ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, ESSEX. 249 



bordering the Mediterranean. And, of course, the excavations 

 are made in the surface rock of the locality in which they are 

 needed. " The effort to keep out the damp is a constant trouble. 

 It is accomplished in a measure by bsating hard the sides of the 

 pit, if of clay ; by enveloping the deposit of corn with straw, 

 reeds, fern, or bavins ; by endeavouring to harden the sides by 

 burning with fire, which could only be done in very shallow 

 pits ; by erecting wooden walls and floors ; by covering with 

 mastic or cement ; and finally by building the interior either 

 with stones, finished masonry, or with bricks and tevva cotta." 



I would also remind members of the Essex Field Club that 

 on pp. 5 and 6 of Vol. II. of the Esskx Naturalist (1888) there 

 is a " Note on the use of Pits in Brittany for Storage of Grain," 

 by Charles Browne, M.A., who states that when travelling in 

 Brittany in the preceding autumn he noticed slight mounds, 

 sometimes in the centre, sometimes at the sides of the fields. 

 Upon inquiring of the country people he was told they marked 

 the sites of pits used for the storage of corn. They also told 

 him that after filling a pit with stores of this sort they covered 

 over the top with a layer of clay or earth, rammed hard to keep 

 out the wet. The slight mound was simply to mark the position 

 of the pit. Mr. Browne, unfortunately, was not able to examine 

 any of these pits, but his note is valuable as showing subter- 

 ranean storage to be still in use in a country so near our own as 

 Brittany, and one, like Essex, bordering the sea. 



I now pass on to consider the bearing of the remarks of Mr. 

 Spurrell and Mr. Browne on the nature and distribution of these 

 underground storehouses on the recent and (in all probability) 

 earlier subsidences at Mucking. 



I have already noted the advantages and disadvantages of 

 the position of this Essex district between Purfleet and 

 Stanford-le-Hope, and the special need of its inhabitants many 

 centuries ago for secret storehouses when there was no Count of 

 the Saxon Shore to protect south-eastern Britain from pirates. 

 Hence, no doubt, the abundance of deneholes in the chalk 

 between Purfleet and Hangman's Wood. But the people of 

 that part of the district between Hangman's Wood and Stanford- 

 le-Hope would need secret storehouses as much as their neigh- 

 bours south and west, and would be compelled to make their 

 subterranean granaries in the sands near the surface. For it 



