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