The Natural History of Selborne 5 



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 per- 

 haps 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 Wey bridge ; 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 those who drink the pure 

 element, but which does not lather well with soap. 4 



* 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 

 in 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. 2 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. 4 The water is hard, being strongly 

 impregnated with lime from the chalk. ED. 



