Highland and lowland Britain

Britain is varied in scenery. Despite its comparatively small area Great Britain contains rocks of all the main geological periods, making contrast between highland and lowland Britain. The new rocks, which are less resistant to weather, have been worn down to form lowland. They lie to the south and east forming bands of hills which alternate with areas of lowland. The hills of lowland are formed of chalk and limestone. The agricultural plain of England lies to the Channel and the continent of Europe. The soils are deeper and richer than in highlands. The climate is drier and better suited to farming. Communications are easier. Thus human settlement in these areas is dense and more evenly spread.

The rocks of most of the north and west of Great Britain are harder and older than those of the south and east. These older rocks are covered by large areas of moorland such as the Lake District, the Pennines and much of Scotland and Wales, where the soils are poor, thin and stony. These areas are wetter and harder to reach than the lower land to the south and east. As a result, these areas of Great Britain are thinly populated except where coal or iron have been discovered.

Highland Britain comprises all those mountain parts and uplands of Great Britain which lie above 1000 ft (305 m). Geologically these mountains are among the oldest in the world, more than 3500 million years old, formed by ancient hard rocks with traces of volcanic action.

The Cumbrians is the mountain range running along the Western Coast, in Wales. Its highest point at the centre of the range is Snowdon — 3560 ft (1085 m) above sea level. The Welsh call Snowdonia the "Eagles" Nestling place". The first men to conquer Everest trained in Snowdonia. He was Sir Edmund Hillary. With his team he made his famous expedition to the top of Mount Everest in 1953.

To the east of Cumbrian massif lies the broad central upland known as the Pennines — the "backbone" of Britain, a continuous stretch of high land expending to 890 km. The Pennines have few sharp peaks and chiefly consist of plateaux situated at various levels. To the north of the Pennines are the Cheviot Hills. The Cheviots are the northerly extension of the Pennine proper and stretch to the Scottish Border.

Scottish Highlands are formed by the Grampian Mountains and North-West Highlands. Ben Nevis, Britain's highest mountain, 4406 ft (1343 m), towering above Fort William in Scotland, is a granite mass more than 500 million years old. The oldest rocks dating back 2,6 billion years are found in the Scottish Highlands and the Outer Hebrides.

Scottish mountains would be lost in the foothills of the Andes or the Himalayas, but they yield nothing to the highest peaks in the world in their beauty and capacity to inspire awe. It's because they share the landscape with wild sea lochs, with icy streams, that tumble through green and wooded glens.

In Northern Ireland the large central plain with boggy areas is surrounded by mountains and hills.

Despite its comparatively small area, Great Britain possesses a wide range of landforms and is famous for the rich variety of its scenery, which is well described by J. B. Priestley in his "The Beauty of England":

"The beauty of our country is as hard to define as it is easy to enjoy. (...) We have here no vast mountain ranges, no illuminable plains, no leagues of forest. But we have superb variety. A great deal of everything is packed into little space. (...) Nature, we feel, has carefully adjusted things — mountains, plains, rivers, lakes — to the scale of the island itself.

A mountain 21000 ft high would be a horrible monster here, as wrong as a plain 400 miles long, a river as broad as the

Mississippi.

Though the geographical features of this island are comparatively small, and there is astonishing variety almost everywhere, that does not mean that our mountains are not mountains, our plains not plains. Consider that piece of luck of ours, the Lake District. You can climb with ease — as I have done many a time — several of its mountains in one day. Nevertheless, you feel that they are mountains and not mere hills. (...)

Within a few hours you have enjoyed the green valleys, with their rivers, fine old bridges, pleasant villages, hanging woods, smooth fields; and the moorland slopes, with their rushing streams, stone walls, salty winds and crying curlews, white farm-houses; and then the lonely heights which seems to be miles above the ordinary world...

With variety goes surprise. Ours is the country of happy surprises. You have never to travel long without being pleasantly astonished".

Дата добавления: 2015-09-03