236 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
Leh fF tdi de, eae 
TO THE SAME. 
ee 
—— Mugire videbis 
Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos.” 
SELBORNE. 
WHEN I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and 
implicit assent, accounts in “‘ Baker’s Chronicle” of walking hills 
and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his ‘‘ Cyder,” alludes 
to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but 
quaint vein of humour peculiar to the author of the “ Splendid 
Shilling.” 
“ T nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 
Of Marcley Hill; the apple no where finds 
A kinder mould; yet ’tis unsafe to trust 
Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more 
This mount may journey, and his present site 
Forsaken, to thy neighbour’s bounds transfer 
Thy goodly plants, afford.ng matter strange 
For law debates.”’ 
But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that 
though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of 
many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, 
leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the 
case with Nore and Whetham Hills ; and especially with the ridge 
between Harteley Park and Ward-le-Ham, where the ground has 
slid into vast swellings and furrows ; and lies still in such romantic 
confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A 
strange event, that happened not long since, justifies our suspicions ; 
which, though it befel not within the limits of this parish, yet as it 
was within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were 
singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. 
The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were 
remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain; so that 
by the end of the latter month the land-springs, or lavants, began 
to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 
1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor; 
