at
the country round the house; the day was gloomy and cold with N.E. wind.
She likes the actual field and house better than I; the house is just
situated as she likes for retirement, not too near or too far from other
houses, but she thinks the country looks desolate. I think all chalk
countries do, but I am used to Cambridgeshire, which is ten times worse.
Emma is rapidly coming round. She was dreadfully bad with toothache and
headache in the evening and Friday, but in coming back yesterday she was
so delighted with the scenery for the first few miles from Down, that it
has worked a great change in her. We go there again the first fine day
Emma is able, and we then finally settle what to do.

(12/2. The following fragmentary "Account of Down" was found among Mr.
Darwin's papers after the publication of the "Life and Letters." It
gives the impression that he intended to write a natural history diary
after the manner of Gilbert White, but there is no evidence that this
was actually the case.)

1843. May 15th.--The first peculiarity which strikes a stranger
unaccustomed to a hilly chalk country is the valleys, with their steep
rounded bottoms--not furrowed with the smallest rivulet. On the road to
Down from Keston a mound has been thrown across a considerable valley,
but even against this mound there is no appearance of even a small
pool of water having collected after the heaviest rains. The water
all percolates straight downwards. Ascertain average depth of wells,
inclination of strata, and springs. Does the water from this country
crop out in springs in Holmsdale or in the valley of the Thames? Examine
the fine springs in Holmsdale.

The valleys on this platform sloping northward, but exceedingly even,
generally run north and south; their sides near the summits generally
become suddenly more abrupt, and are fringed with narrow strips, or, as
they are here called, "shaws" of wood, sometimes merely by hedgerows run
wild. The sudden steepness may generally be perceived, as just before
ascending to Cudham Wood, and at Green Hill, where one of the lanes
crosses these valleys. These valleys are in all probability ancient
sea-bays, and I have sometimes speculated whether this sudden steepening
of the sides does not mark the edges of vertical cliffs formed when
these valleys were filled with sea-water, as would naturally happen in
strata such as the chalk.

In most countries the roads and footpaths ascend along the botto