xviii Journal of Procenlinr/s. 



other way. They were privileged to have with them Sir Antonio Brady, 

 the veteran elephant hunter in Essex. His work was historic — (cheers), — 

 but happily he himself was not yet historic. 



Sir- Antonio Brady, after expressing the pleasure he had derived from 

 the meeting, and from seeing and hearing his old friend. Professor Morris, 

 discussed at considerable length the various theories which had been put 

 forth to solve the geological problems which they met with in the deposits 

 of the Thames Valley. 



Mr. Wortliington Smith, F.L.S., said he had been to West Tilbury by 

 an earlier train than the main party, and had walked over the country to 

 Grays, managing to find four flakes of Paleolithic age in the high gravels ; 

 he had previously found the butt-end of an implement and several flakes 

 in the high gravels capping the chalk at Grays Thurrock. INIr. Smith 

 referred to the numerous "Dane-holes," some ojaen and others filled in, at 

 Hangman's Wood.* He said these places were doubtless shafts dug in 

 NeoHthic times in quest of the layers of flint found in the chalk, and were 

 comparable with the pits at Cissbury Camp, Worthing, examined by 

 General Pitt-Eivers (' Ai'chajologia,' xlii., 27). Mr. Smith had at different 

 times found numerous flakes of Neolitliic age round these pits, and indeed 

 had lighted upon some that morning. He strongly advised that the pits 

 should be investigated by the Essex Field Club, and reported upon. The 

 rustics in the neighbourhood sometimes descend these places by the aid 

 of ropes. 



* These remarkable relics at Little Thurrock and elsewhere have been somewhat 

 perfunctorily noticed by various antiquarian wi-iters from Camden downwards. An 

 account of them, with a gi'ound-plan of one of the pits, is given in Pahn's ' Stifford and 

 its Neighbourhood,' p. 93, and the same author's ' More about Stifford,' p. 38. From the 

 latter work we quote the following description, communicated by Mr. E. Lloyd Williams, 

 of Grays : — " Hangman's Wood is a small wood, partly in the parish of Little Thurrock 

 and partly in Orsett. At the south of this wood and on the Chadwell boundary are traces 

 of numerous pits, which at some time or other must have existed there. Most of them 

 are now completely filled u^) or fallen in, but six are still open, thi-ee of them almost in 

 the same state as when originally made. The f onnation of such as are still comparatively 

 perfect, and from which it may fauly be conjectured that the others now closed were not 

 dissimilar, is very cui'ious. A perpendicular shaft of about thi'ee feet in diameter, and 

 like that of an ordinary well, descends to a depth of about seventy-five or eighty feet, the 

 lower twenty feet or thereabouts of which pass thi'ough the chalk stratum, there reached 

 at a depth of about sixty feet. At the foot of the shaft on each side large chambers are 

 cut out of the challv, rather oval in shape, with the arching slightly pointed, and the 

 floor tolerably flat; though in one instance there appears to have been left intentionally 

 a rude kind of bench of chalk. The measurements of these chambers vary, but their 

 height, as a rule, is about sixteen feet, length aboiit twenty feet, and width about 

 fourteen or fifteen feet in the widest part." Mr. Williams conjectures that there must 

 be nearly fifty of the pits in close contiguitj-. In Swanscombe and Darenth Woods, in 

 Kent, there are similar pits, and the recent remarkable subsidences on Blackheath are by 

 some considered to be due to the presence of these " Dane-holes," the shafts of which have 

 been only partially filled in. No sufficient examination in the light of recent archreo- 

 logical researches has been yet made of these workings ; and we hope the Club wiU 

 adopt Mr. Worthington Smith's suggestion, and institute a practical enquiiy into their 

 nature and probable origin at no distant date. — Ed. 



