246 THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Newark-ujoon- Trent is a town of breweries, like Burton, and the capital of the 

 agricultural portion of the county, where great corn and cattle markets are held. 

 Kino- John died within the castle whose ruins crown a neighbouring hill. Bing- 

 ham is a market town in the fruitful vale of Belvoir, which stretches across the 

 southern boundary of the county into Leicestershire, and is named after Belvoir 

 Castle, the stately residence of the Duke of Rutland. 



Mansfield and Sntton-in-Ashfield are the principal towns in Sherwood Forest. 

 Collieries and quarries are near them, and hosiery is manufactured. Newstead 

 Abbey, forther south, in the midst of the " Forest," is doubly interesting on account 

 of its ivy-clad façade of the twelfth century, and its association with Lord Byron. 

 Worksop, in the basin of the Idle, is a quiet country place, doing a large trade in 

 malt. Near it are a colliery and several noble parks. Retford, the centre of a 

 rural parliamentary borough on the Idle, carries on a considerable trade in corn 

 and malt. 



YoRKSHTRE is by far the largest and most important county of England. It 

 extends along the German Ocean from the bay of the Tees to the mouth of the 

 Humber, and stretches inland to the summit of the Pennine chain and beyond. 

 Politically the county is divided into the city of York and its Ainst}^, and the 

 three districts called the North, West, and East Ridings. Geographically, how- 

 ever, it consists of several well-defined regions, and of these the fruitful vale of 

 York is by far the most extensive and important. This vale, or plain, extends from 

 the southern confines of the county, beyond the river Tees, into Durham. It is 

 drained by the river Ouse and its tributaries. On the east the fertile vale of 

 Pickering opens out into it like a huge bay, extending to the sea near Scarborough, 

 and separating the wild oolitic moors of North Yorkshire from the chalky wolds of 

 the East Riding. These latter form a screen around the fertile alluvial tract of 

 Holderness, at the mouth of the Humber. 



Western Yorkshire consists of wild moorlands, which attain their highest eleva- 

 tion in the Craven district in the north, and are intersected by valleys renowned 

 for their picturesque scenery. As we proceed south the hills decline in height, and 

 gradually merge into monotonous moorlands. But what South-western Yorkshire 

 lacks in scenery is amply compensated for by the mineral treasures, coal and iron, 

 which are hidden in its soil, and which have sriven birth to one of the busiest manufac- 

 turing districts of the world. Yorkshire holds the first place for its woollens, but the 

 manufacture of iron and of every description of ironware also furnishes occupation 

 to thousands, and some of the cotton-mills rival those of Lancashire in their huge 

 proportions. The county holds, moreover, a prominent position for its agriculture. 

 Its horses, cattle, and sheep are in high estimation, and the hams of Yorkshire are 

 famous throughout England. 



Right in the centre of the great fertile plain which forms so striking a physical 

 feature of the county, admirably situated as a place of commerce on the great 

 natural high-road which connects England with Scotland, and on the navigable 

 Ouse, rises the ancient city of York. As long as the subterranean treasures 



