The loftiest heights of England and Wales are situated at no great distance from its west shores and consist of a succession of mountains and hills, stretching, with some interruptions, from north to south, and throwing out numer ous branches on both sides, but particularly to the west, where all the culminating summits are found. The northern portion of this range has received the name of the Pennine Chain and is commonly designated backbone of Eng land? It is properly a continuation of the Cheviot Hills, and, commencing at the Scottish border, proceeds south for about 270 males, till, in the counties of Derby •and Stafford, it as suities the form of an elevated moorland plateau. In Derbyshire The Peak rises to the height of 2,082 feet. By far the most important of its offsets are those of the west, more espe cially if we include in them the lofty mountain masses in northwestern England, sometimes classed separately as the Cumbrian range. Amid these mountains lie the celebrated English lakes, of which the most important are Windermere, Derwent Water, Coniston Lake and Ullswater. Here also is the highest summit of northern England, Sea Fell (3,210 feet). The Pennine Chain, with its appended Cumbrian range is succeeded by one which surpasses both these in loftiness and extent, but has its great nucleus much farther to the west, where it covers the greater part of Wales, deriving from this its name, the Cambrian range. Its principal ridge stretches through Carnarvonshire from north and west, with Snowdon (3,560 feet) as the cul minating point of south Great Britain; across the Bristol Channel from Wales is the Devonian range. It may be considered as commencing in the Mendip Hills of Somerset and then pursuing a southwest direction through that county and the counties of Devon and Corn wall to the Land's End, the wild and desolate tract of Dartmoor forming one of its most remarkable features (highest summit, High Willhayes, 2,039 feet). Other ranges are the Cotswold Hills, proceeding in a northeast direc tion from near the Mendip Hills; the Chiltern Hills taking a similar direction farther to the east and the North and South Downs running east, the latter reaching the southern coast near Beachy Head, the former reaching the southeast coast at Folkestone.
A large part of the surface of England con sists of wide valleys and plains. Beginning in the north, the first valleys on the east side are those of the Coquet, Tyne and Tees; on the west the beautiful valley of the Eden, which, at first hemmed in between the Cumbrian range and Pennine Chain, gradually widens out into a plain of about 470 square miles, with the town of Carlisle in its centre. The most im portant of the northern plains is the Vale of York, which has an area of nearly 1,000 square miles. On the west side of the island; in south Lancashire and Cheshire, is the fertile Cheshire plain. In Wales there are no extensive plains, the valleys generally having a narrow, rugged form favorable to romantic beauty, but not compatible with great fert.lity. Wales, how ever, by giving rise to the Severn, can justly claim part in the vale, or series of almost un rivaled vales, along which it pursues its roman tic course through the counties of Montgomery, Salop, Worcester and Gloucester. Southeast of the Cotswold Hills is Salisbury plain, a large elevated plateau, of an oval shape, with a thin, chalky soil only suitable for pasture. In the southwest the only vales deserving of notice are those of Taunton in Somerset and Exeter in Devon. A large portion of the southeast may be regarded as a continuous plain, con sisting of the Wealds of Sussex, Surrey and Kent, between the North and South Downs, and containing an area of about 1,000 square miles. The southeast angle of this district is occupied by the Romney marsh, an extensive level tract composed for the most part of a rich marine deposit. Extensive tracts of a similar nature are situated on the eastern coast in Yorkshire and Lincoln, where they are washed by the Humber; and in the counties which either border the Wash, or, like Northampton, Bedford, Huntingdon and Cambridge, send their drainage into it by the Nen and the Ouse.
For the climate of England see GREAT BRIT