The western morelands of Yorkshire, which form a tract of black, heathy mountains, are bounded on the north by the valley of the Greta ; on the south, they are divided from the more southern mountains of the north of England, which have been already mentioned, by the manufacturing district, and by the valley of the on the north-west, they extend into West moreland and Cumberland; on the west and south west, their boundary is formed by the district of Craven, which contains the mountains of Ingleborough and Whernside, already described as forming part of the great northern chain on the east : these morelands shelve down the cultivated lands that constitute the western bank of the vale of York. The elevation of the western boundaries of these mountains is very con siderable ; inferior, indeed, to the elevation of the Cum berland mountains, but much greater than the eleva tion of the eastern morelands of Yorkshire. Their sur face, however, is tame, merely swelling : from this cha racter, indeed, must be expected their western margin, which is much broken, and strongly featured.
The morelands of Staffordshire lie on the northern part of that county, to the north of a line drawn from Uttoxeter to Newcastle under Lyme. Their elevation must be considerable, as some of the numerous streams which take their rise in this tract of country run into opposite seas. That part of them which lies between Cheadle and Oak-Moor, consists of an immense num ber of rude heaps of gravel, thrown together without order or form, into sudden swells and deep glens. To the north of Oak-Moor the calcareous part of the more lands begins; reaching in length from the Weaverhills to Longner, and in breadth from Dove to Morridge, and including fifty or sixty square miles. This is the best part of the morelands; the worst part lies north east of Mole Cop, and west of Leek. The summits of some of the hills in this district terminate in huge tre mentions cliffs, particularly those called Leek rocks : here single blocks of immense size are heaped together, and some of prodigious bulk have evidently rolled from the summit, and broken in pieces.
The \Voids of Yorkshire have already been mention ed as being considered by some to be the northern ex tremity of the chalk hills of England ; and, indeed, their natural character is the same as the chalk hills of the southern counties, but their termination differs from that of their western extreme. Here they end abruptly, in tall, steep, cliffs, the mass having the appearance of baying been impelled in a southern direction ; there the extremity is more shelving, broken, and irregular, frag ments being found insulated, and scattered at several miles distance from the body of the hills. The outlines of the wolds are irregular; with respect to their extent, if they are measured from the vale lands of Holderness to those of the vale of York, and from those of the vale of Pickering to the now calcareous lands at their south ern extremity, cannot be less than 500 square miles.
In elevation, surface, soil, and substrata, the wolds are very similar to the chalk hills of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire.
In describing the sea coast of England and Wales, we shall begin with the mouth of the Thames, and pro ceed northward. The mouth of this river is formed by the Naze, a hooked promontory in Essex, to the south of Harwich, and the North Foreland, in the county of Kent, or, perhaps, more accurately and strictly speak ing, it may be fixed at the Nore, between Leigh in Es sex, and Sheerness in Kent. The coast of Essex from the mouth of this river, thus defined, receding, turns abruptly to face the east, and is indented by the bays that are form ed by the Crouch, the Blackwater, and the Colne. Be yond this last river, the coast inclines rather to the south, but resumes its easterly direction to its union with Suffolk, where the port of Harwich is formed by the estuaries of the Stour and the Orwell. It is sup posed that the sea has effected great changes in this part of the coast of Essex, as tradition affirms, that the outlets of the Stour and Orwell were anciently on the north side of Landguard fort, and that, at that period, what are now called the Fleets, was a part of the original channel. Nearly the whole of the coast of this county is flat and marshy.
The coast of Suffolk rises in a waving line towards the north, a little inclined to the east. The first pro montory we come to is Orfordness, a low beach run ning out into the sea. The town of Orford, formerly a sea-port, is now at some distance from the sea. Dun wich and Aldborough, on the contrary, have been almost washed away by the sea, which began its en croachments before the Norman Conquest. From Or fordness to Southwold, the coast lies due north, with a bold shore ; a little to the south of the latter place, the sea, breaking in upon the shore, forms a creek, which, spreading out, divides to Dunwich, Southwold, and Walderswick. The bay before Southwold is Sole bay, the scene of the great sea fight in 1672, between the Dutch under De Ruyter, and the English com manded by the Duke of York. This bay was formerly bounded by Eastonness, and another cape to the south east of Dunwich ; but the sea has removed these marks, and consequently changed the mouths of the bay. From Southwold northwards, the coast is much embarrassed with shoals, and presents nothing remarkable, till we come to Lowestoffe, which is built on a cliff above the sea, at the most easterly point of Great Britain. The whole extent of the coast of this county is about 6C miles; for the most part, it is composed of loamy. cliffs, which, being undermined by the waves, are continual ly falling down ; in some parts, however, there are hil locks of sand, and in other parts, especially near the borders of Essex, it is flat and marshy.