age, 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 the
labour of years to render it mellow; while the gardens to the north-east,
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 joining
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 Hadleigh, and the Alton and Farnham
stream at Tilford-bridge, swells into a considerable river, navigable at
Godalming; from whence it passes to Guildford, 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 foot, 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