OF SELBORNK. 343 



a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family ; 

 and just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inha- 

 bited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These 



rapidly procure for itself an outlet ; and the drainage, instead of remain- 

 ing in a pond, would pass along a gutter or a streamlet to the lower lands. 



At the base of Hawkley Slip, however, there is a pond, small though 

 it be : and the existence of so uncommon a basin in that situation may, I 

 think, be accounted for on the supposition that the hillock interposed 

 between it and the green slope into the flat bottom, consists, in its mass, 

 of portions of the freestone, escaped from the front of the terrace above ; 

 and that the freestone buried in the hillocks rises so high beneath the cover- 

 ing earth as to be elevated above the ordinary level of the water drained 

 into the pond from above ; thus forming, with the base of the slip, a cup 

 composed of a substance which does not yield, like the blue clay, to the 

 sapping influence of the liquid. A slight drainage exists, probably sinking 

 through small interstices of the masses of rock which I have assumed to 

 be buried in this situation, and indicates its course not merely by an im- 

 pressed line on the soil, but also by occasional oaks of moderate age 

 crossing the pasture at a right angle with the Hanger. 



With so very slight a drainage as that indicated, and it is all the dis- 

 charge that I have observed for the waters that are poured upon this side 

 of the Hanger, it is not surprising that they should accumulate to so 

 great an extent as to cause occasional slips. On the opposite verge, the 

 range of the terrace of malm-rock is intersected by a deeply penetrating 

 ravine, along the gault bottom of which an ample drainage exists for the 

 whole of the side towards Empshot, by a streamlet running into the 

 Hawkley stream between Hawkley and Greatham mills, and consequently 

 forming one of the higher feeders of the Arun. The dip of the freestone 

 being slightly towards the north, the terrace, of whose southern escarp- 

 ment the slip forms only a small part, inclines also in that direction, and 

 hence the streamlet, its natural drainage, is, as natural drainages in all 

 but the flattest countries must necessarily be, a very efficient one. But 

 the history of the Hawkley slip shows that it may happen that all the 

 water poured from the clouds shall not escape from the surface in that 

 direction : so much as is showered on the face of the Hanger cannot be 

 carried off by it, but must find a vent elsewhere. 



In other situations, and particularly on the southern coast of the Isle 

 of Wight, slips similar to that of Hawkley have taken place, and from 

 the same cause : either the separation of a portion of the freestone rock 

 of the upper green sand formation and its subsidence into the gault ; or 

 the loosening of the gault and the subsequent separation and subsidence 

 of a portion of the free stone, which could no longer be supported when 

 its natural foundation had thus given way. The delicious scenery of the 

 celebrated and enchanting district of the Isle of Wight, known as the 

 Undercliff, is owing to a similar accident; but of gigantic extent as com- 

 pared with that of Hawkley : its history, however, belongs to other days. 

 But within days of recent record an immense fall of the same kind has 

 taken place at the well-known land-slip on the same coast, under St. Ca- 

 therine's Down, near Niton ; in the midst of which is seated the powerful 



