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 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 has 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 Cambrian is the mountain range running along the western coast, in Wales. Its highest point at the center of the range is Snowdon – 3560 ft (1085 m) above sea level. The Welsh call 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 plateau situated at various levels. To the north of the Pennines are the Cheviot Hills. The Cheviots are the northerly extension of the Pennines 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), towering above Fort William in Scotland, is 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.

RIVERS

The rivers of Britain are short. Their direction and character are determined by the position of the mountains. Most of the rivers flow in the eastward direction since the west coast is mountainous.

Due to the humid climate the water level is always high. The rivers seldom freeze in winter, most of them remain ice-free but they are not navigable for ocean ships.

The most important rivers are the Severn (354 km), the Thames (346 km), the Trent, the Aire, the Ouse, the Clyde, the Tweed, the Tyne, the Tay, the Eden.

The Tay is the longest river in Scotland (118 km). Part of the border between Scotland and England is along reaches of the Tweed, near which the woolen fabric bearing the same name is produced. The Severn flows along the border between England and Wales. The longest river of Britain makes only 1/20 of the Amazon – the longest river in the world (3600 miles). One of the tributaries is the Avon with its Stratford, glorified by Shakespeare. The swiftest flowing river in the British Isles is the Spey flowing across the southern Highlands of Scotland.

LAKES

British lakes are rather small and remote with no outlets, so they afford limited economical possibilities in the system of the navigable water ways. The largest of them are Lough Neagh in north-east Ireland, Lough Lomond near Glasgow and Lough Ness near Inverness in Scotland.

Lakeland, or the Lake District, is the Pennine system in the north-west of England. The 16 major long and narrow lakes lie snugly among the steep slopes of the Highlands near Scotland. This remarkable place is known through the world for its beautiful deep lakes, its plunging waterfalls and emerald meadows. It is outstanding for walking, climbing, sailing and boating.

This district is also known for its association with the history of English literature and in the first place with the name of William Wordsworth (1770 – 1859), the founder of the Lake School of poets. His home and Lakeland scenes still inspire great poetry.

Wordsworth is frequently thought of as a “nature poet”: his pantheistic philosophy led him to believe that men should enter into communication with nature. Since nature was an expression of God and was charged with his presence, he believed it constituted a potential moral guide for those possessed of “a feeling heart”.

William Wordsworth

Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching and in its majesty:

This city now doth like a garment wear

 

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare

Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky:

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

 

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendor, valley, rock or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still.

 

MINERAL RESOURSES

They are not plentiful in the British Isles. But since times immemorial people have had here all necessities: coal, iron, copper, tin, silver, clay, salt, chalk. Gas and oil were discovered in the North Sea in Scotland in 1970. The oil comes ashore by a submarine pipeline 105 miles long (169 km).

Coal is still the mineral that contributes much to the development of many industries in Britain. By the absolute deposits of coal the UK claims the sixth place in the world, though now oil and gas have become major mineral resources, having a fundamental effect on the economy of Great Britain.

Among other mineral resources iron ores, found alongside coal layers, are of primary importance, but the iron content of most of ores is very low. There are also tin and cooper mines in England. Lead and silver ores are also mined. But ore-mining once very intensively developed, now takes a low percentage of the total of heavy industry in Britain.

 

CLIMATE  

The topic which never fails to start any conversation in Britain is weather. “ We have no climate only weather ” may be heard from an Englishman. And its generally believed that England experiences weather rather than climate, because of its extreme variability. Periods of settled weather are rare. One day may be different from the next and predication cannot be made for more than a very short time ahead. Sunshine can rapidly change to rain; winds can alter their direction abruptly.

Nevertheless, Britain has a generally mild and temperate climate, milder than in any other country in the same latitudes (50 ). It is due to influence of the warm current of Gulf Stream.

Britain is as far north as Canada’s Hudson Bay or Siberia. Edinburgh is  of the equator, the same latitude as Moscow, yet its climate is much milder. Edinburgh and London enjoy the same temperatures in winter because of Gulf Stream, which brings warm water and air across the Atlantic from the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, snow only falls occasionally and does not remain for long, except in the Scottish mountains, where skiing is possible.

Though the climate is subject to frequent changes extremes of temperature are rather few. Average temperatures in England and Wales vary from 4  In Scotland averages are one or two degrees cooler. During a normal summer, the temperatures occasionally rises above 27 , but temperature of 30 – 32 C and above are infrequent. Extreme minimum temperatures occasionally depend largely on local conditions? But – 7  may occur on a clear winter’s night, - 12  C is rare, and – 18 or below has been recorded only during exceptionally cold periods.

The prevailing winds are south-westerly. Winds are stronger in the north than in the south of the British Isles, stronger in the coast than inland, and stronger in the west than in the east. The strongest winds usually occur in winter. Occasionally during the winter months winds may bring a cold, dry, continental type of weather which, once established, may persist for many days or even weeks. Winds may bring winter cold in spring or summer and sometimes whirlwinds or hurricanes. Droughts are rare.

The wind brings rain from the Atlantic to the hills of the west. This means that the western parts of Britain are wetter than the east, which is sheltered by the mountains. London is drier than continental cities such as Hamburg, for example. Its weather may be unpredictable, but it is not particularly wet. Generally, all parts of the British Isles get a lot of rain in all seasons.

The annual rainfall is about 1100 mm, the mountainous areas of the west and north having far more rain than the lowlands of the south and east. Rain is fairly well distributed throughout the year, but on average March to June are the driest months and September and January the wettest.

The distribution of sunshine over Britain shows a general decrease from the south to north from the coast to inland. The average daily duration of sunshine varies from 5 hours in the north-west Scotland to 8 hours in the Isles of Wight during the months of the longest daylight (May, June, and July). And during the months of the shortest daylight – November, December and January – sunshine is at minimum, with an average of half an hour a day in some parts of Highlands of Scotland and two hours a day on the south coast of England.

So it may be said that English has main three features: it mild, humid and changeable. It means that it is never too hot or too cold. Winters are extremely mild, so that there are places in the south where people have never seen snow. Cornwall (a part of south-western England) is called British Riviera as resemblance to the continental Riviera is impressive: the exceptionally mild climate which allows subtropical flowers and trees flourish, the sparkling blue sea, luxuriantly coloured landscape and yachting resorts. And there is Scottish Riviera – in the east of Scottish Highlands. The name is pardonable exaggeration for the Morey coast with many beaches of firm sands and red sandstone cliffs and flat cattle feeding on green pastures.

More suitable this name is to one of the most fascinating spots on the western coast of Scottish Highlands – the Inverewe Garden which possesses a constant element of surprise. The Inverewe Garden houses a wide variety of plants ranging from alpine to subtropical. 

 

 

LECTURE 3