The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

76
THE BRITISH ISLES.
of the sea upon the rocks of Ilfracombe, whilst in the south the land gradually slopes
down towards the wide semicircular bay bounded by Start Point and the Bill of
Portland. Human habitations are few and far between on this plateau, being
confined to hamlets and lonely farms hidden away in the hollows. The slopes
of the hills are covered with heather or short herbage, whilst their summits
are occupied by sepulchral mounds or ancient entrenchments. The Quantock
Hills, to the east of Exmoor, are the only part of England where the stag still
lives in a wild state.
A second mountain mass, the Dartmoor, rises to the west of the river Exe into
the region of pasture, culminating in the Yes Tor (2,077 feet), and High Wilhays
Fit?. 41.
—
Land's End and the Loxgships LiGHTHorsE,
(2,040 feet). The nucleus of this mountain group consists of granite, and the
rivers which rise in it diverge in all directions, feeding the Teign and Exe in
the east ; the Taw and Torridge in the north ; the Tamar, or Tamer, in the west
the Tavy, Avon, and Dart in the south. The coast-line projects far to the south,
where the spurs of Dartmoor approach it, as if the floods of the ocean had been
powerless in their attacks upon the rocks which envelop this nucleus of granite.
Start Point, the extreme promontory, is thus named because vessels take their
departure from it when about to venture upon the open ocean. Two estuaries
bound the uplands which culminate in Dartmoor, viz. that of the Ex in the east,
and that of the Tamar, which debouches upon many-armed Plymouth Sound, in
;