NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 3 



the labour of years to render it mellow ; while the gardens to the north- 

 east, and small enclosures behind, consist of a warm, forward, crumbling 

 mould, called black malm, which seems highly saturated with vegetable 

 and animal manure ; and these may perhaps have been the original 

 site of the town ; while the woods and coverts might extend down to 

 the opposite bank. 



At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, 

 arises a small rivulet : that at the north-west end frequently fails ; but 

 the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet 

 seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds join- 





WELL-HEAD. 



ing to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending 

 forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south 

 becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into 

 the British Channel : the other to the north. The Selborne stream 

 makes one branch of the Wey ; and, meeting the Black-down stream at 



* This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and a 

 preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 

 640 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural 

 day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale 

 were dry. 



The "Well Head," as represented in the vignette, "breaks out of the land at 

 the foot of the Hanger, and spreading into a picturesque pond contracts again 

 into a narrow stream, which flows past the village, and swells into a river at 

 Godalming." 



B 2 



