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a farm-house, in which lived a labourer and his family; and just by, a stout new barn. The cottage was inhabited by an old woman and her son, and his wife. These

rapidly procure for itself an outlet; and the drainage, instead of remaining in a pond, would pass along a gutter or a streamlet to the lower lands. At the base of Hawkley Slip, however, there is a pond, small though it be and the existence of so uncommon a basin in that situation may, I think, be accounted for on the supposition that the hillock interposed between it and the green slope into the flat bottom, consists, in its mass, of portions of the freestone, escaped from the front of the terrace above; and that the freestone buried in the hillocks rises so high beneath the covering earth as to be elevated above the ordinary level of the water drained into the pond from above; thus forming, with the base of the slip, a cup composed of a substance which does not yield, like the blue clay, to the sapping influence of the liquid. A slight drainage exists, probably sinking through small interstices of the masses of rock which I have assumed to be buried in this situation, and indicates its course not merely by an impressed line on the soil, but also by occasional oaks of moderate age crossing the pasture at a right angle with the Hanger.

With so very slight a drainage as that indicated, and it is all the discharge that I have observed for the waters that are poured upon this side of the Hanger, it is not surprising that they should accumulate to so great an extent as to cause occasional slips. On the opposite verge, the range of the terrace of malm-rock is intersected by a deeply penetrating ravine, along the gault bottom of which an ample drainage exists for the whole of the side towards Empshot, by a streamlet running into the Hawkley stream between Hawkley and Greatham mills, and consequently forming one of the higher feeders of the Arun. The dip of the freestone being slightly towards the north, the terrace, of whose southern escarpment the slip forms only a small part, inclines also in that direction, and hence the streamlet, its natural drainage, is, as natural drainages in all but the flattest countries must necessarily be, a very efficient one. But the history of the Hawkley slip shows that it may happen that all the water poured from the clouds shall not escape from the surface in that direction: so much as is showered on the face of the Hanger cannot be carried off by it, but must find a vent elsewhere.

In other situations, and particularly on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight, slips similar to that of Hawkley have taken place, and from the same cause: either the separation of a portion of the freestone rock of the upper green sand formation and its subsidence into the gault; or the loosening of the gault and the subsequent separation and subsidence of a portion of the free stone, which could no longer be supported when its natural foundation had thus given way. The delicious scenery of the celebrated and enchanting district of the Isle of Wight, known as the Undercliff, is owing to a similar accident; but of gigantic extent as compared with that of Hawkley: its history, however, belongs to other days. But within days of recent record an immense fall of the same kind has taken place at the well-known land-slip on the same coast, under St. Catherine's Down, near Niton; in the midst of which is seated the powerful

people, in the evening, which was very dark and tempestuous, observed that the brick floors of their kitchens began to heave and part; and that the walls seemed to open, and the roofs to crack: but they all agree that no tremor of the ground, indicating an earthquake, was ever felt; only that the wind continued to make a most tremendous roaring in the woods and hangers. The miserable inhabitants, not daring to go to bed, remained in the utmost solicitude and confusion, expecting every moment to be buried under the ruins of their shattered

mineral water of the Sand-rock spring. And yet more recently, and still on the same coast, another slip, and of similar character, has occurred between Luccomb and Bonchurch. Of the two latter events the particulars have been well described: but the length of the present note admonishes me to refrain from entering upon them.

