DESCRI PTION, <$•«.

CHAPTER I.

FORM, SIZE, POSITION, AND PRINCIPAL DIVISIONS OF THE ISLAND.

1 iie Isle of Wight is separated from the main land of Hampshire by a strait called the Solent Sea. This name is not, however, incommon use, nor is the strait known by any generally receiveddistinctive appellation. It is of a rhomboidal shape, and, allow-ing for some curvatures in its coasts, of a remarkably regularconformation. Its two diameters intersect each other almost atright angles : they very nearly are mutually bisected : and thefour angles deviate very little from the principal points of thecompass, The shorter diameter of the Island passes from WestCowes to St. Catherine’s Hill; the former being the northernmost,the latter the southernmost point of the Island , and absolutelyunder the same meridian ; the distance between these points isthirteen miles and three quarters. The longest diameter is a linedrawn from the Foreland, a little north of Culver clilf, to the