6 The Natural History 



At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the 

 uplands, lies the village, which consists of one single 

 straggling street, three-quarters of a mile in length, in a 

 sheltered vale, and running parallel with the Hanger. 

 The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiif 

 clay (good 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 7?iabn^ which seems highly saturated 

 with vegetable and animal manure ; and these may 

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

 wood 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 

 joining to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remark- 

 able 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 falling into the British 

 Channel : the other to the north. The Selborne stream 

 makes one branch of the Wey ; and meeting the Black- 

 down stream at Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham 



^ This spring produced, September 14, 1781, after a severe hot 

 summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of 

 water in a minute, which is five hundred and forty in an hour, and 

 twelve thousand nine hundred and sixty, or two hundred and sixteen 

 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time 

 many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vales were dry. 



