MOVING HILLS. 229 LETTER LXXXVII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. Mugire videbis Sub pedibus terram, et descendere montibus ornos. WHEN I was a boy, I used to read, with astonishment and implicit assent, accounts in Baker's Chronicle of walking hills and travelling mountains. John Philips, in his Cyder, alludes to the credit that was given to such stories with a delicate but quaint vein of humour, peculiar to the author of the Splendid Shilling: I nor advise, nor reprehend, the choice Of Marcley Hill; * the apple no where finds Deceitful ground: who knows but that, once more, But, when I came to consider better, I began to suspect that, though our hills may never have journeyed far, yet that the ends of many of them have slipped and fallen away at distant periods, leaving the cliffs bare and abrupt. This seems to have been the case with Nore and Whetham Hills, and especially with the ridge between Harteley Park and Wardle-ham, where the ground has slid into vast swellings and furrows, and lies still in such romantic confusion as cannot be accounted for from any other cause. A strange event, that happened not long since, justifies our suspicions; which, though it befell not within the limits of this parish, yet as it was within the hundred of Selborne, and as the circumstances were singular, may fairly claim a place in a work of this nature. * Marcley Hill is near the confluence of the Lug and Wye, about six. miles east of Hereford. In the year 1595, it was, after roaring and shaking in a terrible manner for three days together, about six o'clock on Sunday evening, put in motion, and continued moving for eight hours, in which time it advanced upwards of two hundred feet from its first situation, and mounted twelve fathoms higher than it was before. In the place where it set out, it left a gap four hundred feet long, and three hundred and twenty broad; and in its progress it overthrew a chapel, together with trees and houses that stood in its way. - ED. The months of January and February in the year 1774, were remarkable for great melting snows and vast gluts of rain, so that, by the end of the latter month, the land-springs, or levants, began to prevail, and to be near as high as in the memorable winter of 1764. The beginning of March also went on in the same tenor, when, in the night between the 8th and 9th of that month, a considerable part of the great woody hanger at Hawkley was torn from its place, and fell down, leaving a high freestone cliff naked and bare, and resembling the steep side of a chalk-pit. It appears that this huge fragment, being, perhaps, sapped and undermined by waters, foundered, and was ingulfed, going down in a perpendicular direction; for a gate, which stood in the field on the top of the hill, after sinking with its posts for thirty or forty feet, remained in so true and upright a position, as to open and shut with great exactness, just as in its first situation. Several oaks also are still standing, and in a state of vegetation, after taking the same desperate leap. That great part of this prodigious mass was absorbed in some gulf below, is plain also from the inclining ground at the bottom of the hill, which is free and unencumbered, but would have been buried in heaps of rubbish, had the fragment parted and fallen forward. About an hundred yards from the foot of this hanging coppice stood a cottage by the side of a lane; and two hundred yards lower, on the other side of the lane, was 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 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 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.* There are numerous instances on record of mountain slips of this kind, in various places of the world; indeed, they are almost of daily occurrence, to a greater or lesser extent. That which is recorded by our author, is trifling when compared to some others. We may particularize the fall of Mount Rusfi, in Switzerland, which took place in 1806. "Here," says Saussure, writing on the spot," but three weeks ago, was one of the most delightfully fertile valleys of all Switzerland, green and luxuriant, adorned with little villages, full of secure and happy farmers. Now, three of these villages are for ever erased from the face of the earth, and an extended desolation, burying alive several hundred peasants, overspreads the valley of Lowertz." Early in the evening of the second of September, an immense projection of the mountain of Rusfi gave way, and was precipitated into the valley. In four minutes, it completely overwhelmed three villages, and part of two others. The torrent of earth and stones was more rapid than that of lava, and its effects as irresistible and terrible. The mountain, in its tremendous descent, carried trees, rocks, houses, and every thing before it; the mass spread in every direction, so as to bury completely a space of charming country, more than three miles square. The force of the earth was so great, that it not only overspread the hollow of the valley, but even ascended to a considerable height on the side of the opposite mountain. Part of the falling mass rolled into the lake of Lowertz, filling a fifth part of it up; and raised the water so much, that two islands within it, and the village of Sever, were, for a time, completely overwhelmed by the swell. By this frightful catastrophe, four hundred and thirty-four individuals lost their lives; and there were also lost one hundred and seventy cows and horses, and one hundred and three goats and sheep'; eighty-seven meadows destroyed, sixty meadows damaged; ninety-three houses entirely destroyed, eight houses damaged, and uninhabitable; one hundred and sixty-six cow-houses, barns, &c. destroyed, and nineteen damaged. — ED. 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 eighty-one; 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. LETTER LXXXVIII. TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON, SELBORNE. Resonant arbusta. 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 footsteps 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. 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 Acheta campestris, Fabricius. -Ed.. 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 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 the bottom, and quickly bring out the inhabitant; and thus the humane inquirer may gratify his curiosity without injuring the object of it.* It is remarkable, that, though these insects are furnished with long legs behind, and brawny thighs for leaping, like grasshoppers, yet, when driven from their holes, they shew no activity, but crawl along in a shiftless manner, so as easily to be taken; and again, though provided with a curious apparatus of wings, yet they never exert them when there seems to be the greatest occasion. The males only make that shrilling noise, perhaps out of rivalry and emulation, as is the case with many animals which exert some sprightly note during their breeding time it is raised by a brisk friction of one wing against the other. They are solitary beings, living singly male or female, each as it may happen; but there must be a time when the sexes have some intercourse, and then the wings may be useful, perhaps, during the hours of night. When the males meet, they will fight fiercely, as I found by some which I put into the crevices of a dry stone wall, where I should have been glad to have made them settle; for though they seemed distressed by being taken out of their knowledge, yet the first that got possession of the chinks would seize on any that were obtruded upon them, with a vast row of serrated fangs. With their strong jaws, *The children in France amuse themselves in the fields hunting the field-cricket. They put into the hole of that insect an ant, to which a long hair is attached, and allowing the little animal to penetrate to the bottom of the burrow, they then draw it out, and the cricket always follows it, and in this manner is captured. Pliny informs us of a simple method of taking this insect, which is, by thrusting a slender piece of stick to the bottom of their burrow, when the cricket immediately gets upon it to know the reason of the intrusion, and is thus easily secured. This simplicity of the animal no doubt gave rise to the proverb stultior grillo, -more foolish than a cricket. -ED. |