NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
169 
sun retiring backwards every evening at its setting, towards the object 
westward, till, in a few nights, it would set quite behind it, and so by 
degrees, to the west of it : for when the sun comes near the summer 
solstice, the whole disc of it would at first set behind the object ; after 
a time the northern limb would first appear, and so every night 
gradually more, till at length the whole diameter would set northward 
of it for about three nights; but on the middle night of the three, 
sensibly more remote than the former or following. When beginning 
its recess from the summer tropic, it would continue more and more to 
be hidden every night, till at length it would descend quite behind the 
object again ; and so nightly more and more to the westward. 
LETTEE XLV. 
TO THE SAME. 
Mugire videbis 
Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos." 
Selborne. 
When I was a boy I used to read, with astonishment and implicit 
assent, accounts in " Baker's Chronicle " of walking hills and travelling 
mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder," alludes to the credit that 
was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour 
peculiar to the author of the " Splendid Shilling." 
**I nor advise, nor reprehend the choice 
Of Marcley Hill ; the apple no where finds 
A kinder mould ; yet 'tis unsafe to trust 
Deceitful ground : who knows but that once more 
This mount may journey, and his present site 
Forsaken, to thy neighbour's bounds transfer 
Thy goodly plants, affording matter strange 
For law debates. " 
But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that though 
our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of many of 
them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the 0113*8 
bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and 
Whetham Hills ; and especially with the ridge between Harteley Park 
and Ward-le-Ham, where the ground has slid into vast swellings and 
furrows; and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be 
accounted for from any other cause. A strange event, that happened 
not long since, justifies our suspicions ; which, though it befel not 
within the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of 
Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a 
place in a work of this nature. 
The months of January and February, in the year 1774, were 
remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain ; so that by 
the end of the latter month the land-springs, or lavants, began to 
prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764. 
The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor ; when, in the 
night between the eighth and ninth of that months a considerable part 
