in diameter. But as these did not consist of firm stone, but were formed of a kind of terra lapidosa, or hardened clay, as soon as they were exposed to the rains and frost, they mouldered away. These seemed as if they were a very recent production. In the chalk-pit, at the north-west end of the Hanger, large nautili are sometimes observed.* In the very thickest strata of our freestone, and at considerable depths, well-diggers often find large scallops, or pectines, having both shells deeply striated, and ridged and furrowed alternately. They are highly impregnated with, if not wholly composed of, the stone of the quarry.† LETTER IV. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. As, in last letter, the freestone of this place has been only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular. This stone is in great request for hearth-stones, and the beds of ovens ; and in lining of lime-kilns it turns to good account; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar, the sand The con 1st, *Modern naturalists have constituted twenty genera of those fossil shells, known by the general appellation of cornu ammonis. clusions which geologists have come to regarding them, are these: That they are first found in the formation called the lias, and appear in most of the succeeding strata, but seem to have become extinct in the ocean which deposited the hard chalk. The division here alluded to, is what has been named the ammonacea by Lamark, which are shells with a sinuous septa, lobed and cut at the margin, meeting together upon the inner wall of the shell, and articulated by jagged sutures. 2d, The orthocerata appear in the early strata, and are continued upwards to the soft chalk stratum, after which they are not seen. These shells are straight, or nearly so, and not spiral. 3d, The oval ammonitæ are not known in the early strata, but in the hard chalk only, and are not seen afterwards, as if they had been created at a comparatively late period, and had been soon suffered to become extinct. The shells alluded to by our author, which mouldered away, had been the impressions only of these cornua ammonis. - ED. +In Corncockle Moor, Dumfries-shire, there is a sandstone quarry, on the slabs of which are distinctly imprinted the tracks of the foot marks of animals. These were discovered in the year 1812. They differ in size from that of a hare's paw to the hoof of a pony. On a slab, which forms part of the wall of a summer-house, in Dr Duncan's garden, at the Manse of Ruthwell, there are twenty-four impressions, twelve of the right, and as many of the left foot. Professor Buckland considers that the animals must have been crocodiles or tortoises.-ED. of which fluxes,* and runs, by the intense heat, and so cases over the whole face of the kiln with a strong vitrified coat like glass, that it is well preserved from injuries of weather, and endures thirty or forty years. When chiselled smooth, it makes elegant fronts for houses, equal in colour and grain to the Bath stone, and superior in one respect, that, when seasoned, it does not scale. Decent chimneypieces are worked from it, of much closer and finer grain than Portland; and rooms are floored with it; but it proves rather too soft for this purpose. It is a freestone, cutting in all directions; yet has something of a grain parallel with the horizon, and therefore should not be surbedded, but laid in the same position that it grows in the quarry.t On the ground abroad this firestone will not succeed for pavements, because, probably some degree of saltness prevailing within it, the rain tears the slabs to pieces. Though this stone is too hard to be acted on by vinegar, yet both the white part, and even the blue rag, ferment strongly in mineral acids. Though the white stone will not bear wet, yet in every quarry, at intervals, there are thin strata of blue rag, which resist rain and frost, and are excellent for pitching of stables, paths, and courts, and for building of dry walls -against banks, a valuable species of fencing, much in use in this village, and for mending of roads. This rag is rugged and stubborn, and will not hew to a smooth face, but is very durable; yet, as these strata are shallow, and lie deep, large quantities cannot be procured but at considerable expense. Among the blue rags turn up some blocks, tinged with a stain of yellow, or rust colour, which seem to be nearly as lasting as the blue; and every now and then balls of a friable substance, like rust of iron, called rust balls. In Wolmer Forest I see but one sort of stone, called by the workmen sand, or forest stone. This is generally of the colour of rusty iron, and might probably be worked as iron ore; is May not the fact here noticed shew the possibility of what are called vitrified forts being produced by fires lighted for signals, or some other purpose, as an instance is here given of heat causing sand to flux. - ED. There may probably be also in the chalk itself that is burnt for lime a proportion of sand; for few chalks are so pure as to have none. To surbed stone is to set it edgewise, contrary to the posture it had in the quarry, says Dr Plot, Oxfordshire, p. 77. But surbedding does not succeed in our dry walls; neither do we use it so in ovens, though he says it is best for Teynton stone. "Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur; must be close-grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts; saltstone perishes exposed to wet and frost."- Plot's Staff. p. 152. very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together by a brown, terrene, ferruginous matter; will not cut without difficulty, nor easily strike fire with steel. Being often found in broad flat pieces, it makes good pavement for paths about houses, never becoming slippery in frost or rain; is excellent for dry walls, and is sometimes used in buildings. In many parts of that waste it lies scattered on the surface of the ground; but is dug on Weaver's Down, a vast hill on the eastern verge of that forest, where the pits are shallow, and the stratum thin.' This stone is imperishable. From a notion of rendering their work the more elegant, and giving it a finish, masons chip this stone into small fragments about the size of the head of a large nail; and then stick the pieces into the wet mortar along the joints of their freestone walls. This embellishment carries an odd appearance, and has occasioned strangers sometimes to ask us pleasantly, “ Whether we fastened our walls together with tenpenny nails?" LETTER V. