SOLRB-L&CHATEAU. 



SOMERSETSHIRE. 



900 



H. by Baal*. K. by Aargmu, & by Bern, and W. partly by Bern and 

 partly by France. lu area U about 254 *quare milts, and the popu- 

 Utjoo *l the OMMM of ISM amounted to 69,974. of whom 61,556 were 

 CkUoli,21 Jw, and 8097 ProttanU of different aeoti. The oantou 

 U orueMd in the direction from aouth-weat to north-ut by the Jura, 

 which form. MT*ral parallel ridge*, and covert the greater part of the 

 cantoo. The principal valley U that of the Aar, which run* in the 

 eame direction, flowing eastward of the Jura, The highest Kitnmit* 

 of the Jura in the canton of Soleura are the Weimmtein and the 

 Uaeeonutt ; the latter U about 4400 feet above the Ma. The canton 

 of Soleure U one of the mo*t productive in Switzerland, especially in 

 eom, fruit, and vegetable*. The rino thrive* only in certain localities. 

 The mulberry-tree U cultivated, and *ome silk is made. Horned cattle, 

 abeep, goat*, and nig* are numerous; the number of hones U about 

 5000. The bore, fair of Soleure is one of the principal in Switzerland. 

 A contiderable quantity of oheeae U made, both of cows'-milk and 

 goate'-milk, and part of it i* exported. Part of the mountains are 

 covered with timber-tree*, especially fir and beech. The canton 

 abounds in iron-mine*, and the ore i smelted in the furnaces of bt.- 

 Joaeph, and worked at the iron-works of Klus. The other manufac- 

 ture* contist of leather, paper, woollens, and kirschwasser. There 

 are also quarries of marble and gypsum. 



A dialect of the Swiss-German U the language of the country. 

 Xoet families are poweescd of landed property. Every cominuue has 

 an elementary school, and a normal school is established at Soleure. 

 Moat of the communes have a fund for the relief of their own poor. 



The constitution of Soleure was for a long time aristocratical, but 

 in 1831 a constitution was framed on a more popular system. The 

 canton is divided into 10 electoral circles, each having its electoral 

 collage, which name* a certain proportion of member* to the Qreat 

 Council, or legislature. The town of Soleure returns 34 out of the 

 109 members who compose the Qreat Council. A Little Council, 

 chosen from among the members of the Great Council, constitutes the 

 executive. The members of the Great Council are renewed every six 

 year*. Soleure returns three members to the National Council, or 

 central representative chamber of Switzerland. 



Soleurt, or Solothurn, the chief town of the canton, and a bishop's 

 see, is built on the Aar, 1320 feet above the sea, and is surrounded by 

 walla. The population is 5370. The cathedral is reckoned the finest 

 church in Switzerland; the tower is 190 feet high. The other remark- 

 able buildings of Soleure are the town-house, which is very old ; the 

 anenal, the theatre, the hospital, the fountain in the market-place, 

 the former church of the Jesuits, and several convents. Soleure has a 

 gymnasium with six professors and a good library, a lyceum with 

 three professors, and a faculty of theology divided into three classes. 

 The town library has about 20,000 volumes and some valuable manu- 

 scripts. Soleure is 19 miles N. from Bern, and 26 miles S. from Basle. 



Ol'en, on the left bank of the Aar, about 20 miles N.E. from Soleure, 

 i* a small place, with above 1500 inhabitants. 



SOLRE-LE-CHATEAU. [NoKD.] 



SOLSONA. [CATALU.VA.] 



SOLVA, or SOLl'ACH. [PEMBROKESHIRE.] 



80LWAY FUITH, an inlt of the Irish Sea, separating in one part 

 England from Scotland, and extending inland from a line drawn 

 between Hayberry Head in Kirkcudbrightshire to St. Bees' Head in 

 Cumberland, 41 miles N.R to the mouth of the Esk. The distance 

 between the two above-mentioned headlands is more than 20 miles. 

