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.

S in a former letter the freestone of this place has been only mentioned incidentally, I shall here become more particular.

This stone is in great request for hearthstones, and the beds of ovens: and in lining of limekilns it turns to good account; for the workmen use sandy loam instead of mortar; the sand 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 chimney-pieces 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-that is, set edgewise, contrary to its position in the quarry-but laid in the same position that it

occupies there. 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, ferments 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 very hard and heavy, and of a firm, compact texture, and composed of a small roundish crystalline grit, cemented together

"Firestone is full of salts, and has no sulphur: it must be close grained, and have no interstices. Nothing supports fire like salts; saltstone perishes when exposed to wet and frost."-PLOT's Staff. p. 152.

† Supposed to be decomposed iron pyrites. Ragstone is n carbonate of lime, with a little magnesia, earthy matter, oxide, and carbonaceous matter.-ED.

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."

MONG 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 water-courses than roads; and are bedded with naked rag for furlongs together. In many places they are reduced sixteen or eighteen feet beneath the level of the fields;* and after floods, and in frosts, exhibit very grotesque and wild ap

*This is the first peculiarity of the district, which strikes the visitor on approaching Selborne from Alton. Having traversed an interesting country, consisting of meadows and arable land, the traveller finds himself descending into a hollow lane just wide enough for a cart. In a short time the road sinks some eighteen or twenty feet below the level of the adjoining fields, from which it is divided by a hedge on each side some five or six feet high, and an occasional tree. The hedges and trees send their gnarled roots down the steep sides of the soft rock, and numerous wild plants grow at its base. This lane terminates in the main road from Emshott to Selborne and Wolmer forest.-ED.