Bristol is situated in 51° 30′ N. L., and 2° 40′ W, L. from Greenwich. It lies on both sides of the River Avon, and, although a county in itself; it occupies what would otherwise form a portion of both Gloucestershire and Somersetshire, which are here conterminous, and separated by the Avon; about four-fifths of the city being on the Gloucestershire, and one-fifth on the Somersetshire, side of the river; yet such is the ignorance of people living at a distance on this subject, that Bristol is vulgarly supposed to lie in Somersetshire.
The River Avon falls into the Bristol Channel or Severn Sea, about seven miles below Bristol; and, although scarcely more than sixty feet wide at low water, is navigable for ships of great burthen, the tide rising, at the Hotwells and the entrance of the floating harbour, to the height, at times, of thirty-six feet perpendicular.
In its course to the sea it passes, for some miles, in a narrow winding channel, through the picturesque and stupendous precipices of Clifton, commonly called St. Vincent's Rocks, which rise from the water's edge almost perpendicularly, to the height of nearly 300 feet. The channel through which the water here escapes, is formed by a fissure in the flat limestone ridge called Durdham-down, Leigh-down, Cleve-down, &c. which skirts the Bristol Channel for almost twenty miles below the embouchure of the Avon, serving as a wall to defend the vale or basin in which Bristol is situated, from the chilly breezes and stormy winds blowing in from the Atlantic, and essentially contributing to the well known comparative mildness of the climate of Bristol and its vicinity.
