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with the single farms, and many scattered houses along the verge of the forest, contains upwards of 670 inhabitants.1

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

1 A State of the Parish of SELBORNE, taken Oct. 4, 1783.
The number of tenements or families, 136.
The number of inhabitants in the street is.

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Total 676; near five inhabitants to each tenement. In the time of the Rev. Gilbert White, vicar, who died in 1727-8, the number of inhabitants was computed at about 500.

Average of Baptisms for Sixty Years.

Males.

Females.

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Total of baptisms from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 980.

Average of Burials for Sixty Years.

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From 1720 to 1729, both years inclusive . 4.8

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Total of burials from 1720 to 1779, both inclusive, sixty years, 640.

Baptisms exceed burials by more than one-third.

Baptisms of males exceed females by one-tenth, or one in ten.
Burials of females exceed males by one in thirty.

It appears that a child, born and bred in this parish, has an equal chance to live above forty years.

Twins thirteen times, many of whom dying young have lessened the chances for life.

Chances for life in men and women appear to be equal.

spring and summer 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: but from circumstances this trade is at an end.1

The inhabitants enjoy a good share of health and longevity; and the parish swarms with children.

A Table of the Baptisms, Burials, and Marriages, from January 2, 1761, to December 25, 1780, in the Parish of Selborne.

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During this period of twenty years, the births of males exceeded those of females 10. The burials of each sex were equal. And the births exceeded the deaths 140.-G. W.

1 Since the passage above was written, I am happy m being able to say that the spinning employment is a little revived, to the no small comfort of the industrious housewife.-G. W.

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TO THOMAS PENNANT, ESQUIRE.

HOULD 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 ofter 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

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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.1 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

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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 oak, I have also been

1 At the present time nearly 1,500 acres are enclosed and planted, chiefly with oak, larch, and Scotch fir; and the large size to which many of the firs have attained, proves how well adapted the soil is for that kind of timber. Outside the enclosures seedling firs are springing up rapidly; and year by year as the wind scatters the seeds, the area of the woodland increases, so that in time were the trees not felled or burned, they would extend over the whole of the district comprised in the "forest."

During the hot summer of 1864, a terrible conflagration occurred, and was supposed to have been the work of incendiaries. 540 acres in Longmoor, and 170 in Brimstone Wood were destroyed before the fire burnt itself out. The amount of game destroyed, as may be supposed, was commensurate with the destruction of its haunts.-ED.

2 See his History of Staffordshire.—G. W.

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 some depth under ground, has an influence in promoting a thaw, as well as the change of the weather from a freezing to a thawing state, is manifest from this observation, viz. Nov. 29, 1731, a little snow having fallen in the night, it was, by eleven the next morning, mostly melted away on the surface of the earth, except in several places in Bushy Park, where there were drains dug and covered with earth, on which the snow continued to lie, whether those drains were full of water or dry; as also where elm-pipes lay under ground; a plain proof this, that those drains intercepted the warmth of the earth from ascending from greater depths below them: for the snow lay where the

shown pieces of fossil wood of a paler colour, and softer nature, which the inhabitants called fir: but upon a nice examination, and trial by fire, I could discover nothing

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resinous in them; and therefore rather suppose that they were parts of a willow or alder, or some such aquatic tree.1

drain had more than four feet depth of earth over it. It continued also to lie on thatch, tiles, and the tops of walls." See Hule's Hamastatics, p. 360.-Quere, Might not such observations be reduced to domestic use, by promoting the discovery of old obliterated drains and wells about houses; and, in Roman stations and camps, lead to the finding of pavements, baths, and graves, and other hidden relics of curious antiquity ?—G. W.

See also the letter to Daines Barrington, numbered LXI.; in which the effects of the short but intense frost of 1768 are described.-ED.

1 A more recent instance of the occurrence of bog-oak is recorded in Letter LIX. to Daines Barrington and probably the stock is by no means yet exhausted. In addition to the oak, fir and birch are also found. They are in various stages of carbonization, dependent on their position, or, in other words, on the length of time during which they have been subjected to the action of moisture and pressure. Above the peat is a layer of sand of eighteen inches or two feet in thickness. On the top of this rests a thick layer of turf; consisting of the blended roots of many generations of heath and other plants, and approaching, in its lower part, to the character of the genuine bog. It is from this compact layer that the majority of the larger trunks are obtained. -ED.

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