Madam How and Lady Why; Or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children. Charles Kingsley
far down these banks, much less roll down them, because there is almost certain to be a bog at the bottom, lying upon a gentle slope; and there you get wet through.
All round these hills, from here to Aldershot in one direction, and from here to Windsor in another, you see the same shaped glens; the wave-crest along their top, and at the foot of the crest a line of springs which run out over the slopes, or well up through them in deep sand-galls, as you call them—shaking quagmires which are sometimes deep enough to swallow up a horse, and which you love to dance upon in summer time. Now the water of all these springs is nothing but the rain, and mist, and dew, which has sunk down first through the peaty soil, and then through the gravel and sand, and there has stopped. And why? Because under the gravel (about which I will tell you a strange story one day) and under the sand, which is what the geologists call the Upper Bagshot sand, there is an entirely different set of beds, which geologists call the Bracklesham beds, from a place near the New Forest; and in those beds there is a vein of clay, and through that clay the water cannot get, as you have seen yourself when we dug it out in the field below to puddle the pond-head; and very good fun you thought it, and a very pretty mess you made of yourself. Well: because the water cannot get though this clay, and must go somewhere, it runs out continually along the top of the clay, and as it runs undermines the bank, and brings down sand and gravel continually for the next shower to wash into the stream below.
Now think for one moment how wonderful it is that the shape of these glens, of which you are so fond, was settled by the particular order in which Madam How laid down the gravel and sand and mud at the bottom of the sea, ages and ages ago. This is what I told you, that the least thing that Madam How does to-day may take effect hundreds and thousands of years hence.
But I must tell you I think there was a time when this glen was of a very different shape from what it is now; and I dare say, according to your notions, of a much prettier shape. It was once just like one of those Chines which we used to see at Bournemouth. You recollect them? How there was a narrow gap in the cliff of striped sands and gravels; and out of the mouth of that gap, only a few feet across, there poured down a great slope of mud and sand the shape of half a bun, some wet and some dry, up which we used to scramble and get into the Chine, and call the Chine what it was in the truest sense, Fairyland. You recollect how it was all eaten out into mountain ranges, pinnacles, steep cliffs of white, and yellow, and pink, standing up against the clear blue sky; till we agreed that, putting aside the difference of size, they were as beautiful and grand as any Alps we had ever seen in pictures. And how we saw (for there could be no mistake about it there) that the Chine was being hollowed out by the springs which broke out high up the cliff, and by the rain which wore the sand into furrowed pinnacles and peaks. You recollect the beautiful place, and how, when we looked back down it we saw between the miniature mountain walls the bright blue sea, and heard it murmur on the sands outside. So I verily believe we might have done, if we had stood somewhere at the bottom of this glen thousands of years ago. We should have seen the sea in front of us; or rather, an arm of the sea; for Finchampstead ridges opposite, instead of being covered with farms, and woodlands, and purple heath above, would have been steep cliffs of sand and clay, just like those you see at Bournemouth now; and—what would have spoilt somewhat the beauty of the sight—along the shores there would have floated, at least in winter, great blocks and floes of ice, such as you might have seen in the tideway at King’s Lynn the winter before last, growling and crashing, grubbing and ploughing the sand, and the gravel, and the mud, and sweeping them away into seas towards the North, which are now all fruitful land. That may seem to you like a dream: yet it is true; and some day, when we have another talk with Madam How, I will show even a child like you that it was true.
But what could change a beautiful Chine like that at Bournemouth into a wide sloping glen like this of Bracknell’s Bottom, with a wood like Coombs’, many acres large, in the middle of it? Well now, think. It is a capital plan for finding out Madam How’s secrets, to see what she might do in one place, and explain by it what she has done in another. Suppose now, Madam How had orders to lift up the whole coast of Bournemouth only twenty or even ten feet higher out of the sea than it is now. She could do that easily enough, for she has been doing so on the coast of South America for ages; she has been doing so this very summer in what hasty people would call a hasty, and violent, and ruthless way; though I shall not say so, for I believe that Lady Why knows best. She is doing so now steadily on the west coast of Norway, which is rising quietly—all that vast range of mountain wall and iron-bound cliff—at the rate of some four feet in a hundred years, without making the least noise or confusion, or even causing an extra ripple on the sea; so light and gentle, when she will, can Madam How’s strong finger be.
Now, if the mouth of that Chine at Bournemouth was lifted twenty feet out of the sea, one thing would happen,—that the high tide would not come up any longer, and wash away the cake of dirt at the entrance, as we saw it do so often. But if the mud stopped there, the mud behind it would come down more slowly, and lodge inside more and more, till the Chine was half filled-up, and only the upper part of the cliffs continue to be eaten away, above the level where the springs ran out. So gradually the Chine, instead of being deep and narrow, would become broad and shallow; and instead of hollowing itself rapidly after every shower of rain, as you saw the Chine at Bournemouth doing, would hollow itself out slowly, as this glen is doing now. And one thing more would happen,—when the sea ceased to gnaw at the foot of the cliffs outside, and to carry away every stone and grain of sand which fell from them, the cliffs would very soon cease to be cliffs; the rain and the frost would still crumble them down, but the dirt that fell would lie at their feet, and gradually make a slope of dry land, far out where the shallow sea had been; and their tops, instead of being steep as now, would become smooth and rounded; and so at last, instead of two sharp walls of cliff at the Chine’s mouth, you might have—just what you have here at the mouth of this glen,—our Mount and the Warren Hill,—long slopes with sheets of drifted gravel and sand at their feet, stretching down into what was once an icy sea, and is now the Vale of Blackwater. And this I really believe Madam How has done simply by lifting Hartford Bridge Flat a few more feet out of the sea, and leaving the rest to her trusty tool, the water in the sky.
That is my guess: and I think it is a good guess, because I have asked Madam How a hundred different questions about it in the last ten years, and she always answered them in the same way, saying, “Water, water, you stupid man.” But I do not want you merely to depend on what I say. If you want to understand Madam How, you must ask her questions yourself, and make up your mind yourself like a man, instead of taking things at hearsay or second-hand, like the vulgar. Mind, by “the vulgar” I do not mean poor people: I mean ignorant and uneducated people, who do not use their brains rightly, though they may be fine ladies, kings, or popes. The Bible says, “Prove all things: hold fast that which is good.” So do you prove my guess, and if it proves good, hold it fast.
And how can I do that?
First, by direct experiment, as it is called. In plain English—go home and make a little Hartford Bridge Flat in the stable-yard; and then ask Mrs. How if she will not make a glen in it like this glen here. We will go home and try that. We will make a great flat cake of clay, and put upon it a cap of sand; and then we will rain upon it out of a watering-pot; and see if Mrs. How does not begin soon to make a glen in the side of the heap, just like those on Hartford Bridge Flat. I believe she will; and certainly, if she does, it will be a fresh proof that my guess is right. And then we will see whether water will not make glens of a different shape than these, if it run over soils of a different kind. We will make a Hartford Bridge Flat turned upside down—a cake of sand with a cap of clay on the top; and we will rain on that out of our watering-pot, and see what sort of glens we make then. I can guess what they will be like, because I have seen them—steep overhanging cliffs, with very narrow gullies down them: but you shall try for yourself, and make up your mind whether you think me right or wrong. Meanwhile, remember that those gullies too will have been made by water.
And there is another way of “verifying my theory,” as it is called; in plain English, seeing if my guess holds good; that is, to look at other valleys—not merely the valleys round here, but valleys in clay, in chalk, in limestone, in the hard slate rock such as you saw in Devonshire—and see whether my guess does not hold good about them too; whether