1 8 The Natural History of Selborne 



very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and 

 composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented to- 

 gether by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut 

 without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often 

 found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths 

 about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain ; is ex- 

 cellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In 

 many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of 

 the ground ; but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the 

 eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow and 

 the stratum thin. This stone is imperishable. 



From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, 

 and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small frag- 

 ments about the size of the head of a large nail, and then 

 stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their 

 freestone walls; this embellishment carries an odd appear- 

 ance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us 

 pleasantly, " whether we fastened our walls together with ten- 

 penny nails." 1 



J Walls of this sort still occur at Selborne : there are many close to the 

 church. They are also common at Dorking and in other places on the 

 Greensand area. For an example, see illustration on p. 14. ED. 



