158 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



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 dilation and expansion. . . . 



... Or was there ever a time when these immense 

 masses of calcareous 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 variegated 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 Brambler 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 immemorial ; and smile at your 



