230 PONDS ON CHALK HILLS. 



rivers, appears from a well-known fact in North 

 America; for, since the woods and forests have 

 been grubbed and cleared, all bodies of water are 

 much diminished; so that some streams, that 

 were very considerable a century ago, will not 

 now drive a common mill l . Besides, most wood- 

 lands, forests, and chases, with us abound with 

 pools and morasses ; no doubt for the reason given 

 above. 



To a thinking mind few phenomena are more 

 strange than the state of little ponds on the 

 summits of chalk hills, many of which are never 

 dry in the most trying droughts of summer. On 

 chalk hills I say, because in many rocky and 

 gravelly soils, springs usually break out pretty 

 high on the sides of elevated grounds and moun- 

 tains ; but no persons acquainted with chalky dis- 

 tricts will allow that they ever saw springs in such 

 a soil but in valleys and bottoms, since the waters 

 of so pervious a stratum as chalk all lie on one 

 dead level, as well-diggers have assured me again 

 and again. 



Now, we have many such little round ponds in 

 this district ; and one in particular on our sheep- 

 down, three hundred feet above my house ; which, 

 though never above three feet deep in the middle, 

 and not more than thirty feet in diameter, and 

 containing perhaps not more than two or three 

 hundred hogsheads of water, yet never is known 

 to fail, though it affords drink for three hundred 

 or four hundred sheep, and for at least twenty 

 head of large cattle besides. This pond, it is 

 true, is overhung by two moderate beeches, that, 

 doubtless, at times, afford it much supply : but 

 then we have others as small, that, without the 



1 Vide KALM'S Travels in North America. 



