2 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an assem- 

 blage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect 

 is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of moun- 

 tains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guilford, 

 and by the downs round Dorking and Ryegate, in Surrey, to the 

 north-east, which altogether, with the country beyond Alton and 

 Farnham, form a noble and extensive outline. 



At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies 

 the village, which consists of one single straggling street, three 

 quarters of a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running pa- 

 rallel with the Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by 

 a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white 

 stone, little in appearance removed from chalk, but seems so far 

 from being calcareous that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the 

 freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk is 

 plain from the beeches which descend as low as those rocks ex- 

 tend and no further, and thrive as well on them, where the ground 

 is steep, as on the chalks.* 



The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, 

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

 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, which 

 seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and 

 these may perhaps have been the original site of the town, while 

 the wood and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 



* It is doubted by many naturalists whether the beech (fagus sylvatica) can strictly be consi- 

 dered a truly British tree, the older examples of it being mostly situate in places where they may 

 probably have been planted. It is now, however, at least most thoroughly naturalized, and in 

 many districts certainly assumes an indigenous aspect, 'particularly in the extensive woods 

 surrounding Stokenchurch, Bucks, where the young timber is manufactured on a large scale into 

 chairs, bedsteads, and the like, many waggon-loads of which are weekly sent up to London. It 

 appears to thrive most upon a chalky soil, where it will attain considerable dimensions, especially 

 when growing on a slope. Some very beautiful examples of it may be seen on that charming 

 spot, the bold chalk-escarpment of Box-hill, near Dorking, in Surrey; and several of surpassing 

 magnitude in Norbury-park, in the same neighbourhood, where also are some noble yews, and 

 many Spanish chestnuts of prodigious size, together with some gigantic oaks, and within a 

 short distance several remarkably fine common elms and huge aspen poplars, which last tree 

 attains a magnificent growth in Surrey. The interior of this county will indeed vie with any 

 part of England for the growth of most of our forest-trees ; but, unfortunately, the finer examples 

 are fast disappearing before the woodman's axe the need, or avarice, or want of taste of one 

 proprietor of ten dooming to destruction that which for centuries had been the pride and 

 admiration of a long line of predecessors. An aged and curious remnant of a beech, now 

 growing in the Windsor Great Park, and figured and described by Mr. Jesse, in the second 

 series of his delightful " Gleanings in Natural History," measures 36 feet in circumference ; 

 and a very splendid and far more beautiful tree of the same species, now in the pride of its 

 growth, situate within a short distance of Lyudhurst, in the New-forest, Hants, is well known 

 and deservedly celebrated as the "queen" of that princely forest. En. 



