8 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



able : yet, as these strata are shallow and lie deep, large quantities 

 cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among the 

 blue rags turn up some blocks tinged with a stain of yellow or rust 

 colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue ; and every 

 now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called 

 rust balls. 



In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the 

 workmen sand, or forest-stone. 1 This is generally of the colour of 

 rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore ; is very 

 hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of 

 a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, 

 terrene, ferruginous matter ; will not cut without difficulty, nor 

 easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat 

 pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never 

 becoming slippery in frost or rain ; is excellent for dry walls, and 

 is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it 

 lies scattered on the surface of the ground ; but is dug on Weaver s 

 Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the 

 pits are shallow, and the stratum thin. This stone is imperish- 

 able. 



From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and 

 giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments 

 about the size of the head of a large nail ; and then stick the 

 pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone 

 walls : this embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has 

 occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, " whether 

 we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails ". 2 



LETTER V. 



TO THE SAME. 



AMONG the singularities of this place the two rocky hollow lanes, 

 the one to Alton, 2 and the other to the forest, deserve our atten- 

 tion. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the 

 traffick of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the 

 first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second ; so 



1 [The Folkestone beds (top of upper greensand).] 



2 [This curious embellishment still exists in some old walls, and notably in the 

 western wall of the church. Bell.'] 



3 [Parts of this road, now impassable, are still to be seen at Norton farm.] 



