nding 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