Yet one remark respecting them must be made; the reference to them, as to analogous cases, might otherwise induce the belief that they were, in all particulars, similar to the Hawkley Slip. They are analogous, for the strata concerned in them are the same; and the parting from the face of the rock of a portion of its escarpment, and the displacement of the soft inferior clay, belong equally to both. But in one respect, and it is an important one as connected with the present appearance of the several slips, they differ materially in the Hawkley Slip at no time were there any debris visible on the surface; that which was pasture is still pasture, covered with a smooth and beautiful sward: in the slips of the Isle of Wight, the surface is irregular in the extreme, covered with masses of stones of all imaginable sizes and forms, scattered and heaped together in the greatest confusion, and forming an intricate and highly broken surface; in the remote slip of the Undercliff especially there occur single blocks of stone of immense size, each bulky enough to shelter cottages, and in one instance, at St. Lawrence, an isolated block is seen of suffi cient size to support the parish church, diminutive indeed, but still the parish church, which is erected on it. But if we reflect that, in the one case, there is an expanse of gault of sufficient extent to admit of its being moved, not for half a mile only, but to almost any conceivable distance, (for the subsidence of the entire mass of the terrace would probably merely cause the sliding of the gault upon the adjoining sandy strata of Wolmer Forest,) we shall not be surprised at its swallowing so much of the rock as was, in the Hawkley Slip, immersed in it. Whereas, on the southern coast of the Isle of Wight, the greater part of the small portion of gault intercepted in the cliff would, on such an occurrence, be at once squeezed out into the sea and be washed away, and the freestone of the slip would be received on the under sand of that iron-bound shore; retaining, however, among its gigantic fragments, some portions of the blue clay, dispersed in patches which, by their fertility, in the midst of the rocky masses, give so lovely and peculiar a character to the Undercliff.E. T. B.

edifices. When daylight came they were at leisure to contemplate the devastations of the night: they then found that a deep rift or chasm, had opened under their houses, and torn them, as it were, in two; and that one end of the barn had suffered in a similar manner; that a pond near the cottage had undergone a strange reverse, becoming deep at the shallow end, and so vice versa; that many large oaks were removed out of their perpendicular, some thrown down, and some fallen into the heads of neighbouring trees; and that a gate was thrust forward, with its hedge, full six feet, so as to require a new track to be made to it. From the foot of the cliff, the general course of the ground, which is pasture, inclines in a moderate descent for half a mile, and is interspersed with some hillocks, which were rifted, in every direction, as well towards the great woody hanger, as from it. In the first pasture the deep clefts began; and running across the lane, and under the buildings, made such vast shelves that the road was impassable for some time; and so over to an arable field on the other side, which was strangely torn and disordered. The second pasture field, being more soft and springy, was protruded forward without many fissures in the turf, which was raised in long ridges resembling graves, lying at right angles to the motion. At the bottom of this enclosure the soil and turf rose many feet against the bodies of some oaks that obstructed their farther course and terminated this awful commotion.

The perpendicular height of the precipice, in general, is twenty-three yards; the length of the lapse, or slip, as seen from the fields below, one hundred and eightyone; and a partial fall, concealed in the coppice, extends seventy yards more: so that the total length of this fragment that fell was two hundred and fifty-one yards. About fifty acres of land suffered from this violent convulsion: two houses were entirely destroyed; one end of a new barn was left in ruins, the walls being cracked through the very stones that composed them; a hanging coppice was changed to a naked rock; and

some grass grounds and an arable field so broken and rifted by the chasms as to be rendered, for a time, neither fit for the plough nor safe for pasturage, till considerable labour and expense had been bestowed in levelling the surface and filling in the gaping fissures.

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THERE is a steep abrupt pasture field interspersed with furze close to the back of this village, well known by the name of the Short Lithe, consisting of a rocky dry soil, and inclining to the afternoon sun. This spot abounds with the Gryllus campestris, or field cricket, which, though frequent in these parts, is by no means a common insect in many other counties.

As their cheerful summer cry cannot but draw the attention of a naturalist, I have often gone down to examine the economy of these Grylli, and study their mode of life: but they are so shy and cautious that it is no easy matter to get a sight of them; for, feeling a person's footsteeps as he advances, they stop short in the midst of their song, and retire backward nimbly into their burrows, where they lurk till all suspicion of danger is over.

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At first we attempted to dig them out with a spade, but without any great success: for either we could not get to the bottom of the hole, which often terminated under a great stone; or else, in breaking up the ground, we inadvertently squeezed the poor insect to death. Out of one so bruised we took a multitude of eggs, which were long and narrow, of a yellow colour, and covered with a very tough skin. By this accident we learned to distinguish the male from the female: the former of which is shining black, with a golden

FIELD CRICKET.

stripe across his shoulders; the latter is more dusky, more capacious about the abdomen, and carries a long sword-shaped weapon at her tail, which probably is the instrument with which she deposits her eggs in crannies and safe receptacles.

Where violent methods will not avail, more gentle means will often succeed; and so it proved in the present case for though a spade be too boisterous and rough an implement, a pliant stalk of grass, gently insinuated into the caverns, will probe their windings to

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