The Natural History of Selborne 5 



two very incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank 

 clay, 1 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 malm, 2 which seems highly saturated with vegetable and 

 animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the original 

 site of the town ; while the woods 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 Hill, a 

 noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two 

 streams into two different seas. The one to the south 

 becomes 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 [Headley] and the Alton 

 and Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a consider- 

 able river, navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to 

 Guildford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge ; and thus at 

 the Nore into the German Ocean. 3 



Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and 

 when sunk to that depth seldom fail; but produce a fine 

 limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by 



* This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after a severe hot summer, 

 and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, 

 which is 540 i n an hour, and 12,960, or 216 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. 



1 Now called the Gault. ED. * So known locally to the present 

 day. ED. 3 In all the editions I have seen, the first included, this 



sentence and the previous one are made unintelligible by placing a full 

 stop at the word "north" and omitting the commas at "other" and 

 "stream." I have restored the passage as the author obviously intended 

 it to read. Here and in several other places, indeed, I have ventured 

 to amend the text by correcting what I take to be evident printer's 

 errors in the first edition. ED. 



