within the curve of 62°, comprises the Cornish peninsula, the southern part of South Wales, the whole basin of the Thames, and the country from thence northward to Birmingham and Lincoln. In the north-west of Scotland, comprising the western districts of Inverness, Ross, and Sutherland, the mean temperature of the hottest month is the lowest, or 54°, exhibiting a difference of 10° below the zone where the greatest summer heat prevails. The temperature of the mountain atmosphere of the British Isles, and the ratio of its decrease with an increase of elevation, are points upon which no particular conclusions can be stated with perfect confidence. The mean annual temperature of Leadhills, at the height of 1280 feet above the sea, is about 44; and the decrease appears to be in the ratio of 1° of temperature for 366 feet of ascent. Assuming this to be correct, it follows that the inferior limit of constant congelation occurs there at the elevation of about 5000 feet. Farther north, where the highest summits of Great Britain rise to nearly 4400 feet, the line of perpetual snow, having a lower altitude consequent upon an increase of latitude, is somewhat closely approached by the culminating points of the island. Hence the higher crests of the Grampians are clothed with snow through the greater portion of the year, and some of the loftiest peaks retain it in beds and patches all the year round, showing the prevalence of a temperature in those elevated regions very little above the freezing point. Dr. Skene Keith, in the middle of July, found the main source of the Dee, near the top of Mount Braeriach, running under an arch of snow. Ben Wyvis has never been known free from snow within the memory of man, except in the remarkably warm season of September, 1826. Sir Hector Munro, of Foulis, the principal proprietor of that mountain, holds his estate in Ross-shire by a singular tenure from one of the early Scottish kings, that of bringing three wainloads of snow from the summit whenever the king shall desire. RAIN. The effect of the immense oceanic surface on the west and south-west of the British Islands, with the prevailing winds from those quarters, producing a very humid atmosphere, and a more copious amount of rain on the western than on the eastern side, may be readily anticipated. In Ireland but few results respecting the annual rain-fall have been obtained, but it appears to range from 31 inches at Dublin to 40 at Cork. The great preponderance of rain westward is due to that side of the kingdom receiving the first impression of the westerly winds moistened by the Atlantic, and to the western position of the British mountains. We have thus taken a rapid glance at the principal physical features of THE LAND WE Live In, having borrowed largely from the PHYSICAL ATLAS of the Rev. Mr. Milner for this purpose. To the Work itself our readers must refer for the more minute details of the different Localities. THE ROAD AND THE RAIL. WHо made our roads? Engineers before McAdam. "Some imagine," says Camden, "that these ways were made by one Mulmutius, God knows who, many ages before the birth of Christ; but this is so far from finding credit with me, that I positively affirm they were made from time to time by the Romans. When Agricola was lieutenant here, Tacitus tells us, the people were commanded to carry their corn about, and into the most distant countries, not to the nearest camps but to those that were far off, and out of the way. And the Britons, as the same author has it, complained that the Romans put their hands and bodies to the drudgery of clearing woods and paving fens." The Britons, no doubt had roads; but we think it is as little doubtful that the Romans made the solid roads of which we constantly discover such wonderful remains. They were indeed great road-makers, these kings of the world; and they went about their work in a scientific style, like the iron road-makers of our own age, with labouring pioneers, A multitude with spades and axes armed, Their work has lasted. Their "highways from sea to sea" cannot be traced through their whole lines with perfect distinctness; but enough can be traced to shew the genius of the great civilizers. All old writers agree that there were four chief ways in England; modern researches have traced other trunk roads than these four of the Watling Street, the Erming Street, the Ikenald Street, and the Fosse. What the great lines of Railways have accomplished, according to the wants of our age, within the last thirty years, the old roads accomplished sixteen hundred years ago. They made this island, to a certain extent, one whole. We have a circuitous railway from Dover to London; the Romans had their direct road, the Watling Street, through Rochester. The Great Western Railway follows its sinuous course from London to Bath; the Romans had a direct road through Staines, Silchester, and Marlborough to their great city of medicinal waters. If the descriptions