually a stiff clay composed on
the whole of the detritus of the rocks upon which it rests, though
containing fragments of rocks which have been transported from a
considerable distance. This boulder clay covers almost all the low
ground north of the Thames Basin, its southern margin fading away into
washed sands and gravels.

The history of the origin of the land-forms of England, as far as they
have been deduced from geological studies, is exceedingly complicated.
The fact that every known geological formation (except the Miocene) is
represented, proves of itself how long the history has been, and how
multifarious the changes. It must suffice to say that the separation of
Ireland from England was a comparatively recent episode, while the
severance of the land-connexion between England and the continent by the
formation of the Strait of Dover is still more recent and probably
occurred with the human period.

The western division.

_Natural Divisions._--The four prominent groups of high land rising
from the plain of the Red Rocks are: (1) the _Lake District_, bounded
by the Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay and the valleys of the Eden and the
Lune; (2) the _Pennine Region_, which stretches fr