514 STATE AND PROSPECTS OF ARBORICULTURE IN HAMPSHIRE. 
rounding country. The deposit extends from Hawley to Eversley 
Common, and about a mile broad, of irregular shape, being in- 
dented with narrow gorges, which give rise to a number of 
streamlets running to all the points of the compass. At about a 
mile and a half from the village of Blackwater, on the Berkshire 
border, and on the great road from London to the south-west, at 
the thirty-second mile-stone, the “flats” commence ; and for a 
distance of three miles the road is as straight as an arrow and 
nearly level, passing over about as bleak and barren a piece of 
heath as is to be found in England, with nothing to relieve the 
eye but a few clumps of thorns and brambles. Like oases in the 
desert, these afford some shelter from the bitter blast which 
otherwise sweeps unchecked across this barren waste. Of late 
years the Scots fir has made attempts to dispute the sway of 
barrenness ; but hardy as it is, and of a perseverance characteristic 
of its countrymen, its progress is slow. 
On the east side of the county adjoining Surrey and Sussex is 
the Folkestone beds, the Gault and Upper Greensand older forma- 
tions, and underlying the chalk. The character of the scenery of 
this part is different—the slopes, locally called hangings, being 
more abrupt and the outlines bolder than the rounded forms of 
the chalk hills. The royal forests of Alice Holt and Woolmer 
are situated here, the former on the Gault and the latter on the 
Upper Greensand. 
The south-western part of the county consists of the plastic and 
London clays, the Lower Bagshot and Bracklesham beds, the 
Barton clay, Upper Bagshot sand, the Osborne and Headon beds, 
with alluvium, shingle, and blown sand. The plastic clay skirts 
the boundary of the chalk from Westbourne in Sussex to West 
‘Tytherley on the borders of Wiltshire ; it again appears at West 
Dean, following the chalk of Dean Hill, and entering Wiltshire 
near Melchet Park ; it reappears at Fordingbridge, thence to 
Whichbury and to’ West Park, returning to Fordingbridge. It 
also follows the chalk from Emsworth and across the Titchfield 
river, on the west side of which there is a large deposit, returning 
by Portsmouth, Hayling Island, to West Thorney. 
The London clay follows the course of the plastic, in a 
broader and more irregular belt, but is not found detached. On 
this and the plastic clay is situated the Royal Forest of Bere and 
the ancient forest of Waltham Chace, belonging to the Bishop of 
Winchester, but which is now mostly enclosed and cultivated. 
