ENGLAND 



2038 



ENGLAND 



Tweedmouth in the northeast to Saint Albans 

 Head on the south, is about 360 miles. In 

 shape the country is roughly triangular, narrow- 

 ing toward the north, where it is cut off 

 from Scotland by the Solway Firth, the Cheviot 

 Hills and the River Tweed. It is not strange 

 that England should have developed as a 

 sea-power, the real "ruler of the waves," when 

 it is considered that no spot in the island is 

 more than seventy miles from the sea, when 

 the numerous deep indentations and navigable 

 rivers are taken into consideration. England 

 alone, without Scotland or Wales, has a coast 

 line which with all its irregularities measures 

 almost 2,000 miles, and portions of this shore 

 line are famous. Specially notable are the 

 white chalk cliffs at Dover, visible from France, 

 which at this narrowest point of the English 

 Channel is but twenty-one miles distant. Poets 

 have always loved to sing of these steep shores, 

 and Matthew Arnold in one of his best-known 

 poems has written how 



The cliffs of England stand, 



Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. 



To the west of England are the Irish Sea 

 and Saint George's Channel, beyond which lies 

 Ireland, the other island included in the United 

 Kingdom. 



Highlands and Lowlands. Wales is notably 

 mountainous; so is Scotland, but England for 

 the most part is low-lying. The Englishman 

 who has never traveled beyond the borders of 

 his own country can know nothing of towering 

 mountains, snow-clad peaks, or valleys so deep 

 that the sun seldom reaches them. Beautiful 

 rolling downs he may know, picturesque hills, 

 and valleys that slope steeply enough to turn 

 their streams into rushing torrents, but that 

 is all. The highest land in the country is in 

 the north. Here is the so-called Pennine Chain, 

 with its highest point, Cross Fell, 2,930 feet 

 above sea level; and here, to the west of the 

 Pennine Chain, the celebrated Lake District, 

 famous for the exquisite beauty of the clear 

 lakes which lie in its valleys. The greatest 

 altitude in England is reached in Scafell Pike, 

 3,210 feet, in the Lake Region. 



In the southwest there is another range of 

 hills, lower than the northern ones, which runs 

 out into the peninsula of Cornwall and Devon- 

 shire, and breaks off abruptly in steep cliffs at 

 Land's End. To the east of this hilly region 

 the southern portion of England is a coastal 

 plain, not so flat as to be monotonous, but 

 broken only by gentle undulations, and in few 

 places reaching an altitude of 500 feet above 



sea level. It is this southeastern plain region 

 which has made it possible for England to 

 become a great agricultural country. 



The history of England might have been 

 very different had it been a land of mountain 

 barriers. The conquerors, whether Roman, 

 Anglo-Saxon or Norman, would have found the 

 conquest of the island much more difficult; 

 that this is true is proved by the fact that 



THE CLIFFS OF DOVER 



these successive invaders did not continue 

 their inroads into the mountainous regions of 

 Wales and Scotland, where those of the in- 

 habitants who refused to submit had entrenched 

 themselves. The absence of high mountains, 

 too, which would have proved a bar to com- 

 munication, made it possible for England to 

 develop as one country, not as a series of small, 

 disconnected states, as did Greece. 



English Rivers. The rivers of England, in 

 connection with its tides, have had a very real 

 part in its history. They are not long, like 

 the rivers of great continents, but a number of 

 them are navigable through a large part of their 

 course and are thus of great commercial im- 

 portance. All around the coast the tides are 

 high, that at Bristol reaching the height of 

 thirty feet, and because of this it has been 

 possible for certain cities which are situated 

 some distance from the seaboard to become 

 great seaports. The most famous of such cities 

 is London, on the short Thames, which ranks 

 well to the top among the commerce-carrying 

 rivers of the world. Other eastern rivers of 

 importance are the Ouse, the Humber, the 

 Tyne, the Wear and the Tees; on the west 

 there are the Severn, the longest river of Great 

 Britain, and the Mersey, which carries down to 

 the sea great freights from Liverpool and other 

 manufacturing districts. 



Climate. Considering its location, England 

 has a remarkably temperate climate; for while 



