OF SEL130HNE. 3 



At the foot of this hill, ouo stage or step from the uplands, 

 lies the village, which consists of one single straggling street, 

 three quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and 

 running parallel with The Hanger. The houses are divided 

 from the hill by a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet 

 stand on a rock of white stone, little in appearance removed 

 from chalk ; but seems so far from being calcarious, that it 

 endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves 

 somewhat that is analogous 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 remarkable 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 

 nut I m, which seems highly saturated with vegetable and 

 animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the 

 original site of the town ; while the wood 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 joining to Nore Hilly 

 a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two 

 streams into two different seas. The one to the south be- 

 comes 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 



a 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. 



B2 



