On its S.W. face the ridge drops abruptly into the plain, but the
opposite side gradually shelves away in a series of irregular
undulations, though the descent becomes sharper as the hills approach
the coast. Viewed from the sea-board the outline of the chain is on
either side sharply defined, and forms a prominent and shapely feature
in the landscape. From the low-lying central flats of the county the
Mendips have a quite fictitious impressiveness. Nowhere does their
altitude reach 1100 ft., and their ridge-like summit is nothing but an
extended plateau, in places from 2 to 3 m. wide. They have, however,
even on the top a certain picturesqueness, for the undulating tableland
is relieved by copses, and diversified by little wooded "bottoms,"
scooped out by prehistoric torrents. Nearer the sea the uplands become
more desolate, the "bottoms" are replaced by rocky combes, like the
gorges at Cheddar and Burrington; villages become less frequent; and
traces of discarded mines give a weirdness to the solitude. The moors
are, however, healthy, and nowhere lacking in interest. Geologically
the structure of the Mendips is simple. A core of old red sandstone,
which occasionally crops out at the surface, and through which in one
spot, near Downhead, a vein of igneous rock has forced its way, is
thickly coated with a crust of mountain limestone. The once
superincumbent coal-measures are huddled together on one side in a
confused heap near Radstock, and on the other are probably buried
beneath the Glastonbury marshes. The detached hills in their
neighbourhood are doubtless only the remnants of an oolitic covering
which once completely enveloped them. A noteworthy feature of the
Mendips, but one shared by other limestone formations, is the number of
caverns and "swallet holes" with which they abound. Of the former the
_Cheddar Caves_ and _Wookey Hole_ are the most remarkable; and a good
example of the latter is the _Devil's Punch Bowl_ near E. Harptree. The
chief antiquities consist of the old Roman lead-mines and an