SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



35 



sort of rotten or rubble stone," and other such 

 technicalities. Yet this genial curate, working 

 before the era of William Smith, Sedgwick, Buck- 

 land, and Murchison, was quite correct in his 

 delineations. There is virtually no ambiguity, and 

 the officers of the Geological Survey, evidently 

 appreciative of this accuracy, have lately adopted 

 the term " Selbornian " to represent the combina- 

 tion of Upper Greensand and Gault in that locality. 

 A capital account of the Greensand in Wolmer 

 Forest is supplied in the History. We read of the 

 " firestone " used for hearthstones and beds of 

 ovens, the red ferruginous grit, even the very 

 " rust balls," which are now known to be con- 

 cretions of iron pyrites. Speaking of the " hollow 

 lanes," sometimes sixteen or eighteen feet below 

 the level of the fields, White had the perspicacity 

 to infer that the gorges were caused, not only by 

 the traffic of ages, but also by the "fretting of 

 water " — an anticipation of the conclusions of Lyell 

 and Huxley on the work of denudation. 



The connection between the amount of rainfall 

 and forest acreage was perceived by White, a con- 

 nection which needs to be impressed upon the 

 authorities of such lands as Kussia and the United 

 States, which cannot afford to diminish their wood- 

 lands to a mere four per cent., as has been done in 

 our insular country. The curious phenomenon of 

 the never-failing dew-ponds on the top of the chalk 

 downs was also understood by our pioneer. He 

 likewise added to our list of native fauna the bat, 

 which he called Vespertilio altivolans. We now 

 reckon fifteen species of bats, but of these several 

 have been recorded once or twice only, and many 

 others are rare. Harting tells us that in White's 

 time even Linnaeus recognised two kinds only as 

 European, and " many years subsequently elapsed 

 without the addition of another." White first made 

 known the grasshopper warbler, and discriminated 

 the three species of willow warblers, viz. the willow 

 wren, wood wren, and chiff-chaff — a remarkable 

 feat, considering his field outfit. To him also 

 belongs the discovery of the harvest-mouse, which 

 builds tiny nests around the stems of grass or 

 wheat. Two of these creatures placed "in a scale 

 weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is 

 about the third of an ounce avoidupois." 



The thirty-seventh letter to Daines Barrington 

 contains a valuable contribution on the subject of 

 leprosy. Whatever be the causes of the malady — 

 and authorities seem undecided in the matter — 

 White was probably near the truth in deducing its 

 eradication from " the much smaller quantity of 

 salted meat and fish now eaten in these kingdoms ; 

 from the use of linen next the skin ; from the 

 plenty of better bread ; and from the profusion of 

 fruits, roots, legumes, and greens so common in 

 every family." The reference to the use of linen 

 is explained by a succeeding paragraph, whence it 

 appears that the allusion was to the uncleanly 

 habits of the people. " The use of linen changes, 



shirts or shifts, in the room of sordid and filthy 

 woollen, long worn next the skin, is a matter of 

 neatness comparatively modern, but must prove a 

 great means of preventing cutaneous ills." 



Of course White frequently fell into error. He 

 half suspected that the downs — "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." Influenced apparently by Daines 

 Barrington, he questioned, till the day of his 

 death, whether all — writers sometimes misrepre- 

 sent White's position — the hirundines leave us for 

 the south in autumn. Professor L. C. Miall also 

 notes that "a little elementary physics, so cheap 

 nowadays, would have greatly mended White's 

 explanations. He thinks that thaws often originate 

 underground from warm vapours that arise. He 

 remarks, truly enough, that ' when a barometer 

 hangs abroad in a frosty night, the intervention of 

 a cloud shall immediately raise the mercury ten 

 degrees, and a clear sky shall again compel it to 

 descend to its former gauge.' But this leads him 

 to conclude that ' cold often seems to descend 

 from above.' Nor could he interpret his own 

 observation of unusual cold in low-lying and shel- 

 tered spots. It is easy now to point out that in 

 perfectly still weather the air which is chilled, 

 and therefore of greater density, will collect in 

 hollows." 



True, very true; but the enthusiastic admirer, 

 transporting himself to the eighteenth century, and 

 placing himself under White's difficulties and 

 limitations, will prefer to recall White's prevision, 

 his .intellectual alertness, his refusal to be hood- 

 winked. A contemporary of such credulous great 

 men as Dr. Johnson and John Wesley, he yet did 

 not accept stories of witches, and did not believe 

 that ruptured children could be cured by squeezing 

 them through a cleft pollard ash, or that the 

 cruelties connected with the " shrew ash " could 

 heal sick cattle. Gossamer was no uncanny phe- 

 nomenon ; it was the " real production of small 

 spiders." The nightjar did not suck goats. He 

 endorses many of the shrewd opinions of his 

 " quondam neighbour, Doctor Stephen Hales," such 

 as the fact that the fur of the tea-kettle may be a 

 test of the salubrity of the water ; that water should 

 be " showered down suspicious wells from the 

 nozzle of a garden watering-pot " before the men 

 descend ; that air-holes should be left to ground 

 rooms, to prevent the rotting of the floors and 

 joists ; that there should be plenty of ventilators 

 in ships, for " sweet air was better than foul." 



The late Mr. Grant Allen, in his preface to 

 " Selborne," thus spoke of White : " He was one 

 of the few early naturalists who recognised the 

 importance of the cumulative effect of infini- 

 tesimal factors — a truth on which almost the 

 whole of modern biology and geology are built up. 

 As zoologist, as botanist, as meteorologist, as 



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