224 HOUSE, GARDEN, AND FIELD 



which extended from Dorsetshire to the Humber, broad 

 cornlands, moorlands containing beneath their unpromising 

 surface vast supplies of fuel and metal, and marshlands, 

 which might be made as rich as Holland were they tilled 

 with the same care. Britain, it has often been remarked, 

 is an epitome of the geology of Europe, for it has a bit of 

 everything, and abounds especially in all that makes man 

 rich. Britain was first enriched by wool, then by corn 

 and cloth, then by coal and iron. Besides all these gifts 

 of nature, the sea makes a road for us to the remotest 

 corners of the world. We occupy the centre of the land- 

 hemisphere, and are yet so placed that we are invited 

 to send forth our fleets upon the broad Atlantic. The 

 seas are at once our defence and our highway. Beyond 

 the ocean have arisen great nations which speak our 

 language and inherit our institutions. No change of 

 policy or fashion, no discoveries of science that we can 

 foresee will neutralise the advantage of a position like this. 

 It is probable, almost certain, that when man first 

 entered Britain it was still joined to the continent. There 

 was then no Strait of Dover, and the Kentish downs 

 made one range with the downs of Picardy. When and 

 how was Britain cut off from the mainland ? As to the 

 when we know some little ; it was later than the establish- 

 ment of our present fauna and flora, which hardly differ 

 except in their deficiencies from the fauna and flora of 

 Europe. As to the how we need invoke no sudden opera- 

 tion of unknown forces. The sea, fretting the chalk 

 cliffs both on the side of the North Sea and also on the 

 side of the Channel, would make just such a shallow trench 

 as now separates Dover from Calais. That shallow trench 

 has controlled the whole political history of Britain. It 

 made the permanent government of Britain by foreign 

 nations impossible, and invasion so difficult that it has 

 not been seriously attempted since the days of King John. 

 While neighbouring nations were forced to sacrifice freedom 

 and all else for the sake of military efficiency, we were 



