244 
Faiming of Hampshire. 
Wey and the Rotlicr, our pedestrian would brancli off due east- 
ward over Nore * and White Hills for about six miles. 
Lastly, there is a low and insignificant range of heights, 
sufhcient, however, for their purpose, which divide the waters 
falling into the Southampton Water from those which descend to 
the south-western sea-coast. These last belong to the Bagshot 
beds. 
Over all the other watersheds, our traveller's feet would be on 
the chalk for the whole distance ; first whilst walking south- 
eastward for 22 miles over the North Downs, then southward 
for 16 over the Alton Hills, till he joined the South Downs at 
Butser Hill. But he would still have left untraversed the outlier 
called Portsdown Hill, as well as the South Down range in its 
extension to the north-west from Butser Hill, by St. Catherine's 
Hill, Som bourn, Stockbridge, and Tid worth. It is worthy of 
remark, that in this county the North Downs form a watershed, 
which is not the case with the chalk generally, nor with the North 
Downs in other counties, where they are broken through by the 
rivers Wey (rising in the lower range of the Alton Hills), Mole, 
Darent, Medway, and Stour ; while the South Downs are 
pierced in Hants by the Test and the Itchen, and elsewhere by 
the Arun, the Adur, the Ouse, and the Cuckmere.f 
There are four systems of drainage — river basins — in the main- 
land of the county : the London, the Arun, the Southampton 
Water, and that of the south-western sea-coast. 
The two first our traveller had, as he came southward, succes- 
sively on his left ; the third continuously on his right. 
The London or Northern basin is watered by the Emborne 
River (an affluent of the Kennet, which receives several brooks 
from Highclere, Kingsclere, and Banghurst, beginning in the 
north-western extremity of the county, and also bounding it for 
12 miles) ; by the Loddon (rising 1^ miles to the west of Basing- 
stoke, and flowing through that town) ; by the Whitewater ; and by 
the Blackwater (rising near Aldershot in the extreme east of the 
* Var Down is substituted in the Ordnance map for Nore Hill, which, however, 
is a classical name, and cannot be sacrificed. " Nore Hill, a noble chalk promon- 
tory, 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 falling 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 Hedleigh, and the 
Alton and Farnham stream at Tilfordbridge, swells into a considerable river, 
navigable at Godalming ; from whence it passes to Guildford, and so into the 
Thames at Wey bridge ; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean." Gilbert 
Wliitc's &!elbi)!iic, Part I. Letter 1. 
f From the fact that the gorges of the North and South Downs are often in the 
same line, these transverse fissures have been ascribed to the upheaving force 
exert( d on the intervening weald. In Hants there is no weald, and consequently 
the North Down is not fractured. See Mr. Martin's ' Geology of Western Sussex,' 
quoted by Lyell. 
