CHAP, xiv.] LOCAL CUEIOSITIES. 437 



land between us and the north pole to screen us and 

 take off the chill from it. 



C. Well, there is a sort of polar sharpness in the 

 breeze : it feels almost as if one were in the extreme 

 north of Scotland, except that they have no oak and 

 hazel copses like this. Here you are without high hills 

 to condense the mists (if mists can be floating in that 

 bright blue sky), and so soften the air ; and your sur- 

 face water oozes down through the gravelly, craggy 

 subsoil that has been thrown together somehow for, 

 you know, geologists say that Norfolk is only a heap of 

 rubbish ; your land is like the well-drained earth in a 

 flower-pot half full of crocks ; and I must confess that 

 the effect is very invigorating to one so accustomed to 

 the west of England as I am. 



E.-A. Obliged to you for the rubbish ! but you forget 

 the chalk, which, where it replaces the gravel, equally 

 renders the soil dry and the air pure. How healthy is 

 the climate of the Wiltshire and the Sussex Downs ! 



C. This plantation looks as if it retained a little 

 moisture, as far as one can see through the thick bram- 

 bles and sloe-bushes. I should guess you would have 

 glow-worms here, though they would hardly yet make 

 themselves visible at night. It is too early at present 

 for the Johanniswurm, or St. John's worm, to shine. It 

 does sometimes begin to work its little lighthouse before 

 St. John's day. but not often in England. 



E.-A. Oh yes ! Those transient earth-stars are to be 

 seen glimmering here in due season; but, as you 

 observe, the time is not yet come for them to compare 

 their own ephemeral rays with the perennial stars of 

 heaven. But we may perhaps meet with something of 

 equal interest. 



