The ground forming the Birmingham plateau rises and falls into an endless succession of heights and hollows; here sinking down into broad tree-sheltered, stream-cut valleys, there rising into long low mounds and hills. The subsoil throughout is mainly gravel or sandy clay, and the underground drainage is, as a rule, excellent. The north-western half of the plateau still retains its original forest character, and the primeval aspect of the district is recalled by the wild area of Sutton Park--a picturesque admixture of long, dry, pebbly mounds, covered with thick woods of oak, ash and holly, and divided from each other by open glades of gorse patches, with long, flat, treeless expanses, shrouded in dark heather and picked out here and there with deep, clear water-pools. The central half of the plateau is now covered by the great town of Birmingham and its immediate dependencies. The town stands upon a series of broad rounded knolls, divided from each other by intervening open valleys. The more elevated points are marked by the church of St. Philip’s, Newhall Hill, Soho Hill, and the Monument; while the great maze of streets, manufactories and commercial buildings fill up all the space between. Strictly speaking, the town proper lies in the angle included between the river Tame and its little tributary the Rea. The Tame runs in a broad valley round the north-eastern side of the town to the low-lying district of Saltley, and thence takes its course north-eastward across the Midland plain towards the Trent at Burton. The little river Rea, which is the Birmingham river par excellence, runs from the Lickey Hills through the south-eastern corner of the town, across the low-lying district of Digbeth, and joins the Tame at Saltley. The south-western portion of the Birmingham plateau is occupied by the fashionable district of Edgbaston and the neighbouring suburbs of Harborne and Moseley. While the original upland character of the plateau is still distinctly apparent, the dwellers in this southern area have in all other respects utterly changed its former aspect. The land has been reclaimed and enclosed. In place of the wild oak and ash, we have masses of the Elizabethan elm, the fir and the beech; and in place of the wild heather, cultivated lawns and grassy fields. Every advantage has been taken of the natural resources of site and soil; and the result is that Edgbaston and its surroundings form one broad expanse of mansions, woods and fields, well worthy of the town and neighbourhood.