VILLAGE OF SELBORNE STREAMS. 13 



logous to chalk, is plain, from the beeches, which 

 descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, 

 and thrive as well on them, where the ground is 

 steep, as on the chalks. 



The cart-way of the village divides, in a remark- 

 able manner, two very incongruous soils. To the 

 south-west is a rank clay, that requires the labour 

 of years to render it mellow ; while the gardens to 

 the north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist 

 of a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black 

 malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable 

 and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have 

 been the original site of the town ; while the woods 

 and coverts might extend down to the opposite 

 bank. 



At each end of the village, which runs from south- 

 east to north-west, arises a small rivulet : that at 

 the north-west end frequently fails ; but the other 

 is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought 

 or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out 

 of some high grounds adjoining to Nore Hill, a 

 noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending 

 forth two streams into two different seas. The one 

 to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running 

 to Arundel, and so falling into the British Channel ; 

 the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes 

 one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Black- 

 down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farn- 

 ham stream at Tilford- bridge, swells into a consi- 

 derable river, navigable at Godalming ; from whence 



* This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe 

 hot summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons 

 of water in a minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, 

 and twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred 

 and sixteen hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. 

 At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the 

 vales were dry. 



