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During medieval times, British trade in wool, grain and other
agricultural commodities led to prosperity and to strong links with Flanders
and France; but later, with the discovery of America in 1492, and voyages of
exploration by English navigators to North America and the Arctic Ocean,
Britain became better known, and the islanders started looking outwards to
trade and conquest, instead of inwards to defence against invasion. The
British Isles became a stepping-off point, with considerable advantages to be
gained from their insularity and situation, contained between 50* and 60'
North latitudes and 11/2' East and 10' West latitudes. The total area of the
British Isles - over 120,000 square miles or 310,000 sq km - is only
onethirtieth part of the European land area, though the population amounts to
one-tenth of the population of Europe. Separated from the European mainland by
the shallow North Sea, the English Channel and the Strait of Dover - the
latter a land bridge until 6,000 years ago Britain has remained free of
invasion since A.D. 1066.
Though highly populated and industrialised, Britain is nevertheless
famed for her highly productive, welldeveloped agriculture, obtaining high
yields from wellbred livestock and fertile soils, based largely on alluvium,
or boulder clay, or other recent geological deposits. Yet Britain's former
industrial pre-eminence was based on native supplies of coal, iron ore and
other minerals, which she was later able to obtain from her colonies or from
friendly European neighbours, especially Scandinavia and Iberia. Similarly,
large quantities of foodstuffs for Britain's urbanised population are derived
from overseas sources. Resources of metals
are small but the recent discoveries of oil and natural gas in the North Sea
will ensure supplies of power for the next few decades. Today Britain must
concentrate on products for export in order to pay her heavy imports bill.
The houses of Britain are many and varied, for she has never lacked
building materials from rocks, nor clays for brickmaking. Even today Britain
is an important producer of cement from her supplies of chalk and limestone,
which adjoin clays or shales. Indeed the geological structure and stratigraphy
of the British Isles is extremely varied. Sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks and
much-altered metamorphic rocks are well represented, and strata from all ages
are present in Britain. Ancient Archaean rocks are to be found in north-west
Scotland, much disturbed by Caledonian earth movements. The Hercynian mountain
building of Palaeozoic times created the Pennines, Exmoor and Dartmoor, and
the tropical forests of the Carboniferous period led to the formation of coal
on the flanks of the Pennines and elsewhere. The English lowlands are composed
of sedimentary rocks, limestones, clays and sandstones, laid down in Mesozoic
or Tertiary seas, and largely remain unfolded, for the Palaeozoic substrata
are at shallow depths and resisted the elevation of the Alps and the lateral
pressures thereby created.
During Pleistocene times, much of Britain was covered by ice sheets,
which eroded and etched the uplands and deposited thick layers of boulder clay
in Cheshire, East Anglia and other areas, or else, with their melt water,
created great but now vanished lakes, such as Lake Harrison in the Midlands,
whose sediments are highly productive.
The climate of today is a mild and equable one, with no great
extremes, but highly stimulating in its day-to-day,
or hour-by-hour, changes brought by passing depressions, importing, so to
speak, the mild warm air from the North Atlantic and Gulf Stream, but
occasionally permitting the invasion of cold Arctic air. The mean temperature
of the south-west peninsula of Cornwall is 44'F (7'C), which permits all-the-
yearround growth of grass, while parts of eastern Britain, notably Cambridge
and certain valleys in Scotland, can experience considerable frost. The London
area is warmest in summer (mean temperature of 64'F or 18'C), though the South
Coast experiences most hours of sunshine per annum. The amount of rainfall is
extremely variable, both in time and space: from about 20 inches (500 mm) in
the lowlands of the Thames estuary, to nearly 200 inches (5,000 mm) in the
high mountains of the north-west. Thus the areas of intensive agriculture and
industry are those most deficient in rain, and problems of water supply and
transfer from the moist uplands to the drier lowlands are among the most
pressing of our time.
Very little of the present vegetation, which makes the British scene
so green and attractive, is natural; it has been modified, if not promoted, by
the activity of man. Even before medieval times, forest clearance had spread
to the damp oak
woods on the intractable clays of southern England, large areas were felled by
the Romans to smelt lead and other ores, and much forest clearance was carried
on for naval purposes four centuries ago.
The lowlands have many varied uses in agriculture, often with their
own distinctive breeds of livestock and with greater or lesser intensity of
crop production according to varying climate, soil, proximity to market, or to
techniques developed over the ages. Mining, industry, trade and transportation
have produced an even greater variety of regional activities, and everywhere
have been accompanied by the emergence of
urban life, sometimes with a long-continued cultural tradition, but mainly by
a virtually characterless spread of housing which often tends to occupy far
more valuable land than it needs.
Migration of industry to the coalfields in the 19th century caused the
decline of certain areas - Suffolk, Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean.
Yet, today, the areas which grew up out of the industrial revolution - such as
Lancashire, West Yorkshire, the Black Country and Central Scotland - are
themselves on the point of decline or reorganisation, as a result of the
movement of industry, people and wealth to the South-East and the London area,
the Bristol area, and the East Midlands.
Aberdeen is a large burgh in the north of Scotland. The city
of Aberdeen is situated at the head of the estuary of the Dee, a river which
rises in the central Grampians and flows eastwards to the North Sea. The Don
valley, leading into the mountains, lies just north of the town. Aberdeen is,
therefore, a market and retail centre for the farming country inland, which is
noted for a breed of beef cattle, the famous Aberdeen-Angus. Much of the town
is built of the local silver-grey granite, a stone much prized in other parts
of Britain for special buildings. Aberdeen is the most important fishing port
in Scotland, with wet docks to accommodate all kinds of boats engaged in
fishing. Fresh fish is sent by express freight trains to towns in the central
Lowlands, while great quantities of herring and cod are smoked and salted. The
burgh is the cultural and educational headquarters of the north of Scotland,
with its university founded in 1494. In 1972 a very large oilfield was
discovered off the coast here, which has boosted Aberdeen's economy.
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