of the Fosse Way may be relied upon, it followed very closely the present track of the Great Western from Totness to Bristol; and connected the Midland Counties, as far as Lincoln, with the Western coasts, as completely as the net-work of railways does at this day. The Ikenald Way is held to have connected the Eastern coast with the interior, as the Eastern Counties Railway now effects the same object. The Erming Street is affirmed to have run from Saint David's to Southampton, a line which railways have yet to thread. Lastly, the Watling Street, after it had reached London from Dover, is understood to have passed towards the North to Saint Alban's, and thence, in a direct line very little verging from that which we call the Great North Road, to York and Chester-le-Street; accomplishing the connexion between the capital more directly than the existing railways, but going straight to its point like a projected great line. For purposes of internal communication "from sea to sea," the direction of the Roman roads was, there can be little dispute, sufficiently complete. The manufacturing element has demanded new combinations. Here, then, in " the Land we live in," sixteen hundred years ago, were direct roads, with bold cuttings, and solid terraces worked in stone and cement, founded on piles where the soil was marshy, raised upon piers where it was necessary to gain elevation; and over these, for five centuries of Roman dominion, moved the legions of the mighty empire, "In coats of mail, and military pride." Then succeeded the fierce strifes of the Heptarchythe devastations of the Dane-the plunder of the Norman-the struggle between the Crown and the Barons -the wars of England and Scotland-the battles of the Roses;-during each of which epochs the country made slight advances, if any, in the real business of civilization, as compared with the Roman period. With the Tudor dynasty came comparative quiet, and, with quiet, increased commercial intercourse. There had always been a coasting trade. In 1489, the Bishop of Durham writes from his manor of Auckland, to Sir John Paston, at Caister, near Yarmouth, that he sends his Gentleman Usher to negotiate a matter of business, "forasmuch as I have coals and other things in these parts, and also ye have in those parts corns, wine, and wax; and as I am informed ye be not evil willed to deal with me, no more than I am to deal with you, in uttering, and also in receiving of such things, the which might be to the profit of us both." The bishop had a sensible notion of the real objects of trade. These exchanges were to be "to the profit of either of us, whereby our familiarity and friendship may be increased in time to come." Such a desire for communication, between the influential men of districts producing different commodities, would necessarily make and uphold roads, and improve harbours. Let us see what roads the people of England had in the time of Elizabeth. William Harrison, in his "Description of England," prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle, has "a table of the best thoroughfares and towns of greatest travel;" and he says, "those towns that we call thoroughfares have great and sumptuous inns builded in them for the receiving of such travellers and strangers as pass to and fro." We have traced upon a map the various lines of this old Itinerary; and it is remarkable how little appears to have been added to the means of internal communication since the days of the Roman roads. Indeed, with a few exceptions, the Roman roads appear to have determined the great highways of the sixteenth century. We will briefly describe them. 1. From the south-east coast there is the road from Dover to London. 2. From the south-west coast there is a road from the extreme point of Cornwall to Exeter, by Launceston and Okehampton, and thence to London by Shaftesbury and Salisbury. 3. There are two roads from Norfolk and Suffolk to London-one from Walsingham, by Newmarket, till it joins the north road near Royston; the other from Yarmouth to Ipswich, Colchester, and Chelmsford. 4. From South Wales to London, there is a road from St. David's, by Caermarthen and Hay to Gloucester, and thence by Cirencester, Farringdon, Abingdon, Henley, and Maidenhead; where it unites with, 5, the road from London to Bristol, by Reading, Marlborough, and Chippenham. The northern roads constitute the longest and most important lines. They are, 6, the road from London to Cockermouth, by Saint Alban's, Dunstable, Daventry, Coventry, Lichfield, Stone, Warrington, Preston, Lancaster, Kendal, and Keswick; 7, the road from London to Berwick, by Ware, Huntingdon, Stamford, Grantham, Newark, York, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle, Morpeth, Alnwick, and Belford; 8, the road from North Wales,from Caernarvon to Conway and Chester, and thence to Newcastle-under-Lyne, where it joins the road from London to Cockermouth. There are, in addition to these eight great