78 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



is the basis of excellent grazing country, it reasserts its 

 bolder and more mountainous outline in the county of 

 Oxford, gradually rising into the district known as the 

 Cotswold Hills. It forms the Cotswold Hills in Oxfordshire, 

 in Gloucestershire, and to a small extent in Wiltshire and 

 Somerset. In the hills of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire 

 \ve have a repetition of the bold mountainous character seen 

 in the North Biding of Yorkshire. The Cotswolds are in some 

 cases uncultivated, being too precipitous for arable cultivation, 

 but in more numerous cases yielding good sheep land, either 

 in original down, or under the plough. The same character 

 of soil as is found in Oxfordshire is also to be found in 

 Somersetshire, where the soils of this formation predominate. 

 Following up our survey of soils, I have in the next place 

 to ask attention to another extensive tract of land lying 

 on the lias clays. In geological order they come below 

 the inferior oolite, and they are divided into the upper, 

 middle, and lower lias. The lias clay is applied closely upon 

 the north and west margin or boundary of the lower oolite, 

 forming a succession of valleys. The lower oolite forms 

 hills and bold escarpments with deep indentations, the effect 

 being highly picturesque. The first illustration of this is to be 

 found in the Cleveland Hills, where we look from the spurs of 

 these hills in a northerly and westerly direction over the fertile 

 valley of the lias known as the Yale of Cleveland. The same 

 rich character of land is found traversing South Yorkshire 

 until it passes into Lincolnshire, and then it bends through 

 the Midlands, giving land of high average fertility, vale-like 

 in character, and frequently in permanent pasture. Such is 

 the character of the ground round Melton Mowbray and 

 Market Harborough, forming the well-known hunting country 

 of Leicestershire, which owes its high character for hunting 

 chiefly to the fact that it lies so much under permanent 

 pasturage, affording every opportunity for sport. The strength 



