and proceed westward, the adjacent parishes are Emshot, Newton Valence, 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 sheepwalk, 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 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 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 Selborne 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 firestone.' 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 grace 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.

the labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the northeast, 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 town; while the woods and coverts might extend down to the opposite bank.

At each end of the village, which runs from south-east to north-west, arises a small rivulet: that at the north-west end frequently fails; but the other is a fine perennial spring, little influenced by drought or wet seasons, called Well-head.* This breaks out of some high grounds join

ing to Nore Hill, a noble chalk promontory, remarkable for sending forth two streams into two different seas. The one to the south becomes a branch of the Arun, running to Arundel, and so sailing into the British Channel: the other to the north. The Selborne stream makes one branch of the Wey; and, meeting the Black-down stream at

*This spring produced, September 10, 1781, after a severe hot summer, and a preceding dry spring and winter, nine gallons of water in a minute, which is 540 in an hour, and 12,960, or 216 hogsheads, in twenty-four hours, or one natural day. At this time many of the wells failed, and all the ponds in the vale were dry.

The "Well Head," as represented in the vignette, "breaks out of the land at the foot of the Hanger, and spreading into a picturesque pond contracts again into a narrow stream, which flows past the village, and swells into a river at Godalming."

Hedleigh, and the Alton and Farnham stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at Godalming; from whence it passes to Guilford, and so into the Thames at Weybridge; and thus at the Nore into the German Ocean.

Our wells, at an average, run to about sixty-three feet, and when sunk to that depth seldom fail; 'but produce a fine limpid water, soft to the taste, and much commended by those who drink the pure element, but which does not lather well with soap.

To the north-west, north and east of the village, is a range of fair enclosures, consisting of what is called a white malm, a sort of rotten or rubble stone, which, when turned up to the frost and rain, moulders to pieces, and becomes manure to itself.*

Still on to the north-east, and a step lower, is a kind of white land, neither chalk nor clay, neither fit for pasture nor for the plough, yet kindly for hops, which root deep in the freestone, and have their poles and wood for charcoal growing just at hand. The white soil produces the brightest hops.

As the parish still inclines down towards Wolmer-forest, at the juncture of the clays and sand the soil becomes a wet, sandy loam, remarkable for timber, and infamous for roads. The oaks of Temple and Blackmoor stand high in the estimation of purveyors, and have furnished much naval timber; while the trees on the freestone grow large, but are what workmen call shaky, and so brittle as often to fall to pieces in sawing. Beyond the sandy loam the soil becomes a hungry lean sand, till it mingles with the forest; and will produce little without the assistance of lime and turnips.

LETTER II.

TO THE SAME.

IN the court of Norton farm-house, a manor farm to the north-west of the village, on the white malms, stood within these twenty years a broad-leaved elm, or wych hazel, ulmus folio latissimo scabro of Ray, which, though it had lost a considerable leading bough in the great storm in the year 1703, equal to a moderate tree, yet, when felled, contained eight loads of timber; and, being too bulky for a carriage, was sawn off at seven feet above the butt, where it measured near eight feet in the diameter. This elm I mention to show to what a bulk planted elms may attain; as this tree must certainly have been such from its situation. +

* This soil produces good wheat and clover.

t Mr. White seems to have adopted no plan or rule in arranging the subjects of these letters. They are taken up as they occur or have been observed, This may have its advantages, as recording the observations when freshly made, or before the memory had failed, but a correspondence or journal kept in this way would almost require for the sake of convenience to have the subjects brought more together. Thus there are frequent observations afterwards upon the