23 



Savernake Forest. 



In one way, indeed, there may be a certain amount of truth in 

 the boast of the old man at Burnham above-mentioned, that his 

 trees, and Savernake Oaks also, are as old as the world. So long 

 as the soil of Savernake Forest has been there, so long has there 

 been — not of course, any one particular tree or trees — but forest, 

 and forest only. All South Wiltshire is overspread with a great 

 stratum of chalk, but over that chalk there have been at some remote 

 period other strata or layers of soil. These upper layers, called 

 Tertiary, consisted generally of various mottled clays, sands, or 

 gravel, of a kind quite distinct from clays and sands found below 

 the chalk. Not very far from here, at Cidbury Hill, near Everley, 

 a chalk hill is capped in a very remarkable way by a layer of rounded 

 pebbles, which it is utterly impossible could have been left in that 

 situation by themselves, but must have formed part of a more exten- 

 sive bed that covered the rest of the chalk. At Pebble Hill, not far 

 from Kintbury, you may see a good illustration of this. Portions of 

 these Tertiary strata overlie the chalk all along the valley of the 

 Thames from its mouth, and the valley of the Kennet westwards as far 

 as Marlborough, including the Forest. Here they are covered on the 

 surface by a stratum that consists of sweepings of all sorts and is 

 called by geologists, Drift. Of the Tertiary strata some are still 

 found in their proper order. Others have been washed away, leaving 

 only here and there a few traces ; of which kind are the well-known 

 large blocks of very hard flinty sandstone, some of which have been 

 hauled to make the circle and avenue at Abury, and hundreds of 

 others are still to be seen imbedded in long hollow slopes of the 

 downs. The sof f sand bed, of which they were originally the bones, 

 has somehow or other been washed clean away, leaving the heavy 

 masses behind. 



This being the general character of the soil, it is probable that 

 ever since this Tertiary drift, gravel and sand, have formed the sur- 

 face covering, forest has always grown upon it ; the general character 

 of the drift not being favourable for cultivation by plough and spade. 



It is also no less likely that so long as there has been forest 

 there has been hunting, and that the Forest was preserved in its 

 original state, for that special purpose. For it must be borne in 



