NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 3 
and no farther, and thrive as well on them, where the ground is 
steep, as on the chalks. 
The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two 
very incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank clay, that 
requires the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens 
to the north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, 
forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which seems highly 
saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may per- 
haps have been the original site of the town ; while the woods and 
coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 
WELL-HEAD. 
At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north- 
west, arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west end frequently 
fails ; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by 
drought or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of 
* This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after asevere hot summer, and a preceding 
dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 
12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many 
of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry. 
The ‘‘ Well-head,” as represented in the vignette, ‘‘ breaks out of the land at the foot 
of the Hanger, and spreading into a picturesque pond contracts again into a narrow 
stream, which flows past the village, and swells into a river at Godalming.” 
B 2 
