A Short Geography of the British Islands Author:John Richard Green General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1880 Original Publisher: Macmillan and co. Subjects: Great Britain Physical geography History / Europe / Great Britain Science / Earth Sciences / Geography Science / Earth Sciences / Geology Travel / Europe / General Travel / Europe / Great Britain Notes: This ... more »is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER IIL COAST OF ENGLAND AND WALES. Importance of Coast-line. -- In any country having a sea-board, but especially in an island, the character of the coast-line is of the highest importance. As the inner structure of the country determines to a great extent its inner history and character, so its shores, its harbours, and its river estuaries influence its outer relations, its intercourse with the world, its trade and commercial development. It is possible for a maritime country to have a very great length of shore unbroken by rivers or by indentations of the sea; and a land thus destitute of harbours, and shut out from intercourse with foreign nations remains poor and barbarous. Other countries with a far smaller extent of shore have their coasts so deeply cut by inlets of the sea or by large rivers that from the earliest times trade, and consequently civilization, have been drawn to them. Those parts of the world which are now most thickly peopled and prosperous are those whose coasts are most abundantly furnished with harbours. The Character of the Coast of any countrydepends on the inner structure of the land itself. Our general view over Southern Britain will enable us to understand how the shores of England and Wales are the necessary outcome of the mode in which the island is built up, and of the resistance which its rocks are able to offer to ...« less