238 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



rifted, in every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, as 

 from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began ; and running 

 across the lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves 

 that the road was impassable for some time ; and so over to an 

 arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn and 

 disordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, 

 was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was 

 raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the 

 motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose 

 many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their 

 farther course, and terminated this awful commotion. 



The perpendicular height of the precipice in general is twenty- 

 three yards ; the length of the lapse or slip as seen from the fields 

 below, one hundred and eighty-one ; and a partial fall, concealed 

 in the coppice, extends seventy yards more ; so that the total 

 length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one 

 yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convul- 

 sion ; two houses were entirely destroyed ; one end of a new barn 

 was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones 

 that composed them ; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked 

 rock ; and some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and 

 rifted by the chasms as to be rendered for a time neither fit for the 

 plough or safe for pasturage, till considerable labour and expense 

 had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping 

 fissures. 



