4 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
some high grounds joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, 
remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas. 
The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to 
Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel: the other to the 
north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey; and, 
meeting the Black-down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and 
Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, 
navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to Guilford, and 
so into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the 
German Ocean. 
Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and when 
sunk to that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine limpid water, 
soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the 
pure element, but which does not lather well with soap. 
To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of 
fair enclosures, consisting of what is called white malm, a sort of 
rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, 
moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.* 
Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white 
land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the 
plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and 
have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The 
white soil produces the brightest hops. 
As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer Forest, at the 
juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, 
remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of 
Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, 
and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the 
freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so 
brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam 
the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest ;’ 
and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips. 
* ‘This soil produces good wheat and clover. 
