2 
SOIL OF GODALMING. 
stricken downs crossing the country from Reigate to Farn- 
ham. Between the chalk and the sand is an exceedingly 
narrow tract of blue clay, sometimes scarcely ten yards in 
width. These three distinct soils do not gradually inter- 
mingle, but are separated by the most abrupt transition, and 
their effect on the produce, where the three soils occur in 
the same field, is very marked. The sandy soil produces 
a variety of surface ; in most parts it is excessively poor, 
and wholly unprofitable to man : in some of the low bot- 
toms it becomes an almost continuous marsh, occasionally 
presenting large sheets of water these ponds, in the pro- 
cess of time, enrich the soil which they cover, and make it 
worth the expense of draining ; — thus, the once fine piece 
of water known as Old Pond, has been embanked, divided, 
drained and filled, at different times and in various ways, 
until nearly an hundred acres have been redeemed and 
devoted to agriculture ; still, it is a pool of respectable 
dimensions.* In many places, this labour would be ill 
bestowed, and there are fine pools of water which have 
existed for centuries all along the valley that winds by 
Peperharrow, Elsted, Frensham, Thursley, the Pudmoors, 
Headly, &c. Ascending thence by Bramshot to Liphook, 
we find a tract producing coarse sour grass, heath, furze 
and hurts, or whortleberries, but light and dry, and easily 
scattered by the wind; this is a peculiar character of Hind- 
head. Wherever the sand bears the red tint of iron, the 
chief natural produce is furze ; but this colom% as we pro- 
ceed westward, yields to a blue tint. The two colours stain 
the wool of the sheep which range the wastes, and the red 
and blue are very conspicuous in their fleeces, the blue 
* In 1832. N. 
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