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. AMONG the singularities of this place, the two rocky hollow lanes, the one to Alton, and the other to the forest, deserve our attention. These roads, running through the malm lands, are, by the traffic of ages, and the fretting of water, worn down through the first stratum of our freestone, and partly through the second; so that they look more like watercourses than roads, and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen o eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields; and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild appearances, from the tangled roots that are twisted among the strata, and from the torrents rushing down their broken sides; and especially when those cascades are frozen into icicles, hanging in all the fanciful shapes of frostwork. These rugged gloomy scenes affright the ladies when they peep down into them from the paths above, and make timid horsemen shudder while they ride along them; but delight the naturalist with their various botany, and particularly with their curious filices, with which they abound. The manor of Selborne, were it strictly looked after, with all its kindly aspects, and all its sloping coverts, would swarm with game; even now, hares, partridges, and pheasants abound; and in old days woodcocks were as plentiful. There are few quails, because they more affect open fields than enclosures. After harvest, some few land-rails are seen. The parish of Selborne, by taking in so much of the forest, is a vast district. Those who tread the bounds are employed part of three days in the business, and are of opinion that the outline, in all its curves and indentings, does not comprise less than thirty miles. The village stands in a sheltered spot, secured by the Hanger from the strong westerly winds. The air is soft, but rather moist, from the effluvia of so many trees; yet perfectly healthy and free from agues. The quantity of rain that falls on it is very considerable, as may be supposed in so woody and mountainous a district. As my experience in measuring the water is but of short date, I am not qualified to give the mean quantity.* I only know that, From May 1, 1779, to the end of the year, there fell From January 1, 1782, to January 1, 1783 From January 1, 1783, to January 1, 1784 The village of Selborne, and large hamlet of Oakhanger, with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contain upwards of six hundred and seventy inhabitants. We abound with poor, many of whom are sober and industrious, and live comfortably, in good stone or brick cottages, which are glazed, and have chambers above stairs : mud buildings we have none. Besides the employment from husbandry, the men work in hop gardens, of which we have many, and fell and bark timber. In the spring and summer * A very intelligent gentleman assures me, (and he speaks from upwards of forty years' experience,) that the mean rain of any place cannot be ascertained till a person has measured it for a very long period. "If I had only measured the rain," says he, "for the four first years, from 1740 to 1743, I should have said the mean rain at Lyndon was 16%1⁄2 inches for the year; if from 1740 to 1750, 18% inches. The mean rain before 1763, was 20%; from 1763 and since, 25%; from 1770 to 1780, 26. If only 1773, 1774, and 1775, had been measured, Lyndon mean rain would have been called 32 inches, increasing from 16.6 to 32," the women weed the corn, and enjoy a second harvest in September by hop-picking. Formerly, in the dead months, they availed themselves greatly by spinning wool, for making of barragons, a genteel corded stuff, much in vogue at that time for summer wear, and chiefly manufactured at Alton, a neighbouring town, by some of the people called Quakers. The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity, and the parish swarms with children LETTER VI. TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQ. SHOULD I omit to describe with some exactness the Forest of Wolmer, of which three-fifths perhaps lie in this parish, my account of Selborne would be very imperfect, as it is a district abounding with many curious productions, both animal and vegetable; and has often afforded me much entertainment both as a sportsman and as a naturalist. The royal Forest of Wolmer is a tract of land of about seven miles in length, by two and a half in breadth, running nearly from north to south, and is abutted on, to begin to the south, and so to proceed eastward, by the parishes of Greatham, Lysse, Rogate, and Trotton, in the county of Sussex; by Bramshot, Hedleigh, and Kingsley. This royalty consists entirely of sand, covered with heath and fern; but is somewhat diversified with hills and dales, without having one standing tree in the whole extent. In the bottoms, where the waters stagnate, are many bogs, which formerly abounded with subterraneous trees; though Dr Plot says positively,* that “there never were any fallen trees hidden in the mosses of the southern counties." But he was mistaken; for I myself have seen cottages on the verge of this wild district, whose timbers consisted of a black hard wood, looking like oak, which the owners assured me they procured from the bogs by probing the soil with spits, or some such instruments, but the peat is so much cut out, and the moors have been so well examined, that none has been found of late. † Besides the * See his History of Staffordshire. + Old people have assured me, that on a winter's morning they have discovered these trees, in the bogs, by the hoar frost, which lay longer over the space where they were concealed, than on the surrounding morass. Nor does this seem to be a fanciful notion, but consistent with true philosophy. Dr Hales saith, "That the warmth of the earth, at |