NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 199 



mendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable 

 inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost 

 solicitude and confusion, expecting every moment to be buried 

 under the ruins of their shattered edifices. When daylight 

 came they were at leisure to contemplate the devastations of 

 the night : they then found that a deep rift, or chasm, had 

 opened under their houses, and torn them, as it were, in two ; 

 and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar man- 

 ner : that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange 

 reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; 

 that many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicu- 

 lar, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of 

 neighboring trees ; and that a gate was thrust forward, with 

 its hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be made 

 to it. From the foot of the cliff the general course of the 

 ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for 

 half a mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were 

 rifted, in every direction, as well towards the great woody 

 hanger, as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began ; 

 and running across the lane, and under the buildings, made 

 such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time ; 

 and so over to an arable field on the other side, which was 

 strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture field, 

 being more soft and springy, was protruded forward without 

 many fissures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges 

 resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion. At the 

 bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet 

 against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther 

 course and terminated this awful commotion. 



The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is 

 twenty-three yards ; the length of the lapse or slip as seen 

 from the fields below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a 

 partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards 

 more ; so that the total length of this fragment that fell was 

 two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land 

 suffered from this violent convulsion ; two houses were en- 

 tirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the 

 walls being cracked through the very stones that composed 

 them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock ; and 



