l8o KALM'S ENGLAND. 



prison. [T. I. p. 180.J In the town there are four 

 churches, but one of them is used as a market-place. 



Hempstead (Hemel Hemsted) is situated 5 miles 

 from St. Alban's, and 25 from London. The town is 

 small but tolerably pretty, lies down in a dale, dald, 

 and has a church with a high tower. 



Little Gaddesden is a long village situated 30 English 

 miles from London. We arrived there at six o'clock in 

 the evening. I shall have farther on a better opportunity 

 of describing this place. Now, I will give several notes 

 which I made to-day on the journey between Woodford 

 and Little Gaddesden. 



The appearance of the country which we passed 

 through to-day was simply beautiful. There was not 

 the smallest sign either of rock or granite, barg eller 

 grasten. It was not entirely even and flat, but went 

 in a continuous succession of undulations so that it was 

 like a collection of hills and dales ; yet the hills were for 

 the most part very long-sloping down into the dales. 

 Between these ridges there sometimes flowed a little 

 beck. 



Jordmon, the soil, was here the same as in Essex 

 and Hertfordshire, viz. : on the top, soil, svartmylla, 

 but immediately under that a reddish-yellow or Ochre- 

 colored clay, lera, mixed with a number of pieces of 

 flint, and, in the neighbourhood of Essex, of a similar 

 colored gravel or coarse sand, groft grus. Around Hemp- 

 stead in Hertfordshire, the hills consisted partly of 

 chalk. 



All these hills and dales were divided into arable 

 fields, meadows, and pastures, the spaces near the towns 

 or villages being occupied by gardens and kitchen-gardens 

 side by side, and here and there beautiful parks of all 

 sorts of different kinds of trees, which were for the most 

 part fenced round with living hedges of various leaf- 