lines, the road from London to Oxford, by Uxbridge; and the road from London to Cambridge, by Saffron Walden. The most cursory inspection of the map of England will shew the imperfect nature of our internal communication, when the lines we have recited were the only great thoroughfares. But it must also be borne in mind, that the manufacturing hives of English population were not yet formed. We are speaking of the time which preceded turnpikes by a century, canals by two centuries, and railways by three centuries. The transition from one state of things to the other involves some curious particulars. The statute for amending of highways gave power to the jobbers, and the highways became worse. The evil went on for another century, till at last came the turnpike system for its remedy. The first turnpike act was passed in 1663 (15th Charles II.), and its preamble shows what a state of road perfection we had reached, even after the establishment of the Post: "Whereas the ancient highway and post-road leading from London to York, and so into Scotland, and likewise from London into Lincolnshire, lieth for many miles in the counties of Hertford, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, in many of which places the road, by reason of the great and many loads which are weekly drawn in waggons through the said places, as well by reason of the great trade of barley and malt that cometh to Ware, and so is conveyed by water to the city of London, as other carriages, both from the north parts, as also from the city of Norwich, Saint Edmundsbury, and the town of Cambridge, to London, is very ruinous, and become almost impassable, insomuch that it is become very dangerous to all his Majesty's liege people that pass that way." The "ancient highway and post-road leading from London to York, and so into Scotland," is on many accounts one of the most important lines of the country, and has been more travelled on than any other line. For this reason, probably, there are more incidental descriptions of the mode of travel on this road, to be found in books, than all which refer to other roads. From its great length, its passage through the border country, and its onward progress through what was another kingdom, the north road offers very striking constrasts between its ancient and its modern state,-between its state when it required fourteen days to perform the journey between the two capitals, and our own day, when thirteen hours suffice for the journey by railway from London to Edinburgh. Let us see what this north road will supply us of material for this paper on the communications of "The Land we live in," with occasional glances at other highways. Those who are not tolerably familiar with the Memoir Literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, will have some difficulty to comprehend how our ancestors moved about from place to place, and carried on the business of communication with distant inland parts. The mode of conveyance was so universal, and so established, that it rarely offers itself to any especial notice. Till the beginning of the eighteenth century we were almost wholly an EQUESTRIAN people. Harrison describes "the excellent paces" of our saddle-horses as peculiar to those of our soil; and says, that "our countrymen, seeking their ease in every corner where it is to be had, delight very much in this quality." From the days of the Wife of Bath, "girt with a pair of spurrés sharp," to the days of Queen Elizabeth, we have scarcely a trace of ladies accomplishing their peregrinations in any other manner than that which Chaucer has recorded: Cross-roads, as well as the great thoroughfares, were of course absolutely necessary for carrying on the business of life. Some were merely lanes over the natural soil, some paved roads for pack-horses. Annual labour for the repair of roads was first imposed by the statute of the 2nd and 3rd Philip and Mary, " for amending of highways, being now both very noisome and tedious to travel in, and dangerous to all passengers and carriages." Harrison says that the statute was constantly evaded by the covetousness of the rich and the laziness of the poor; that parish surveyors took care to have good roads to their own fields, but neglected those that led from market to market; and that encroachments were daily made upon the highways by covetous landowners, so "that whereas some streets within these five-and-twenty years have been in most places fifty feet broad, according to the law, whereby the traveller might either escape the thief, or shift the mire, or pass by the loaden cart, without danger to himself or his horse; now they are brought unto twelve, Luxury had its appliances ready for this almost excluor twenty, or six-and-twenty at the most." Local sive mode of travel. "A lover of his country," who, jobbing, we thus see, is an hereditary accomplishment. in 1673, saw that coaches would be the ruin of the Upon an ambler easily she sat." |