Dor'setshire, or Dorset, a county on the English Channel, between Hampshire and Devonshire. Its greatest length is 58 miles; its greatest breadth, 40; and its area, 998 sq. m., or 627,265 acres, of which a third is arable, a ninth waste, and the rest pasture. The coast-line is 75 miles long, with fine cliffs and headlands. St Alban's Head (354 feet high) and Golden Cap (619 feet high) are among the highest coast points between Dover and Land's End. About midway in the coast-line is the so-called Isle of Portland, connected with the mainland by the remarkable Chesil Bank (q.v.). Chalk downs run along the south coast, and through the middle of the county nearly from east to west. The highest point is Pillesden Pen (934 feet). The chief rivers are the Stour and the Frome. The chief mineral productions are the celebrated Purbeck and Portland building-stones, and white china and pipe clays. At Swanage is found the celebrated Purbeck marble, seen in many English cathedrals. The climate is mild. The chalk hills or downs are covered with short fine pasture, on which numbers of Southdown sheep are fed. The soil is chiefly sand, gravel, clay, and chalk. Pop. (1S41) 175,054; (1871) 195,537; (1881) 190,979; (1901) 202,962. The county has sent four members to parliament since 1885, when Dorchester, Brid-port, Poole, Weymouth and Melcombe Regis, Shaftesbury, and Wareham, formerly sending up ten members, ceased to be separate constituencies. Dorsetshire has ancient British and Roman remains, as stone circles, cromlechs, barrows, camps, an amphitheatre, three Roman stations, and a chambered long barrow, known as Gray Mare and Colts, near Gorwell. There are some remains of 40 abbacies, priories, hospitals, etc. The ruins of Corfe Castle (q.v.) are among the grandest in England. The scenery of Dorsetshire has been rendered familiar to many outside the county by the works of Barnes and Hardy. See works by Hutchins (2 vols. 1774; 3d ed. 4 vols. 1861-73), Worth (2d ed. 1889), Mayo (1885), and Moule(1894).