A large part of the surface of England consists of wide valleys and plains. Beginning in the north, the first valleys on the east side are those of the Coquet, Tyne, and Tees; on the west the beautiful valley of the Eden, which, at first hemmed in between the Cumbrian range and Pennine chain, gradually widens out into a plain of about 470 sq. miles, with the town of Carlisle in its centre. The most important of the northern plains is the Vale of York, which has an area of nearly 1000 sq. miles. Properly speaking it is still the same plain which stretches, with scarcely a single interruption, across the counties of Lincoln, Suffolk, and Essex, to the mouth of the Thames, and to a considerable distance inland, comprising the Central Plain and the region of the Fens. On the west side of the island, in South Lancashire and Cheshire, is the fertile Cheshire Plain. In Wales there are no extensive plains, the valleys generally having a narrow rugged form favourable to romantic beauty, but not compatible with great fertility. Wales, however, by giving rise to the Severn, can justly claim part in the vale, or series of almost unrivalled vales, along which it pursues its romantic course through the counties of Montgomery, Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester. South-east of the Cotswold Hills is Salisbury Plain, but it is only in name that it can be classed with the other plains and level lands of England, being a large elevated plateau, of an oval shape, with a thin chalky soil only suitable for pasture. In the south-west the only vales deserving of notice are those of Taunton in Somerset and Exeter in Devon. A large portion of the south-east may be regarded as a continuous plain, consisting of what are called the Wealds of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, between the North and South Downs, and containing an area of about 1000 sq. miles. The south-east angle of this district is occupied by the Romney Marsh, an extensive level tract composed for the most part of a rich marine deposit. Extensive tracts of a similar nature are situated on the east coast, in Yorkshire and Lincoln, where they are washed by the Humber; and in the counties which either border the Wash, or, like Northampton, Bedford, Huntingdon, and Cambridge, send their drainage into it by the Nene and the Ouse. Many of these lands are naturally the richest in the kingdom, but have been utilized only by means of drainage.