peculiarly sweet and pleasing 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 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 of the admeasurements of 

 the hills that have been taken round my house, I 

 should suppose that these hills surmount the wild at 

 an average of about the rate of five hundred feet. 



One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep : 

 from the westward until 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 



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