a county of England, bounded on the east by Norfolk, on the south by Essex and Hertfordshire, on the west by Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire, and on the north by Lincolnshire. It is about 40 miles long, 25 broad, and 130 in circumference. It lies in the diocese of Ely; and sends six members to parliament, two for the county, two for the university, and two for the town of Cambridge. The air is very different in different parts of the county. In the fens it is moist and foggy, and therefore not so wholesome; but in the south and east parts it is very good, these being much drier than the other: but both, by late improvements, have been rendered very fruitful, the former by draining, and the latter by cinquefoil; so that it produces plenty of corn, especially barley, saffron, and hemp, and affords the richest pastures. The rivers abound with fish, and the fens with wild fowl. The principal manufactures of the county are malt, paper, and balfkets. The chief rivers are the Ouse, which divides the county into two parts, and is navigable from Cambridge to Lynn in Norfolk; the Cam, which in the British signifies crooked, to denote its winding; the Welland, the Glene, the Witham, and that called Peterborough river, which is navigable to that city from Wisbech. The fens called Bedford level consist of about 300,000 acres of marshy ground, lying in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdonshire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire, and surrounded on all hands, except towards the sea, with high lands. As it appears to have been dry land formerly, the great change it has undergone must have been owing either to a violent breach and inundation of the sea, or to earthquakes. As the towns in and about the fens were great sufferers by the stagnation of the waters in summer, and want of provisions in winter, many attempts were made to drain them, but without success, until the time of Charles I. in which, and that of his son, the work was happily completed, and an act of parliament passed, by which a corporation was established for its preservation and government. By the same act, 83,000 acres were vested in the corporation, and 10,000 in the king. In these fens are a great many decoys, in which incredible numbers of ducks, and other wild fowl, are caught during the season.

New CAMBRIDGE, a town of New England about three miles from Boston, remarkable for an university consisting of three colleges. W. Long. 70. 4. N. Lat. 42. 0.