142 The Natural History 



thinks them equal to anything he had seen in the finest 

 parts of Europe. 



For my own part, I think there is somewhat pecu- 

 Harly sweet and amusing in the shapely figured aspect of 

 chalk-hills in preference to those of stone, which are 

 rugged, broken, abrupt, and shapeless. 



Perhaps I may be singular in my opinion, and not 

 so happy as to convey to you the same idea ; but I never 

 contemplate these mountains without thinking I perceive 

 somewhat analogous to growth in their gentle swellings 

 and smooth fungus-like protuberances, their fluted sides, 

 and regular hollows and slopes, that carry at once the air 

 of vegetative dilatation and expansion. ... Or was 

 there ever a time when these immense masses of cal- 

 careous matter were thrown into fermentation by some 

 adventitious moisture ; were raised and leavened into 

 such shapes by some plastic power; and so made to 

 swell and heave their broad backs into the sky so much 

 above the less animated clay of the wild below ? 



By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the 

 hills that have been taken round my house, I should 

 suppose that these hills surmount the wild at an average 

 at about the rate of five hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : from 

 the westward till you get to the river Adur all the flocks 

 have horns, and smooth white faces, and white legs ; and 

 a hornless sheep is rarely to be seen : but as soon as you 

 pass that river eastward, and mount Beeding-hill, all the 

 flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call them, 

 poll-sheep ; and have moreover black faces with a white 

 tuft of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted 

 legs : so that you would think that the flocks of Laban 

 were pasturing on one side of the stream, and the varie- 

 gated breed of his son-in-law Jacob were cantoned along 

 on the other. And this diversity holds good respectively 

 on each side from the valley of Bramber and Beeding to 

 the eastward, and westward all the whole length of the 

 downs. If you talk with the shepherds on this subject, 

 they tell you that the case has been so from time imme- 

 morial : and smile at your simplicity if you ask them 



