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CHAPTER III.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE Island of Great Britain extends from 50° to 58° 30′ of North latitude. Its length is about 580 British miles, and its greatest breadth, from Land's End to the North Foreland in Kent, is about 370.

Great Britain is divided into England, Wales, and Scotland. The greatest of these divisions is England, which is bounded on the East by the German Ocean, on the South by the English Channel, on the West by Wales, between the Bristol Channel and Chester, and above that by St. George's Channel, and on the North by the river Tweed, and an imaginary line continued South West down to the Firth of Solway. The remainder of the island, North of this, is Scotland.

England was divided into Shires by Alfred; these are also denominated counties, from having been governed by an Ealderman, a dignity corresponding with the Latin Comes, or Count, and afterwards with the Danish title of Earl.

12 Midland.

on Wales.

4 Bordering

6 Northern.

England and Wales are divided into 52 counties, containing about 58,335 British square miles*, which may be classed as follows: the extent and population is taken from the returns to Parliament in 1811.

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* An English square mile contains 640 statute acres, and is to a geographical square mile as 300 to 398.6 or as 3:4 nearly..

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The total population of London, which is by far the greatest metropolis in the civilized world, is 1,050,000. The following cities and towns in England have a population above 10,000, exclusive of those already enumerated.

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* Chatham and Rochester, which are contiguous like London and

Westminster, have a population of 21,722.

The principal Rivers in England, are the Thames, which rises in the Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, and flows through London into the German Ocean, below Gravesend. The Medway flows into the estuary of the Thames. The Severn rises in Plinlimmon, on the edge of Montgomeryshire and Cardiganshire, and flows by Shrewsbury, Worcester, Tewkesbury, where it receives the Avon, and Gloucester, into the Bristol Channel, below Bristol, receiving in its estuary the waters of the Wye. The Humber is rather an estuary on the German Ocean than a river; receiving the waters of many rivers, the principal of which are the Trent and the Ouse. The Mersey rises in Yorkshire, and forms an estuary at Liverpool. In Wales, the principal rivers are the Dee, which rises near Bala, and flowing through North Wales forms an estuary below Chester; and the Wye, which rises on Plinlimmon near the Severn, and flowing by Hereford, Ross, and Monmouth, falls into the Severn below Chepstow.

The following may be reckoned among the most remarkable mountains of England:

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