i86 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE 



with their muzzles towards the Hanger ; l supposing that the 

 report would have had a great effect ; but the experiment 

 did not answer his expectation. He then removed them to 

 the Alcove on the Hanger ; when the sound, rushing along 

 the Lythe and Comb-wood was very grand : but it was at the 

 Hermitage that the echoes and repercussions delighted the 

 hearers ; not only filling the Lythe with the roar, as if all 

 the beeches were tearing up by the roots ; but, turning 

 to the left, they pervaded the vale above Combwood-ponds, 

 and after a pause seemed to take up the crash again, and 

 to extend round Harteley-hangers, and to die away at last 

 among the coppices and coverts of Ward-le-ham. It has 

 been remarked before that this district is an anathoth, a 

 place of responses or echoes, and therefore proper for such 

 experiments : we may farther add that the pauses in echoes, 

 when they cease and yet are taken up again, like the pauses 

 in music, surprise the hearers, and have a fine effect on the 

 imagination. 



The gentleman above-mentioned has just fixed a baro- 

 meter in his parlour at Newton Valence? The tube was first 

 filled here (at Selborne) twice with care, when the mercury 

 agreed and stood exactly with my own ; but, being filled 

 twice again at Newton, the mercury stood, on account of 

 the great elevation of that house, three-tenths of an inch 

 lower than the barometers at this village, and so continues 

 to do, be the weight of the atmosphere what it may. The 

 plate of the barometer at Newton is figured as low as 27 ; 

 because in stormy weather the mercury there will some- 

 times descend below 28. We have supposed Newton-house 

 to stand two hundred feet higher than this house : but 



1 See note 2, vol. i. p. 261. I have since satisfied myself that Mr. Grant 

 Allen was right and that I was wrong as regards the position of the Hermitage 

 and the Alcove. I lately had a conversation with an old inhabitant of Selborne, 

 who can remember when both these summer houses were still standing. 

 [R. B. S., Oct. 1900.] 



* Professor Bell (ed. " Selborne," i. p. 259) adds a very interesting note, stating 

 that, according to his calculations, the height of Selborne Hill is nearly or quite 

 300 feet above the Wakes, and the Vicarage at Newton Valence is about the 

 same. Both barometers were in existence when Bell wrote, 1877. [R. B. S.] 



