Britain’s Structure and Scenery
Britains Structure and Scenery deals with the physical background, the stage on which the drama of life is played and which provides the fundamental environment for plants, newnaturalists.comIt would be difficult to find an area of comparable size anywhere in the world with such a variety of physical conditions, scenery and consequently of plant and animal life as the British Isles. Our homeland is indeed a geological museum, epitomising in miniature the geological history of the globe. Each hill and valley, each plateau and plain reflects the underlying geological structure or build; this volume attempts not only to describe the surface features, but also to sketch the long and complex series of events which have given the land its present form - the building of the British Isles. It thus deals with the physical background, the stage on which the drama of life is played and which provides the fundamental environment for plants, animals and man.
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Collins New Naturalist Library
4
Britainâs Structure and Scenery
L. Dudley Stamp
JAMES FISHER M.A.
JOHN GILMOUR M.A.
JULIAN HUXLEY M.A. D.Sc. F.R.S.
L. DUDLEY STAMP C.B.E., B.A. D.Sc.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EDITOR:
ERIC HOSKING F.R.P.S.
The aim of this series is to interest the general reader in the wild life of Britain by recapturing the inquiring spirit of the old naturalist. The Editors believe that the natural pride of the British public in the native fauna and flora, to which must be added concern for their conservation, are best fostered by maintaining a high standard of accuracy combined with clarity of exposition in presenting the results of modern scientific research. The plants and animals are described in relation to their homes and habitats and are portrayed in the full beauty of their natural colours, by the latest methods of colour photography and reproduction.
TO
A TRUE LOVER OF THE COUNTRYSIDE
THE RT. HON. LORD JUSTICE SCOTT, P.C.
TO SERVE UNDER WHOM FOR A YEAR
IS A LIBERAL EDUCATION
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 HIGHLAND BRITAIN AND LOWLAND BRITAIN
CHAPTER 2 READING THE ROCKS
CHAPTER 3 EARTH HISTORYâTIME AND LIFE
CHAPTER 4 THE GEOLOGICAL MAP
CHAPTER 5 LAND FORMS AND SCENERY THE WORK OF RIVERS
CHAPTER 6 THE WORK OF THE SEA
CHAPTER 7 THE SCENERY OF THE SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
CHAPTER 8 THE SCENERY OF LIMESTONE COUNTRY
CHAPTER 9 THE LAND FORMS OF VOLCANIC COUNTRY
CHAPTER 10 THE SCENERY OF GLACIATION
CHAPTER 11 SOILS
CHAPTER 12 GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION
CHAPTER 13 THE PLIOCENE PERIOD
CHAPTER 14 THE GREAT ICE AGE AND AFTER
CHAPTER 15 THE REGIONS OF BRITAIN
CHAPTER 16 THE WEALD
CHAPTER 17 EAST ANGLIA AND THE FENS
CHAPTER 18 THE ENGLISH SCARPLANDS
CHAPTER 19 THE ENGLISH MIDLANDS
CHAPTER 20 THE SOUTH-WEST
CHAPTER 21 THE WELSH MASSIF
CHAPTER 22 THE NORTH OF ENGLANDâTHE LAKES AND THE PENNINES
CHAPTER 23 SCOTLAND
CHAPTER 24 IRELAND
IT IS ONE of the principal objects of the NEW NATURALIST series to present in simple language to the lay reader the results of recent scientific work in the many fields covered by the general term âNatural History.â Another is to take the results of laboratory research into the realm of field studies and particularly to recapture the spirit of the old naturalists whose keen delight was in the study of animals and plants in their native haunts.
The present volume may be regarded in many respects as a background volume to the whole series in that it attempts to trace the evolution, through the many millions of years of geological time, of the geography of the British Isles and so to present a general view of the stage and setting of Britainâs Natural History.
The task has been rendered especially difficult for several reasons. In the first place it has been necessary to compress a large section of the science of geology into a very small space; in the second place it has been necessary to eliminate a whole scientific terminology which to the geologist makes for brevity and precision but which would be unfamiliar to the non-geologist. In addition, any attempt to reconstruct the geography of past ages is beset with pitfalls, so that the generalisations here presented may appear to have a definiteness which is not warranted by the facts. They must be regarded as liable to constant revision and even now, as the results of the borings undertaken in the intensive war-time search for oil are studied, they may be greatly modified.
THE EDITORS
THE WEALTH of a countryâs fauna and flora is not to be measured by numbers of species alone. Its wealth lies rather in variety, and to a naturalist in the British Isles the fascination of the native fauna and flora is in the great variety to be found in a small space. Gilbert Whiteâs immortal Natural History of Selborne is, in essence, the natural history of a single parish of a few square miles. Yet like many another English parish Selborne, at the western end of the Weald in Hampshire near the borders of Surrey and Sussex, embraces within its limited area many distinctly different habitats or environments, each with its characteristic and often contrasted plants and animals. On the one side lie the open, wind-swept chalk downs with their calcareous soils and lime-loving plants, on the other the coarse sands of the Lower Greensand formation with sterile, acid, hungry soilsâtoo âhungryâ to attract the farmer and so given over to heathland and woodland of oak, birch and pineâwhilst between the two are the Gault vale with its heavy clay soils and the magnificent âfoxmouldâ developed on the Upper Greensand and accounted one of the finest agricultural soils in the whole of Britain. Such contrasts within a single parish or group of parishes are by no means unusualâindeed parish boundaries were often drawn originally so as to include as great a variety as possible of types of landâand they are reflected in the relief or form of the ground, in soils, in the natural vegetation cover and its associated animal life as well as in the way man, though kept within certain limits, has adapted the natural environment to his own ends. Small differences of elevation, slope, aspect and shelter cause purely local variations in the climate giving rise to different âmicroclimatesâ in the area, but they are variations sufficient to spell success or failure in many a farming enterprise, just as they permit or prevent the survival of a given species of the wild flora or fauna.
