LITERATURE OF FIELD AND HEDGEROW 5 
Lastly, what uses do these materials supply us ? 
If you go out of London by the Uxbridge Road you will see 
extensive brickfields, the bricks being made of a superficial 
layer of clay about four feet thick, which, being lighter than 
sand, was deposited last. It has come out of the chalk, for 
while the white chalk was dissolved in water, the clay remained 
in suspension in the water till it gradually subsided, and so 
made brick-earth. 
To build houses with bricks one requires mortar. This is 
made of burned chalk-lime, good “ sharp ” river sand, and water. 
It is often necessary to put a “ concrete ” floor to a house, to 
keep out any water that may be in the gravel below. To make 
this, two parts of pebbles out of gravel, one part of sand, and 
about one-eighth of lime are mixed together. Then when water 
is poured upon it, it soon consolidates into a hard bed, which 
prevents any water or damp rising through it. 
George Henslow. 
LITERATURE OF FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
IHERE are very few men who have not only read 
nature with rare insight, but who have also written 
about her with rare faculty. According to Walter 
Besant, “ Literature can show but two or three — 
Gilbert White, Thoreau and Jefferies— but the greatest of them 
all is Jefferies” (“ Eulogy of R. Jefferies,” p. 47). We propose 
to compare the writers whom Besant has thus singled out. 
One remarkable faculty they possess in common : each is able 
to pack a commonplace, small locality with the wonders of a 
world, and instead of being hampered by a narrow range of ob- 
servation, each seems to find more in it than he has time or 
tongue to tell. This is particularly noteworthy with regard to 
Jefferies. As a boy he was wildly adventurous and longed to 
travel. He even ran away to France, with the intention of walk- 
ing to Moscow, but was driven back by want of funds and 
ignorance of language. Soon afterwards a trip to New York had 
to be renounced. Yet before he died he was able to write : “ I do 
not want change, I want the same old and loved things, the same 
wild flowers, the same trees and soft ash green ; the turtle-doves, 
the blackbirds, the coloured yellow-hammer sing, sing, singing 
so long as there is light to cast a shadow on the dial, for such is 
the measure of his song ; and I want them in the same place. 
Let me find them morning after morning, the starry-white petals 
radiating, striving upwards to their ideal. Let me see the idle 
shadows resting on the white dust ; let me hear the humble-bees, 
and stay to look down on the rich dandelion disk. Let me see 
the very thistles opening their great crowns — I should miss the 
