The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

OXPOEDSHIEE. 153
nei"-liboiiring coast was covered with the wreckage of merchantmen, will long
live in the memory of British sailors. Two attempts have been made to build
a lighthouse upon this dreaded bank, but the work of man was incapable of
resisting the power of the waves, and mariners must rest content with light-
ships and buoys, which mark its contour. The roadstead between the Goodwin
Sands and Deal is known as the Downs. It aflPords shelter to vessels during
storms, and as many as five hundred have been waiting here for favourable weather
to continue their voyage down Channel or to the north.
The ten counties lying wholly or for the greater part in the basin of the
Thames are almost exclusively agricultural. Neither coal nor iron, which might
have given rise to a manufacturing industry similar to that of the north, is
found. Yet London, which has gathered within its boundaries more than half
the population of the whole basirt and a few other towns of less note, are indis-
putably seats of industry ; and the metropolis, thanks to its noble river,
its densely packed population, and its command of capital, will always be able
to maintain its pre-eminence as " universi orbis terrarum emporium." Fishing
adds to the resources of the counties bordering upon the German Ocean.
Topography.
Eastern Gloucestershire and North-eastern Wiltshire are within the basin of
the Thames, but their principal towns having already been described (see pp. 117,
136), we at once pass to a consideration of Oxfordshire.
Oxfordshire lies to the north of the Thames, between Gloucestershire and
Buckinghamshire, and consists of level or slightly undulating land, for the most
part under tillage. The northern portion of the county is occupied by the Edge
Hills, a continuation of the oolitic Cotswolds, presenting a bold escarpment
towards the vale of the Ayou. These uplands give rise to the Windrush,
Evenlode, and Cherwell, which flow to the Thames. At Oxford the latter river
abruptly turns to the south, and passes through a gap at the foot of the Chiltern
Hills, which occupy the south-eastern corner of the county. Agricidture and
dairy husbandry are the principal sources of wealth, barley for malting and butter
being amongst the most important products. The manufactures are imimportant
but if the coal underlying the oolite, and reached by a boring made at Burford,
should one day be worked, Oxfordshire may be transformed from a purely agri-
cultural region into a land of manufactures.
Oxford, in many of its buildings, still presents the features of a mediaeval city.
It almost looks as if Time had not touched it for four or five centuries. Its monuments
of the past, however, have not become ruins, for they are maintained with religious
care, and present the appearance of only having recently left the hands of the
architect. StiU the limestone of which most of them have been constructed
shows marks of decay, and many a column originally decorated with elaborate
carvings has become an unshapely mass of stone. This decay, however, has nowhere
degenerated into ruin, and numerous finely carved facades, with ivy clinging to their
;