NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 3 



wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in 

 appearance removed from chalk ; but seems so far from 

 being calcareous, that it endures extreme heat. Yet that 

 the freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to 

 chalk is plain from the beeches which descend as low as 

 those rocks extend, 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 perhaps 

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

 and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 



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 some high grounds join- 

 ing to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable 

 for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The 

 one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running 

 to Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel ; the 

 other to the north. 2 The Selborne stream makes one 



1 This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after a severe 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. [G. W.] 



Mr. Henry Maxwell writes to me : "Well-head has never failed in my time 

 (say, for fifty-five years). Gilbert White says that it is 'little influenced by the 

 seasons,' but I should say that at the present time it is considerably affected by 

 the seasons a fact due, I presume, to the decrease in rainfall." [R. B. S.] 



2 Mr. Grant Allen, in his edition, makes a very pertinent alteration to this 

 paragraph, correcting what he takes to be ' evident printer's errors ' in the first 

 edition. Undoubtedly the meaning is clearer, when the sentence reads as Mr. 

 Grant Allen proposes: "the other, to the north, the Selborne stream, makes 

 one branch of the Wey," &c. [R. B. S.] 