 About 17 mil up, between Southerness Point, Kirkcudbrightshire, 

 and the Cumberland shore near Allonby, the width is 7 miles ; it 

 afterward* expands, then again contracts, and 15 miles farther up, 

 between the mouth of the Annan, Dumfriesshire, and Bowue-s, Cum- 

 berland, is only 2 miles, which is its width for the remaining 9 miles. 



On the Scottish shore the Solway Frith receives the rivers Urr, 

 Nith, and Annan. [DUMFRIESSHIRE.] On the English shore it receives 

 the E*k, with its tributaries the Liddleand the Line; the Eden, with 

 iiumrroii* tributaries ; the Wampool, the Waver, the Ellen, and the 

 Derweiit [CUMBERLAND.] A considerable part of the frith is occu- 

 pied by broad aandi dry at low water, and intersected by the channels 

 formed by the streams which flow into the frith. It is navigable 

 through the greaUr part of ita extent for vessels of 300 tons, and for 

 Teasels of 100 ton* up to the head. It affords a supply of different 

 kind* of fuh, especially salmon. The tide sets into it with great force, 

 the flood sometimes advancing with a head four feet high. The water 

 ha* a whitish colour, from the great extent of sand over which it 

 flows. 



8OMBOURN, KING'S. [HAMPSHIRE.] 



SOMERCOTES, NORTR [LmcoLHaHiRE.] 



SOMERSETSHIRE, a county in the west of England, is bounded 

 N. by the Britol Channel, the actuary of the Severn, and Gloucester- 

 shire ; E. by Wiltshire ; S. by Dorsetshire and Devonshire ; and W. 

 bj Devonnhire. It lies between 50 49' and 51* 30' N. lat., 2" 14' and 

 50" W. long. The longest line that can be drawn upon its surface 

 from eatt to west measure* 68 miles, from north to south 43 miles. 

 A portion of the county however, extending 38 mile* westward from 

 Bridgewater, ha* mean breadth from north to south of only 13 miles. 

 The area is 1638 rquare mile*, or 1,028,090 acres. The population in 

 1841 won 43.>,M9; in 1851 it was 443,916. 



Sitrfate, Voatl-Line, and Otology. Somersetshire is a hilly county, 



and the ranges of hills are separated by low marshy flats. The north- 

 eastern part is occupied by the eminences round Bristol and Bath, 

 through which the Avon makes its way to the Severn. These emi- 

 nence* are irregularly grouped, and extend from Pill on the Avon, 

 below Bristol, into Wiltshire : many of the valleys, called combes or 

 coombs, which separate the hills, are drained by small feeders of the 

 Avon. The principal heights in this part of the county are Falkland 

 Knoll, near Norton St. Philip, between Bath and Frome ; Lansdown 

 (813 feet high), and Claverton, Combe, and Odd Downs, near Bath ; 

 Dundry Hill, west of Keynsham (790 feet high) ; the summits of 

 Broadfield Down, south of Bristol ; and Leigh Down, west of that city. 

 The summits of the hills in the immediate neighbourhood of B;ith are 

 of the oolitic formations. The great oolite furnishes the stone com- 

 monly known as Bath stone. Sometimes the lower oolitic beds form 

 outlying eminences, such as Stantonbury Hill, Dundry Hill, and Mays 

 Knoll. The inferior oolite is extensively quarried in Dundry Hill. 

 The oolite* rest on a platform of the lias formations, which appear oil 

 the lowest part of the slope of the oolite hills, or form detached hills 

 to the south-west of them. 



The valleys of the Avon and its feeders are occupied by the new 

 red-sandstone formations, capped in some places by the newer mag- 

 nesian limestone, which crowns the hills or rests in horizontal strata 

 against the elevated beds of the coal-measures or of the mountain 

 limestone, which latter, with the old red-sandstone, forms the con- 

 stituent mass of Leigh and Broadfield Down, near Bristol. The 

 mountain limestone of Leigh Down is prolonged across the Avon, and 

 forms the well-known precipices of St. Vincent's rocks, Clifton, between 

 which the Avon flows. Broadfield Down lias two precipitous combes 

 or valleys, Cleve and Brockley, less magnificent than the defile of 

 Cheddar, but possessing, from the abundance of wood, more beauty. 

