280 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



Andring pa j ordmon. Change of soil. 

 As soon as we had gone i£ miles south* of Ivinghoe 

 the soil acquired quite another colour and appearance. 

 The white disappeared, tog af, and the yellowish-red of 

 which all the fields round about Little Gaddesden consist, 

 again appeared. The fields were full of flints, the hills 

 clad with an abundance of leaf-trees, and luxuriant hedges 

 around all the fields. What the reason was of such a 

 change we could not discover, for the fades and appear- 

 ance of the chalk hills near Ivinghoe, and here where 

 this change of soil began, was the same as around [T. I. 

 p. 277] Little Gaddesden, only that the dales between were 

 here many times larger and planer. 



. May not the dales in former times have stood under 

 water, while the hills on the other hand, which were 

 above it, were cultivated and inhabited, and the soil, 

 svartmyllan eller myllan, resulting from decayed 

 plants and animals have had many times many centuries 

 to increase, and by mixing with the chalk, to have 

 acquired the yellowish-red colour ? But then it seems 

 that rain and water-floods wash down the mould or soil, 

 from the hills down into the dales ? May not the white 

 earth around Ivinghoe, perhaps after some centuries, 

 acquire the same reddish-yellow colour as the soil around 

 Little Gaddesden and thereabouts. May not the differ- 

 ence in the ripeness or hardness of the chalk be due to 

 that difference of the time and the ages since the chalk for- 

 mation has come to stand above water or under the same ? 



Flackar af sarskild j ordmon. 



Patches of different soils. 

 In some parts of the commons, utmarken, which 



* ij miles S. of Ivinghoe. Kalm here seems to have ascended Albany 

 Nower. The only " dales " are Albury Dale and the far larger and planer 

 pass of the Bulbourne. [J. L.] 



