230 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER XLVI. 



TO THE SAME. 



Selborne. 

 " resonant arbusta " 



THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze 

 close to the back of this village, well known by the name of 

 the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining 

 to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the gryllus 

 campestris, or field-cricket; which, though frequent in these 



passage, which gives in brief the rationale of the occurrence : " That 

 neither the rock which had parted from the cliff*, nor any fragment of it, 

 remained upon the surface below the naked face of the escarpment is 

 indeed sufficient evidence of its having passed beneath the soil. But to 

 account for its subsidence it is by no means necessary to assume, as 

 appears to be conjectured in the text, the existence of a gulf below it, 

 into which it had been absorbed. The geological relations of the strata 

 point to a much easier, as well as a more correct, explanation of the 

 occurrence. Here, as elsewhere throughout the district, the malm rock, 

 or freestone of the Upper Greensand formation, rests upon the gault or 

 blue clay, a rock upon a yielding base. An adequate weight placed upon 

 so infirm a soil as the lower of these formations must of necessity sink 

 into it. So prodigious a mass as that which, on the occasion described in 

 the text, was separated from its native rock, and left to bo supported by 

 the soft clay alone, was more than its pulpy nature could support j and it 

 gave way accordingly, removing into its yielding substance, and burying 

 almost entirely beneath its surface, the detached face of the cliff, which 

 subsided into it so easily and so perpendicularly as not to disturb the 

 adjustment of a gate upon the sunken mass, once on the top, and now at 

 the foot of the escarpment " (Bennett's edition, p. 341). Mr. Bennett 

 enlarges on the subject to a greater extent than we need to follow, and 

 with his accustomed accuracy and clearness. 



The earliest account of this remarkable catastrophe is contained in a 

 letter (which will be found in the Appendix) from John White, who was 

 then residing with his uncle Gilbert, to his cousin Samuel Barker, and 

 written at his uncle's desire, and doubtless from his dictation. The 

 Hanger, which was the scene of this event, had formerly been the 

 property of Gilbert White's father. T. B.] 



