NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. n 



NOTES TO LETTER III. 



1 This fossil is not what White supposes, but is a different species, belonging 

 to the upper greensand, known as Ostrea carinata. 



2 The Ammonite is a very striking-looking fossil, and a common one. 

 When I was a small boy I used to delight in playing with a very large one 

 belonging to my father's collection, which would take to pieces, each section 

 of the shell being loose, showing the formation admirably. 



LETTER IV. 



As in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only 

 mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular. 



This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of 

 ovens : and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account ; for 

 the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand of 

 which fluxes,* and runs by the intense heat, and so cases over 

 the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat-like glass, 

 that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures 

 thirty or forty years. When chiseled smooth, it makes elegant 

 fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to Bath stone ; and 

 superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. 

 Decent chimney-pieces are worked from it of much closer and 

 finer grain than Portland ; and rooms are floored with it ; but 

 it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone 

 cutting in all directions ; yet has something of a grain parallel 

 with the horizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but laid 

 in the same position that it grows in the quarry. f On the ground 

 abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, because, 



* There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime a 

 proportion of sand : for few chalks are so pure as to have none. 



t To sttrbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in the 

 quarry, says Dr. Plot, "Oxfordshire," p. 77. But surbedding does not succeed 

 in our dry walls ; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for 

 Teynton stone. 



