382 CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 



hands by former writers and favorers, the assertion of sub- 

 terranean connections with the sea, against Ray and others. 

 I cannot help looking on these communications as imaginary, 

 and am inclined to join with Bay, who asserts that rain and 

 dew are sufficient to supply all springs. When you describe 

 the perennity of the Selburn spring, it does not seem foreign 

 to the purpose for you to sum up the evidence on both sides, 

 remarking the peculiarity of upland ponds being supplied 

 when those in the vallies fail *, which I believe will prove a 

 new observation. Certainly hills and mountains are conden- 

 sers, and convert by their coldness the ascending vapours 

 into water ; but more of this when we meet. 



I am, yours aff y , 



THOS. WHITE. 



TIMOTHY THE TORTOISE TO MISS HECKY MULSO. 



From the border under the fruit wall, 



Aug. 31, 1784. 

 MOST RESPECTABLE LADY, 



YOUR letter gave me great satisfaction, being the first that 

 ever I was honor'd with. It is my wish to answer you in 

 your own way ; but I never could make a verse in my life, so 

 you must be contented with plain prose f. Having seen but 

 little of this great world, conversed but little and read less, I 

 feel myself much at a loss how to entertain so intelligent a 

 correspondent. Unless you will let me write about myself, 

 my answer will be very short indeed. Know then that I am 

 an American, and was born in the year 1734 in the Province 

 of Virginia in the midst of a Savanna that lay between a large 



* [This subject is treated of fully and in a most interesting manner in 

 the XXIXth letter to Barrington (Vol. I. p. 192). T. B.] 



t [It is evident from this allusion that Gilbert White's amusing jeu 

 d'esprit was occasioned by some verses addressed by Miss Mulso to 

 Timothy the Tortoise. These, however, I regret to say, I have not 

 succeeded in finding. T. B.] 



