... Or
was there ever a time when these immense masses of calcareous
matter were drown into fermentation by some adventitious
moisture; were raised and leavened into such shapes by some
plastic power; and so made to swell and heave their broad backs
into the sky so much above the less animated clay of the wild
below?
By what I can guess from the admeasurements of the hills that have
been taken round my house, I should suppose that these hills
surmount the wild at au average at about the rate of five hundred
feet.
One thing is very remarkable as to the sheep: from the westward
till you get to the river Adur all the flocks have horns, and smooth
white faces, and white legs; and a hornless sheep is rarely to be
seen: but as soon as you pass the river eastward, and mount
Beeding-hill, all the flocks at once become hornless, or, as they call
them, poll-sheep; and have moreover black faces with a white tuft
of wool on their foreheads, and speckled and spotted legs: so that
you would think that the flocks of Laban were pasturing on one
side of the stream, and the variegated breed of his son-in-law Jacob
were cantoned along on the other.
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