No part of Devonshire is now, as was formerly the case, wholly surrounded by any other county. Three of its parishes, however, are partly in Dorset, one is partly in Cornwall, and one, a district of Exmoor containing no houses or inhabitants, is partly in Somerset. Culmstock, which before 1842 was considered to belong to Somerset, although completely islanded in Devon, and Stockland and Dalwood, which were reckoned with Dorset, although they were entirely inside the Devonshire border, have now been formally transferred to this county. On the other hand, Thornecombe and Ford Abbey, which belonged to Devonshire although they were situate in the adjoining county, have been handed over to Dorset. Still later alterations were the transfer of Hawkchurch and Churchstanton from Dorset to Devon in 1896. 4. Surface and General Features. Devonshire is characterised by such great irregularity and unevenness of surface that practically the only level land in it is along the shores of its estuaries; with the almost inevitable result that it is one of the most picturesque and beautiful counties in England. Its scenery has been very greatly affected by subterranean movements, which have not only roughly shaped its hills and valleys, partly by upheaval and partly by the shrinkage of the earth's crust, but have been the principal cause of the breadth of the river estuaries which are so marked a feature of its coasts, especially of the south. At many points along the shore of Devonshire there is evidence, in raised sea-beaches, and, near Torquay, in the borings of marine mollusca at a great height above the present tide-line, of upheavals that must have raised the whole coast, even if they did not materially change the contour of the country. On the other hand, the existence of submerged forests at many places near the shore proves that the land has sunk at least forty feet, thus allowing the sea to flow further inland; thereby greatly widening the already existing valleys, which had been formed in part by the shrinkage of the earth's crust, and in part by the action of the rivers. [Illustration: The Upper Dart, from the Moors]