300 The Vale of Warminster. 
Chalk, as it is found naturally is not a good basis for holding 
water: water runs through it as through a sieve. The bottom of 
these ponds is therefore “ puddled ” with clay, straw, and a layer of 
chalk. 
The difficulty is to fill them the first time. This is done at the 
first downfall of snow, which is heaped into the pond: after this is 
melted and there is water, the supply is kept up by the clouds and 
dew (attracted by the water there), no matter how many sheep 
drink. : 
Mr. Davis (Wilts Agriculture, p. 13, edit. 1811) recommends the | 
high ground. “ Much expense [he says] would be saved in sheep- , 
ponds, if care were taken to dig them on the highest points of the 
hills. They are kept there free from the running of dirt into them, 
are kept full by rain and fogs; and by loose stones laid upon the 
rammed chalk are less liable to injury by the tread of sheep or cattle, 
as well as less subject to damage by heat or frost.” 
In some cases, perhaps the reason why water will “hold” (as 
they say) better on the tops of Wiltshire downs, may be this: the 
chalk stratum which overlies South Wilts was formerly itself overlaid 
by other strata, gravels, sands, and clays. ‘The greater part of those 
overlying strata have been entirely washed away, leaving only here 
and there fragments of themselves. It has been already mentioned 
that Grovely and Savernake Forests grow chiefly on such overlying 
gravels and sands. There is a hill near Everley, called Cidbury : an 
outlier, or lonely hill, like Cley Hill, entirely of chalk, except the 
top, which consists of a complete bed of gravel pebbles, round and 
smooth ; reminding one of what we used to call at school a black 
cap pudding—i.e., a mass of pudding, with a layer (and we thought 
it a very thin layer) of currants at the top. Now, on the highest 
top of some of these chalk hills you find brickyards, as on the down 
near Highclere, Lord Carnarvon’s. This is a portion of a former 
overlying statum of clay ; so that one reason why ponds on the tops 
of the hills hold water so well, may be, because there is some part 
of the clay stratum still left there. 
- Iam not going to inflict upon you a dissertation upon the stock 
and husbandry of your neighbourhood; but as we are treating the 
