OXFOEDSHIRE. 153 



neio-libouring coasL was covered with the wreckage of merchantmen, will long 

 live in the memory of British sailors. Two attempts have been made to build 

 a lighthouse upon this dreaded bank, but the work of man was incapable of 

 resisting the power of the waves, and mariners must rest content with light- 

 ships and buoys, which mark its contour. The roadstead between the Goodwin 

 Sands and Deal is known as the Downs. It affords shelter to vessels during 

 storms, and as many as five hundred have been waiting here for favourable weather 

 to continue their voyage down Channel or to the north. 



The ten counties lying wholly or for the greater part in the basin of the 

 Thames are almost exclusively agricultural. Neither coal nor iron, which might 

 have given rise to a manufacturing industry similar to that of the north, is 

 found. Yet London, which has gathered within its bDundaries more than half 

 the population of the whole basin, and a few other towns of less note, are indis- 

 putably seats of industry ; and the metropolis, thanks to its noble river, 

 its densely packed population, and its command of capital, will always be able 

 to maintain its pre-eminence as " universi orbis terrarum emporium." Fishing 

 adds to the resources of the counties bordering upon the German Ocean. 



Topography. 



Eastern Gloucestershire and North-eastern "Wiltshire are within the basin ot 

 the Thames, but their principal towns having already been described (see pp. 1 1 7, 

 136), we at once pass to a consideration of Oxfordshire. 



Oxfordshire lies to the north of the Thames, between Gloucestershire and 

 Buckinghamshire, and consists of level or slightly undulating land, for the most 

 part under tillage. The northern portion of the county is occupied hj the Edge 

 Hills, a continuation of the oolitic Cotswolds, presenting a bold escarpment 

 towards the vale of the Avon. These uplands give rise to the Windrush, 

 Evenlode, and Cherwell, which flow to the Thames. At Oxford the latter river 

 abruptly turns to the south, and passes through a gap at the foot of the Chiltern 

 Hills, which occupy the south-eastern corner of the county, ^agriculture and 

 dairy husbandry are the principal sources of wealth, barley for malting and butter 

 being amongst the most important products. The manufactures are unimportant ; 

 but if the coal underlying the oolite, and reached by a boring made at Burford, 

 should one day be worked, Oxfordshire may be transformed from a purely agri- 

 cultural region into a land of manufactures. 



Oxford, in many of its buildings, still presents the features of a mediœval city. 

 It almost looks as if Time had not touched it for four or five centuries. Its monuments 

 of the past, however, have not become ruins, for they are maintained with religious 

 care, and present the appearance of only having recently left the hands of the 

 architect. Still the limestone of which most of them have been constructed 

 shows marks of decay, and many a column originally decorated with elaborate 

 carvings has become an unshapely mass of stone. This decay, however, has nowhere 

 degenerated into ruin, and numerous finely carved façades, with ivy clinging to their 

 118 



