BOTANY ALTHOUGH the highest point in Berkshire does not reach 1,000 feet above the sea, there is probably no equally level county which can compare with it in the picturesque char- acter of its scenery ; while its rich meadows, the graceful outline of the chalk hills, its high breezy heathlands, its sombre pine- woods, and its stately royal park and forest afford varied and delightful scenes of quiet and peaceful beauty. The contour of the county is rather unusual. If a section of it were made from north to south from Lechlade to the Hampshire border, which is to the south of Hungerford, it would be found that on the north the river Thames at Lechlade is about 250 feet above the sea level. From this level the country rises and attains the height of 465 feet on Badbury Hill. This hill is on the western side of a range which stretches nearly west and east, its highest eastern points being Pickett's Heath, which is 535, and Wytham Hill, which is 539 feet above the sea. This range slopes gently down to the south so that near Shrivenham its altitude is about 200 feet. The country then rises rapidly to the summit of the White Horse Hill, which is 840 feet high. This chalk ridge, like the preceding range of hills which belong to the Coralline formation, also runs in a direction which is nearly west to east ; in fact, it is one of the four ranges of chalk hills which radiate from the high ground of Salisbury Plain. In its progress through Berkshire it sinks slightly in elevation, so that while on the White Horse it is 840, at Wantage it is 740, at Letcombe Castle it is 690, at Lowbury it is 585, and at King Standing Hill it is only 391 feet above the sea : the river Thames at Mongewell is about 160 feet above sea level. Returning to consider the imaginary section on the west of the county, it will be found that from the summit of the White Horse Hill the ground gradually slopes towards the Kennet, which enters the county near Hungerford ; there the river is about 328 feet above the sea, while at its outfall into the Thames at Reading it is not more than 123 feet. This river runs also in a direction nearly west and east in Berkshire. From the trough of the valley at Hungerford the ground soon rises in an abrupt escarpment of the chalk to the greatest altitude which this formation reaches in southern England, namely on Walbury Camp, which is 959 feet above the sea ; the neighbouring hill, called Gibbet Hill, reaches 955 feet, and in the slight depression between the two hills there is a small pond 27
