G8 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



prosperous and intelligent tenantry. Such is a general de- 

 scription of the wolds of both Yorkshire and of Lincolnshire 

 a soil, light, free, thin, but grateful and safe cropping. 

 Where it mingles with the soils of the upper greensand the 

 fertility of these soils is much enhanced. Having disappeared 

 under the accumulated drift it reappears in the county of 

 Norfolk, and the chalk then becomes a continuous formation, 

 which may be described as follows. 



It extends in a south-westerly direction through Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Buckingham- 

 shire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Wiltshire. In Wiltshire it 

 reaches what is called the central plateau of the chalk that 

 is, Salisbury Plain, and from Salisbury Plain, which we may 

 take as a centre, it sends out the arm which we have just 

 traversed terminating in Norfolk. It sends down another 

 arm through Wiltshire and Dorset, past Shaftesbury and 

 Blandford to the Dorset coast. It sends out a third arm 

 from the north-east into Hampshire, extending to and 

 forming the Kentish North Downs, passing through Surrey 

 and North Kent to Canterbury ; and it sends forth another 

 arm to Beachy Head and Brighton, giving what are called 

 the South Downs. Such is the distribution of the chalk, 

 looking at it from the central plain of Salisbury. It sends 

 out one great arm into the county of Norfolk, which we 

 have already traced. But while it sends an arm in a 

 north-easterly direction, it sends another arm in a south- 

 westerly direction, through the county of Dorset, giving 

 the Dorset Downs, and ending at Weymouth ; it sends out 

 a third .arm from the north-east through Surrey and Kent, 

 right away to the city of Canterbury ; and it sends out 

 a fourth arm in a south-easterly directioji to Beachy Head, 

 the termination of the South Downs, It lies on the geo- 

 logical map like a great octopus or star-fish, stretching its 

 arms in four directions. Such is briefly the distribution of 



