2 
KATUEAL HISTOEY OF SELBORNE. 
and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton 
Yalence, Faringdon, Harteley Mauduit, Great Ward le ham, Kingsley, 
Hadleigh, Bramshot, Trotton, Rogate, Lyffe, and Greatham. The soils 
of this district are almost as various and diversified as the views and 
aspects. The high part of the south-west consists of a vast hill of 
chalk, rising three hundred feet above the village, and is divided into 
a sheep-down, the high wood and a long hanging wood, called The 
Hanger. The covert of this eminence is altogether beech, the most 
lovely of all forest trees, whether we consider its smooth rind or bark, 
its glossy foliage, or graceful pendulous boughs. The down, or sheep- 
walk, is a pleasing park-like spot, of about one mile by half that space, 
jutting out on the verge of the hill-country, where it begins to break 
down into the plains, and commanding a very engaging view, being an 
assemblage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect 
is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of mountains 
called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guildford^ and by the 
Downs round Dorking, and Ryegate in Surrey, to the north-east, which 
altogether, with the country beyond Alton and Farnham, form a noble 
and extensive outline. 
At the foot of this hill, one stage or step from the uplands, lies the 
village, which consists of one single straggling street, three quarters of 
a mile in length, in a sheltered vale, and running parallel with The 
Hanger. The houses are divided from the hill by a vein of stiif clay 
(good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white stone, little in appear- 
ance removed from chalk ; but seems so far from being calcareous, that 
it endures extreme heat. Yet that the freestone still preserves some- 
what that is analogous to chalk, is plain from the beeches which 
descend as low as those rocks extend, and no farther, and thrive as well 
on them, where the ground is steep, as on the chalks. 
The cart-way of the village divides, in a remarkable manner, two 
very incongruous soils. To the south-west is a rank clay, that requires 
of White's remarks and expressions in the other parts of his work, Mr. Bennet 
writes in his note to page 5 of his edition ; ' ' The parish of Selborne is situated 
in the lower part of the chalk formation, and embraces within it the upper 
members of the Weald. These are well displayed as they occur in succession, 
forming strips which run along the parish from north to south : in crossing it 
from east to west each of the strata is visited in the order of their superposition. 
They are four in number ; comprising the chalk, the upper green-sand, the 
gault, and the lower green-sand. The chalk constitutes the mass of the Selbome 
hill, which is covered towards the village by the Hanger. Next in succession to 
the chalk is the formation technically known as the upper green-sand, designated 
in the text, ' freestone, or fires tone.' Below the rock of the upper green-sand 
formation is the gault, generally presenting a uniform level, of the most fertile 
character; within Selborne it exists only as a perfect flat, but to the north in 
the forest of the Holt, it rises into hills. Last of the Selborne strata is the 
lower green-sand, which rises immediately east of the gault into ridges of 
various elevations, having usually a direction not very dissimilar to that of 
the Hanger." 
White also in this letter shows his appreciation of the beautiful, in celebrating 
the appearance of the beech tree, which grows with such peculiar gi'ace or 
elegance on the chalk or oolite formations, and in spring forms groves of the 
freshest green. We have elsewhere stated that we thought other trees possessed 
more elegance of form, but this is a matter of mere taste and opinion, and need 
not be entered upon here ; certainly in spring it is preeminent for its enlivening 
green, and in autumn it exhibits a foliage of the warmest tints. 
