NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 77 



irregularites as regards the size and direction of the galleries, 

 but one general plan of working prevails throughout. One 

 published account of these caves states that the positions of 

 some seventy denehole shafts appear in the ground 

 above them. But the plan shows that any hollows giving that 

 impression must be either surface workings for sand and gravel, 

 or indicate the positions of the downfalls of sand into the chalk 

 beneath. For in themselves these hollows furnish no evidence 

 whatever of the existence of denehole shafts, though similar 

 cavities may be found at the surface when deneholes exist. In 

 this case the plan shows no trace of any intersection of deneholes 

 in the workings, a fact decisive against the denehole hypothesis. 

 Judging from the plan, the area occupied by these excavations 

 must be between fifteen and twenty acres. And the point in 

 them most remote from their present entrance is about 300 yards 

 away, if measured in a straight line. It is also noticeable that 

 though the same general plan of working prevails throughout, the 

 galleries within a certain distance of the entrance are on the 

 average higher and broader than those which are more distant. 

 And to the most remote belong the little group here given, to 

 show the general arrangement of the galleries. 



These caves were visited by the Geologists' Association on 

 April 26th, 1902, Messrs. T. V. Holmes and C. W. Osman being 

 the directors and reporters of the excursion, an account of which 

 may be seen in Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xvii. The reporters look 

 on the caves as workings for chalk. In the Journal of the British 

 Archaological Association for December, 1903, there is a paper by 

 Mr. W. J. Nichols, in which they are considered to be deneholes. 

 And in the Journal of the British Archccological Association for 

 August, 1904, there is a paper about them by Messrs. T. E. and 

 R. H. Forster, in which the view that they are excavations for 

 obtaining chalk is upheld. It is to this Mr. T. E. Forster that 

 we are indebted for the plan which so decisively settles their 

 affinities. 



MISCELLANEA. 



An Ancient Municipal Enterprise. — Our esteemed 

 member, Mr. J, C. Shenstone, F.L.S., contributed to the Saturday 

 Westminster Gazette of August 12th, 1905, an interesting article 

 under the above title, from which we cull a few paragraphs : — 



"It frequently happens that when the full force of some great social 



