2 HISTORY OB' SELBORNE. 
plains, and commanding a very engagmg vie\v, being an assem- 
blage of hill, dale, wood-lands, heath, and water. The prospect 
is bounded to the south-east and east by the vast range of moun- 
tains called the Sussex Downs, by Guild-down near Guilford, 
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 pa- 
rallel with the Hanger. The houses are divided from tlr:^ hill by 
a vein of stiff clay (good wheat-land), yet stand on a rock of white 
stone, little in appearance removed from chalk, but seems so far 
from being calcareous that it endures extreme heat. Yet that the 
freestone still preserves somewhat that is analogous to chalk is 
plain from the beeches which descend as low as those rocks ex- 
tend and no further, 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 the labour of years to render it mellow, while the 
gardens to the north-east, and small enclosures behind, consist of 
a warm, forward, crumbling mould, called black malm, which 
seems highly saturated with vegetable and animal manure ; and 
these may perhaps have been the original site of the tov/n, while 
the v/ood and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank. 
* It is tloubted by many naturalists whether the beech {fugus sylvntica) can strictly be consi- 
dered a truly British tree, the oliler examples of it being mostly situate in places where they may 
probably have been planted. It is now, however, at least most thoroughly naturalized, and in 
many districts certainlj-^ assumes an indigenous aspect, particularly in the extensive -woods 
sm rountlint,' Sfokenchurch, Bucks, where the young timber is meuufactured on a large scale into 
ch;iirs, bedsteads, and the like, many waffgou-loads of which are weekly sent up to London. It 
appears to tlirive most upon a chalky soil, where it will attain considerable dimensions, especially 
\\hen growing on a slope. Some very beautiful examples of it may be seen on that charming 
spot, the bold ciialk-escarpment of Box-hill, near Dorking-, in Surrey ; and several of surpassing 
magnitude in >iorbury-park, in the same neighbourhood, where also are some noble yews, und 
Kany ^pimi^sh chestnuts of prodigious size, together with some gigantic oaKs, and wunm a 
short slisiance several remarkably fine common ei.iis and huge aspen poplars, which last tree 
attains a magnificent growth in Surrey. The interior of this county will indeed vie with any 
part of England for the growth of most of our forest-trees ; but, unfortunately, the finer examples 
are fast disappearing before the woodman's axe — the nted, or avarice, or want of taste of one 
proprietor of ten dooming to destruction that which for centuries had been the pride and 
admiration of a long line of predecessors. An aged aiid curious remnant of a beech, aovv 
•(nowiug in the \^ iudsor Great Park, and figured and described by Mr. Jesse, in the scii..ii 
-soi-i?s of his delightful " Gieonings in Natural History," measures 36 feet In circumference; 
and a very spietidld and tar more ueLiut-itui tri-e ot tiic same iptcics, liovv in ilie pru.i; of lis 
^^rowth, sitimte within a short distunce of Lyndhurst, in the New-forest, I^ants, is well koo#tt'^ 
u.id deiervt.dl«y cclebrsited as the " tjut-wn " uf that princaly forest. — Ed. 
