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the roatl ft-om Maze Hill to Montpelier Row crosses that from 

 Shooters' Hill to the west corner of Greenwich Park. On the 19th 

 of November, 1880, another subsidence was observed, the spot being 

 about 100 yards south-east of that where the subsidence occurred in 

 1878. This new hole was about 18 feet deep, cylindrical mth 

 vertical sides, Uke a well. Some of the residents desire either by 

 sinking a shaft, or by excavating at this spot, to endeavour to find 

 what are the causes of these subsidences. The Heath is a small 

 table land, and it is well Icnown that the sides of the slopes leading 

 up to its surface at Maze Hill and Grooms Hill, contain caves which 

 were formerly used by men, who in the good old times occupied 

 themselves in various modes of conveyancing and transfer of pro- 

 perty. Some persons have expressed an opinion that these indus- 

 trious persons had large subterranean stables, in which they kept 

 their horses ; and extensive galleries beneath the surface, used 

 by them for storage of the goods they held, not in trust for 

 the former owners, and the value of which to themselves might be 

 affected by exposure to day-light. Other persons have valuable 

 traditional knowledge of an underground passage leading from 

 Greenwich to Eltham, constructed in the times of King John, of 

 Magna Charta memory. All these statements and traditions 

 need verification, and until they are substantiated, or more pro- 

 bable evidence in their support adduced, those of us who reside 

 on the borders of the Heath may sleep peaceftilly in our beds ; 

 not fearing that the anticipations of the newspaper writers will 

 be fulfilled by our residences sinking bodily into mother earth. 



Speaking generally, the surface of the Heath consists of a crust 

 of " Blackheath gravel," varying in thickness, but believed to be 

 about fifty feet thick, and thinning out towards Lewisham and 

 Lee. Beneath this underlie beds of shelly clays, associated on the 

 west and south-west with fine sands, probably in some parts forty 

 feet thick ; beneath these are the Thanet sands, estimated to be 

 from forty to fifty feet thick ; then we come to the chalk formation, 

 which forms the escarpment between Woolwich and the entrance 

 to the Ravensbourne valley, and is seen cropping up near St. 

 John's. By some it is thought that these holes are old excavations 

 for obtaining gravel and sand, which have been filled up but not 

 sufficiently rammed, and that after heavy rains the earth in them 

 has consolidated. I am inclined t<i think they are over the sites of 



