to 
38 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
rifted, in every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, as 
from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began ; and running 
across the lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves 
that the road was impassable for some time; and so over to an 
arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn and 
disordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, 
was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was 
raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the 
motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose 
many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their 
farther course, and terminated this awful commotion. 
The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is twenty- 
three yards ; the length of the lapse or slip as seen from the fields 
below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a partial fall, concealed 
in the coppice, extends seventy yards more; so that the total 
length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one 
yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convul- 
sion ; two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn 
was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones 
that composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked 
rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and 
rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time neither fit for the 
plough or safe for pasturage, till considerable labour and expense 
had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping 
fissures. 
