APPENDIX II 



Note on the Geology of the Selborne District 

 By C. W. ANDREWS, F.G.S. 



THE neighbourhood of Selborne offers a most excellent example 

 of the close relation which exists between the geological structure 

 and the scenery of a district. All the salient features of the land- 

 scape are at once explained by the nature and disposition of the 

 underlying rocks, to the great variety of which, moreover, the rich- 

 ness of the flora and fauna is directly due. The village stands 

 close to the foot of the bold chalk escarpment forming the extreme 

 western boundary of the Weald, and the steep, beech-clad slopes of 

 the Hanger and Nore Hill are formed by the denuded edges of beds 

 of the Lower Chalk. The summit of Nore Hill is 696 feet above 

 the sea, and that of the Hanger a little lower. Between the foot of 

 the Hanger, which is about on the contour line of 400 feet, and the 

 main street of the village is a narrow belt of the Chalk Marl, at the 

 base of which lies a thin band (less than 10 feet) of Chloride Marl. 

 It is on the junction of these beds with the underlying Upper 

 Greensand that the village stands. In Letter I, Gilbert White refers 

 to the soil derived from the Chalk Marl as a " stiff clay (good wheat 

 land)," while it is to the Chloritic Marl that the darker soil, de- 

 scribed by him as " Black Malm," owes its origin. 



The gently-sloping land to the east and north of the village is 

 composed of beds of the Upper Greensand, which to the north-east 

 terminate in a small escarpment or steep slope overlooking a valley 

 in the softer Gault Clay. Along this escarpment, to which, like that 

 of the Chalk, the name " Hanger " is locally given, landslips are not 

 infrequent, and are sometimes of considerable extent, as in the case 

 described by White in Letter XLV to Daines Barrington. These 

 slips occur after heavy rains, and are caused by the beds of the 



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