sey collects feeders from the high downs between
Marlborough and Devizes. Breaching the high ground of Salisbury Plain, it
passes Amesbury, and following a very sinuous course reaches Salisbury.
Here it receives on the east bank the waters of the Bourne, and on the west
those of the Wylye. With a more direct course, and in a widening, fertile
valley it continues past Downton, Fordingbridge and Ringwood, skirting the
New Forest on the west, to Christchurch, where it receives the Stour from
the west, and 2-1/2 m. lower enters the English Channel through the broad
but narrow-mouthed Christchurch harbour. The length, excluding lesser
sinuosities, is about 60 m., Salisbury being 35 m. above the mouth. The
total fall is rather over 500 ft., and that from Salisbury about 140 ft.
The river is of no commercial value for navigation. It abounds in loach,
and there are valuable salmon fisheries. The drainage area is 1132 sq. m.

2. The LOWER or BRISTOL AVON rises on the eastern slope of the Cotteswold
Hills in Gloucestershire, collecting the waters of several streams south of
Tetbury and east of Malmesbury. It flows east and south in a wide curve,
through a broad upper valley past Chippenham and Melksham, after which it
turns abruptly west to Bradford-on-Avon, receives the waters of the Frome
from the south, and enters the beautiful narrow valley in which lie Bath
and Bristol. Below Bristol the valley becomes the Clifton Gorge, famous for
its wooded cliffs and for the Clifton (_q.v._) suspension bridge which
bestrides it. The cliffs and woods have been so far disfigured by quarries
that public feeling was aroused, and in 1904 an "Avon Gorge Committee" was
appointed to report to the corporation of Bristol on the possibility of
preserving the beauties of the locality. The Avon finally enters the
estuary of the Severn at Avonmouth, though it can hardly be reckoned as a
tributary of that river. From Bristol downward the river is one of the most
important commercial waterways in England, as giving access to that great
port. The Kennet and Avon Canal, between Reading and the Avon, follows the
river closely from Bradford down to Bath, where it enters it by a descent
of seven locks. The length of the river, excluding minor sinuosities, is
about 75 m., the distance from Bradford to Bath being 10 m., thence to
Bristol 12 m., and thence to the mouth 8 m. The total fall is between 500
and 600 ft., but it is only 235 ft. from Malmesbury. The drain