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.

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
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 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 frost-work. 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, was 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 landrails 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,