NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 3 



and no farther, 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 per- 

 haps have been the original site of the town ; while the woods and 

 coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 



\VKI L-HHAU. 



At each end of the. village, which runs from south-east to north- 

 west, arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west end frequently 

 fails ; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by 

 drought or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of 



* This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after asevere hot summer, and a preceding 

 dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 

 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many 

 of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry. 



The " Well-head," as represented in the vignette, " breaks out of the land at the foot 

 of the Hanger, and spreading into a picturesque pond contracts again into a narrow 

 stream, which flows past the village, and swells into a river at Godalming." 



B 2 



