the case with Nore and Whetham Hills ; and espe- 

 cially with the ridge between Harteley Park and 

 Wardleharn, where the ground has slid into vast 

 swellings and furrows ; and lies still in such romantic 

 confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other 

 cause. A strange event, that happened not long 

 since, justifies our suspicions ; which, though it befell 

 not within the limits of this parish, yet, as it was 

 within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circum- 

 stances were singular, may fairly claim a place in 

 this work. 



The months of January and February, in the year 

 1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and 

 vast gluts of rain ; so that by the end of the latter 

 month the land-springs, or lavants, began to prevail, 

 and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 

 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the 

 same tenor; when, in the night between the 8th and 

 9th of that month, a considerable part of the great 

 woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, 

 and fell down, leaving a high free-stone cliff naked 

 and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk- 

 pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being per- 

 haps sapped and undermined by waters, foundered, 

 and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular 

 direction ; for a gate which stood in the field, on the 

 top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or 

 forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position 

 as to open and shut with great exactness, just as in 



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