The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

CHAPTER IX.
THE BASIN OF THE HUMBER.
(Leicestershire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottlnghamshire, Yorkshire.)
General Features.
HE basin whose outlet is through the estuary of the Humber is
the most extensive of the British Isles, for it exceeds in area the
basins of the Thames and the Severn.* Yet England, to the
north of the bay of the "Wash and the estuary of the Mersey, is of
small width, and the distance from the central water-parting to
either sea is inconsiderable. B ut though the basin of the Humber is thus hemmed
in between the "backbone " of England and the coast ranges, it stretches far to
the north and south. Two rivers, the Trent, rising in the moorlands of Stafford-
shire, and the Yorkshire Ouse—the one coming from the south, the other from the
north—combine as they fall into the winding estuary of the Humber, and discharge
themselves into the North Sea.
In the south the basin of the Trent penetrates like a wedge towards the valley
of the Severn, from which it is separated only bj' gentle undulations of the
ground. In the north, however, the ground grows in elevation, at first forming
heath-covered ridges rising above cultivated fields, and finally developing into
the broad upland of the Pennine chain, which stretches far away to the borders
of Scotland. The " Peak of Derbyshire " forms one of the vertebrae of this " back-
bone" of England. It is by no means a peak, as its name would impty, but
a table-land bounded by steep scarps, remarkable for its caverns and subterranean
passages, and rich in cromlechs. The Peak attains a height of 1,981 feet.
Farther north the moorlands broaden out, but the depressions which separate
the rounded masses of upland facilitate intercommunication between the two
slopes of the chain, t The summits increase in elevation as we travel to the
• Area of the 'basin of the Humher (including Trent and Ouse), 9,550 square miles ; basin of the
Thames, 6,160 square miles ;
basin of the Severn, 4,350 square miles.
t The "passes " over the Pennine range vary in height between 450 and 660 feet, the latter being
that of the pass through which runs the turnpike road from Huddersficld, to the north of the Holme Moss.