76 



THE BRITISH ISLES. 



of the sea upon tbe rocks of Ilfracombe, whilst in the south the land gradually slopes 

 down towards the wide semicircular bay bounded by Start Point and the Bill of 

 Portland. Human habitations are few and fur between on this plateau, being 

 continod to luunlets and lonely farms hidden away in the hollows. The slopes 

 of the hills are covered with heather or short herbage, whilst their summits 

 are occupied by sepulchral mounds or ancient entrenchments. The Quantock 

 Hills, to the east of Exmoor, are the only part of England where the stag still 

 lives in a wild state. 



A second mountain mass, the Dartmoor, rises to the west of the river Exe into 

 the region of pasture, culminating in the Yeo Tor (2,077 feet), and High Wilbays 



Fig. 41. — Land's End and the Longshu-s Lighthouse. 



(2,040 feet). The nucleus of this mountain group consists of granite, and the 

 rivers which rise in it diverge in all directions, feeding the Teign and Exe in 

 the east ; the Taw and Torridge in the north ; the Tamar, or Tamer, in the west ; 

 the Tavy, Avon, and Dart in the south. The coast-line projects far to the south, 

 where the spurs of Dartmoor approach it, as if the floods of the ocean had been 

 powerless in their attacks upon the rocks which envelop this nucleus of granite. 

 Start Point, the extreme promontory, is thus named because vessels take their 

 departure from it when about to venture upon the open ocean. Two estuaries 

 bound the uplands which culminate in Dartmoor, viz. that of the Ex in the east, 

 and that of the Tamar, which debouches upon many-armed Plymouth Sound, in 



