SOIL, 5 



to remind us of the ancient state of England, or to 

 make credible the narratives of our old historians, 

 who lived when Britain was a forest. Where 

 shall we look for the remnants of that mighty wood 

 filled with boars, bulls, and savage beasts, that 

 surrounded London? Even in our own days, 

 heaths, moors, and wilds have disappeared, so as 

 to leave no indications of their former state but the 

 name. Woods and forests seem to be the original 

 productions of most soils and countries favourable 

 for the abode of mankind, as if inviting a settlement 

 and offering materials for its use. As colonies 

 increase, wants are augmented ; the woods are 

 consumed ; the plough is introduced, division of 

 property follows ; a total change and obliteration 

 ensues, though the ancient appellation by which the 

 district was known yet continues. 



The parish consists in parts of a poor, shattery 

 grey clay, beneath which we find, in some places, a 

 coarse lias; in others a spongy, rough, impure 

 limestone; in other parts a thin stratum of soil is 

 spread over an immense and irregular rock of car- 

 bonate of lime, running to an unknown depth : this 

 in many cases protrudes in great blocks through 

 the thin skin of earth. The rock, though usually 

 stratified, has no uniform dip, but tends to dif- 

 ferent directions ; in some places it appears as if 

 immense sheets of semifluid matter had been pushed 

 out of the station it had settled in, by some other 

 or later-formed heavy-moving mass, or met with an 

 impediment, and so rolled up : that these sheets 



