CHAPTER IX. 



THE BASIN OF THE HUIIBER. 

 (Leicesteushire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, York; hire.) 



General Features, 



HE basin whose outlet is through the estuary of the Humber is 

 the most extensive of the British Isles, for it exceeds in area the 

 basins of the Thames and the Severn.* Yet England, to the 

 north of the bay of the Wash and the estuary of the Mersey, is of 

 small width, and the distance from the central water-parting to 

 either sea is inconsiderable. But though the basin of the Humber is thus hemmed 

 in between the " backbone " of England and the coast ranges, it stretches far to 

 the north and south. Two rivers, the Trent, rising in the moorlands of Stafford- 

 shire, and the Yorkshire Ouse— the one coming from the south, the other from the 

 north— combine as they fall into the winding estuary of the Humber, and discharge 

 themselves into the North Sea. 



In the south the basin of the Trent penetrates like a wedge towards the valley 

 of the Severn, from which it is separated only by gentle undulations of the 

 ground. In the north, however, the ground grows in elevation, at first forming 

 heath-covered ridges rising above cultivated fields, and finally developing into 

 the broad upland of the Pennine chain, which stretches far away to the borders 

 of Scotland. The " Peak of Derbyshire " forms one of the vertebrae of this " back- 

 bone" of England. It is by no means a peak, as its name would imply, but 

 a table-land bounded by steep scarps, remarkable for its caverns and subterranean 

 passages, and rich in cromlechs. The Peak attains a height of 1,981 feet. 

 Farther north the moorlands broaden out, but the depressions which separate 

 the rounded masses of upland facilitate intercommunication between the two 

 slopes of the chain. t The summits increase in elevation as we travel to the 



* Area of the basin of the Humber (including Trent and Ouse), 9,550 square miles ; basin of the 

 Thames, 6,160 square miles ; basin of the Severn, 4,350 square miles. 



t The "passes " over the Pennine range vary in height between 450 and 660 feet, the latter being 

 that of the pass through which runs the turnpike road from Huddersfield, to the north of the Holme Moss. 



