142 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



Works of the Creation " with the utmost satisfaction, and 

 thinks them equal to any thing he had seen in the finest 

 parts of Europe. 



For my own part, I think there is somewhat peculiarly 

 sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of chalk- 

 hills in preference to those of stone, which are rugged, 

 broken, abrupt, and shapeless. 



Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not so 

 happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never 

 contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive 

 somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings 

 and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, 

 and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air 



of vegetative dilatation and expansion Or was 



there ever a time when these immense masses of calcarious 

 matter were thrown into fermentation by some adventitious 

 moisture ; were raised and leavened into such shapes by 

 some plastic power ; and so made to swell and heave their 

 broad backs into the sky so much above the less animated 

 clay of the wild below ? 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the 

 hills that have been taken round my house, I should 

 suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average 

 at about the rate of five hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from the 

 westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks have 

 horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs; and a 

 hornless sheep is rarely to be seen: but as soon as you 

 pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding-hill, all the 

 flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call them, poll- 

 sheep ; and have moreover black faces with a white tuft 

 of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs : 

 so that you would think that the flocks of Laban were 

 pasturing on one side of the stream, and the variegated 

 breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along on the 

 other. And this diversity holds good respectively on 

 each side from the valley of Bramber and Beeding to the 

 eastward, and westward all the whole length of the downs. 

 If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, they teU 