 The coal-measures, mountain limestone, and old red-sandstone, belong 

 to the carboniferous group of the Somersetshire and South Gloucester- 

 shire coal-field, and occupy the northern part of the county, extending 

 to the Mendip Hills, though covered iu most places by more recent 

 formations. In this field are numerous coal-pits. 



The eastern side of the county, extending from Bath to Yeovil, and 

 the southern side, from Yeovil to Wellington, are occupied by hills of 

 similar geological character to those around Bath, and uniting with, 

 them near that city. This range is divided into detached parts by the 

 transverse valleys of the Brue, the Yeo or Ivel, the Parret, and the 

 Isle. The vale of Taunton is occupied by the new red-sandstone. 

 Good freestone is quarried in the inferior oolite near Shepton Mallet, 

 and at Norton-under-Hamden ; and the lias is much used for building 

 cottages in the neighbourhood of Ilchester. 



The Mendip Hills are a distinct range, stretching from west by north 

 to east by south, and separated from the hills about Bath and Bristol 

 by the narrow valley of the Yeo, a small stream which flows into the 

 Bristol Channel near St. Thomas's Head. They extend at their 

 western end to the coast, and unite at their eastern extremity with 

 the hills near Frome. The length of the Mendips is about twenty-five 

 miles ; their breadth, between Stoke Rodney and West Harptree, six 

 or seven miles. " This chain consists of a central axis of old red- 

 sandstone, flanked on its opposite declivities by parallel bands of 

 mountain limestone, dipping from it in opposite directions in angles 

 varying from 30 to 70. This central axis is not however visible 

 throughout its whole course, being occasionally over-arched and con- 

 cealed by the calcareous strata ; but it appears in four ridges, forming 

 the most elevated points of the chain, and disposed at nearly equal 

 distances through its length. The cavern of Wookey Hole, and the 

 defile of Cheddar cliffs, with its long line of stupendous mural preci- 

 pices, certainly among the most magnificent objects of this kind iu 

 Britain, are the well-known features of this chain." (Conybeare and 

 Phillips). The mineral treasures of the Mendips are important ; zinc 

 and calamine are obtained abundantly in the central and western part 

 of the range. There are numerous coal-pits iu the villages which lie 

 north-west of Frome. The Mcndips rise in some parts to more than 

 1000 feet. The long low ridge of Polden Hill is an offset from the 

 eastern hills, extending about twenty miles in a direction parallel to 

 the Mendips, from which it is separated by a wide fenny flat. Gypsum 

 occurs abundantly in the red marl on the south side of Polden Hill, 

 near Somcrton. 



In the western part of the county are the Quautock Hills, which in 

 their culminating point, Bagborough Station, or Will's Neck, reach 

 the height of 1270 feet They consist of an elevated mass of a coarse 

 gritstone, and belong to the slate formation which overspreads the 

 north of Devonshire, separated however from the principal slate dis- 

 trict by an intervening tract of new red-sandstone, which formation 

 nearly surrounds the foot of the range. At the northern foot of the 

 hills lias occurs, covering both the red-sandstone and the elates. 

 Limestone, gypsum, and copper are found in these hills. The greater 

 past of the county west of the Quantock Hills is occupied by au 

 irregular hilly district, forming part of the wild moorlands of Exmoor 

 Forest, and extending into the counties of Devon and Somerset. This 

 hilly district is bounded south by the valley of the Tone, and north 

 by the Bristol Channel. It is occupied by the slate-rocks of the 

 Devonian range ; but in some of the valleys near the coast these are 

 covered by the new red-sandstone. The highest point in this district 

 H Duukerry Beacon, which is situated a little to the east of the Black 





