Berkshire

BERKSHIRE. As the article on this county, in the original work, is inaccurate and imperfect, nearly in the same respects as we have remarked the account of BZDFORDSHIRE to be, we shall follow the same plan here, as we did in the supplementary article on that county.

This county extends from

51.19 to 51.48 north latitude, and from 0.34.30 to 1.43 west longitude. In shape it is very irregular, the whole northern aide being figured by the windings of the Thames, which, taking a southern course from Oxford, almost cuts this county asunder at Reading, and renders its whole western part much broader than its eastern. A part of Wiltshire, detached at a considerable dis tance from the rest of that county, lies in the neigh bourhood of Woking and Reading, surrounded by Berkshire ; and two Berkshire parishes lie on the north side of the Thames, surrounded by Oxford shire. It is bounded on the north by Buckingham shire and Oxfordshire, from which it is separated by the Thames ; on the east by Surrey ; on the south by Hampshire ; and on the west by Wiltshire. At the north-west corner, it just touches upon Glouces tershire. Its greatest length, from Old Windsor to the county cross, near Hungerford, is 42 miles. Its greatest breadth from Witham, near Oxford, to the borderi of Hampshire, south of Newbury, 28i miles; and its narrowest, from the Thames by Reading, to the borders of Hampshire, in a direct south line, only miles. It is 207 miles in circumference. The area assigned to it in the original work is much too large. According to the agricultural report, the number of acres in it is only 4.38,977• According to the re turns respecting the poor-rates, 476,170; and, ac cording to Dr Beeke, 469,500.

The chalk stratum crosses quite through the whole of this county, but it is only in the western part of it that it is so elevated as to possess the name and character of Downs, and to be chiefly used as a sheep-walk. The Thames, entering the chalk lulls at Streatley, crosses them obliquely from thence onwards, leaving their more elevated part on the north of the river in Oxfordshire and Buckingham shire, so that the eastern part of that stratum in Berkshire, is sufficiently covered with soil to be , used in tillage-husbandry. To the south of the ele

vated part of the chalk ridge is a vale, which, be ginning about the middle of Wiltshire, continues al most in a straight line from thence to the Eastern Sea, having in it the Channel of the Kennet, from Hun gerford almost to Reading, and that of the Thames from Bray in Berkshire to the sea. Besides the great chalk stratum of the which crosses Berkshire, there is a line of moderately elevated hills, which extend from Oxford to Farringdon. The substratum of this line is, for the most part, calca reous stone, of various degrees of hardness ; being pin of the same stratum, which, with a few inter ruptions, crosses the kingdom in a north-eastern direction, from the west of Dorsetshire, nearly pa rallel to ihe great line of chalk, and a few miles dis tant from it. Gently descending from this elevat ed line of country, is the vale of Berkshire, which crosses the country from the parish of Shirenhare on the west, to Cholsey on the eastern boundary. Next to this vale on the south are the chalk-hills already mentioned. The natural divisions of the county, which are as follows, are strongly marked, as might appear from our account of its surface : 1. The vale, as it is emphatically termed, or the vale of Berkshire, or the White-horse Vale, which, crossing country from Shirenham to Cholsey, is bounded on one side by the Thames, and on the other by the White-horse bills, a continuation of the Chiltren range. 2. The Chalky-hills, which run nearly through the centre of the lower part of the county. 3. The vale of Kennet; and, 4, The forest, which nearly occupies the whole of the eastern part, commencing on the east of the Loddon, and extending the breadth of the county to Windsor.