6 NATURAL HISTORY 



LETTER II. 



TO THE SAME. 



IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to 

 the north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood 

 within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych 



extent and beauty; especially those which embrace the whole of the 

 subjacent formations, and stretch away as far as the ridges of Hind 

 Head and of Black Down. These are among the most engaging of the 

 Selborne scenes. A lovely view is the one which is obtained from the 

 top of the Slidder, embracing a vast extent of varied country, and show- 

 ing, immediately beneath the observer, the principal buildings of the 

 village. 



Next in succession to the chalk is the formation technically known as 

 the upper green sand ; and there are spots at Selborne in which a green 

 sand is plentifully distributed through a chalky malm. But the mass of 

 the formation which passes under this denomination consists here of the 

 freestone or firestone of the text, which lies immediately below the 

 chalk, and spreads away with a slow rise towards the east, constituting 

 a slightly sloping but a uniform flat except where its face has been broken 

 into by the force of water or the more petty power of man. In its upper 

 surface deep fissures have been formed for the discharge of the springs 

 from Nore Hill, and from the hill to the north of the village; and the 

 Lithes, and Dorton, and the Combe, and the Priory valley owe their 

 existence to this power. The rocky lanes, spoken of in Letter V., also 

 belong to this stratum : they have been cut in its upper portion princi- 

 pally by the action of long continued traffic on a friable substance ; they 

 have gradually become, from their depression, converted into water- 

 courses; and the attrition has been rendered by this means more effec- 

 tual, the fragments torn off by the wheels of the carts being perpetually 

 removed from the naked rock by the force of the water. But the most 

 strongly marked feature of this formation is the extreme regularity with 

 which it usually rises slowly in a lengthened and widely spread Hat, 

 until it terminates suddenly by an abrupt and cliff-like fall, constituting 

 a terrace or escarpment. This character belongs to the whole range of 

 the rock within the parish of Selborne and for several miles both to the 

 north and south of it. 



The Selborne rock is the subsoil of the whole of the village, and of the 

 malm lands. Its upper part is of a rubbly character, constituting, in cul- 

 tivation, the white malm, celebrated for its excellent wheat: and little 

 except wheat and a few patches of hops is to be seen in the enclosed 

 fields that occupy its whole extent. In the valleys of its water-courses 

 there is good pasturage; their sides are well wooded, in some instances 

 entirely with beech, and in others with oak ; and along the edges of their 



