2J.I 



ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, 



ESSEX. 



By T. V. HOLMES, F.G.S., F.Anthrop.Inst., Vice-President, K.F.C. 

 [Read February 24/Z?, 1906.] 



ON January 12th (1906), our Secretary, Mr. W. Cole, 

 received a letter from Mr. S. J. Squier, of the Rookery, 

 Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, stating that "in the middle of one of 

 our fields in Mucking parish, the surface has dropped in, leaving 

 a big circular hole like a great well, measuring 25 feet across and 

 20 feet in depth." Mr. Squier added that in the fields near 

 appeared, in a line, hollows suggesting the former existence 

 there of similar holes, though he could not find anyone in the 

 neighbourhood who remembered the occurrence of anything of 

 the kind in past years. 



Mr. Cole having kindly forwarded the letter to me, I wrote to 

 Mr. Squier, who was good enough to arrange to show me this 

 strange hole on January 24th. Accordingly, on that day, I 

 visited the spot in Mr. Squier's company. Its position is about 

 400 yards north-east of Collingwood Farm, which appears on 

 the six-inch to the mile ordnance map (84 N.W.) at the north- 

 eastern corner of Mucking Heath (see map). It was still circular 

 in shape, though its diameter was slightly greater than when it 

 was first seen, being a little more than 30 feet. The fall of 

 material from its sides had left them still vertical, though it had 

 reduced the depth of the pit from 20 feet in the centre to about 16 

 feet, and at the sides to 1 1 or 12 feet. The material seen, at the 

 bottom was simply that which had tumbled in from the sides. The 

 lowest bed visible consisted of yellow sand, of which a thickness 

 of about six feet was seen. Above it was about two feet of sand 

 somewhat more clayey, containing small pebbles, and here and 

 there fragments of shelis, there being no definite line of separa- 

 tion between it and the sand beneath. The surface bed consisted 

 of reddish-brown clay, precisely like London Clay which has 

 lost the bluish tint characteristic of it at a certain depth. 



Leaving this remarkable hole, we proceeded in a direction a 

 little north of west, traversing the field on the western side of 

 Witches Lane. There, Mr. Squier pointed out four circular 

 depressions, with sloping sides, as probably marking the spots at 

 which subsidences similar to that just seen had once occurred. 



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