OF SELBORNE. 13 



Cornua Ammonis are very common about this village 3 . 

 As we were cutting an inclining path up The Hanger, 

 the labourers found them frequently on that steep, just 

 under the soil, in the chalk, and of a considerable size. 

 In the lane above Well-head, in the way to Ernshot, 

 they abound in the bank in a darkish sort of marl ; 

 and are usually very small and soft: but in Clay's 

 Pond, a little farther on, at the end of the pit, where 

 the soil is dug out for manure, I have "-occasionally 

 observed them of large dimensions, perhaps fourteen 

 or sixteen inches in diameter. But as these did not 

 consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of 

 terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were 

 exposed to the rains and frost they mouldered away. 

 These seemed as if they were a very recent produc- 

 tion 4 . 



In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of The Hanger, 

 large Nautili are sometimes observed. 



In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at 

 considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scal- 

 lops, or Pectines, having both shells deeply striated, 

 and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly 

 impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone 

 of the quarry. 



fossil. The fields below the chalk downs at Selborne, though white in 

 the appearance of their soil a soil which thence derives its local appel- 

 lation of white malm belong in truth to the formation known to geologists 

 by the confessedly and singularly inappropriate name of green sand. To 

 the green sand formation the keeled oyster is peculiar: it appears even 

 to be limited, as a fossil, to the upper green sand, the stratum 011 which 

 the village of Selborne is built, and of which the immediately adjacent 

 enclosures consist. E. T. B. 



3 There is a village in the west of England remarkable for the quan- 

 tity it possesses of the " cornu ammonis." The name of it is Keynsham, 

 between Bath and Bristol. " This has given rise to a fabulous legend, 

 which says that St. Keyna, from whom the place takes its name, resided 

 here in a solitary wood, full of venomous serpents, and her prayers 

 converted them into stones, which still retain their shape." See Espri- 

 clla's Letters from England, vol. iii. p. 362. MITFORD. 



4 They were probably casts of the ammonites rather than the shells 

 themselves. E. T. B. 



