CHAPTER IV. 



THE BASIN OF THE SEVERN AND THE BRISTOL CHANNEL. 

 (Shropshiue, Wokcesteushire, WAinviCKîiHiKE, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Somersetshire.) 



General Fe.\tures. 



^ HE upper watershed of the Severn lies within Wales, but no sooner 

 has that river become navigable than it crosses the boundary into 

 England, and, sweeping round to the south and south-west, it irri- 

 gates the gentl}' inclined plains bounded by the distant escarpments 

 of table-lands. The six shires whose boundaries approximately 

 comcide with those of the basin of the Severn, including therein the Avon 

 and other rivers tributary to the Bristol Channel, are distinguished, upon the 

 whole, for gentle undulations, fertility of soil, beauty and variety of scenery, 

 and facility of communication, and they have consequently attracted a large 

 population. 



Still, along the Welsh boundary there rise a few hills which are almost 

 entitled to be called mountains. A range of heights, rising to an altitude of 1,250 

 feet, occupies nearly the centre of the wide curve formed by the Severn. This is 

 the Long Mynd, which is of very humble aspect, if compared with the Snowdon 

 and other mountain giants of Wales, but famous in the geology of England as 

 being the "foundation-stone," as it were, of the whole country, for it was 

 around this small nucleus of Cambrian rocks that the more recent sedimentary 

 strata were deposited.* The Long Mynd and other ranges in that part of 

 Shropshire are joined on the one side to the hills of Wales, whilst in the 

 north-east they extend to the Severn, and may be traced even beyond that river, 

 where the Wrekin (1,320 feet) rises almost in the centre of the county. The view 

 from its summit is superb, extending from Derbyshire to Snowdon. The range 

 of the Clee Hills (1,788 feet), somewhat more elevated than the Long Mynd, 

 stretches to the southward, and bounds the valley of the Severn in the west. It 

 is continued in the Malvern Hills (1,396 feet), famous for the diversity of their 

 scenery, the purity and salubrity of their air, their variety of vegetation, and the 



* Murchison, " Siluria : The History of the Oldest Rocks." 



