298 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS 



when I have been more interested than with the results. 

 At the beginning of last week, after he had been digging 

 out the rubbish from one of these pits (he began 3 

 years ago, but of course only worked occasionally) and 

 had got down by the side of the solid chalk about 39 

 feet, he found a horizontal opening; clearing this he 

 found it was the entrance to a gallery, or rather series 

 of galleries, and these he has since been clearing out ; 

 for the makers of these galleries, after they had got 

 what they wanted, seemed to have filled in some of 

 them with the chalk they excavated from the others of 

 course, to save the trouble of hoisting it to the top. 

 These galleries run in almost every direction, with only 

 enough between them to keep the roof from falling in, 

 and it is quite clear that the object with which they 

 were cut was to get at the " floor flint," a stratum 

 of the finest and hardest flint some 9 to 12 inches thick 

 which lies at that depth and is entirely removed from 

 the galleries. One of these is either 27 or 29 feet long, 

 and appears to have communicated with a similar shaft 

 now nearly filled up and forming the next depression, 

 and there seems a probability that the whole formed an 

 immense series of " pot-holes " (like those they used to 

 take rabbits in on the warrens). The gallery at the 

 entrance is nearly high enough to stand in, say 5 feet, 

 but it soon diminishes and the branches are not above 

 3 feet high, some of them less, so that the miners must 

 have lain on their side just as pit-men do now in the 

 collieries. But the best thing has to come ; these 

 galleries were all excavated with picks made of Stags' 

 horns ! more than a dozen of which have been found in 

 this one pit, among the rubbish or quite at the end of 

 the galleries. Whether this pit ever caved in and the 

 workers had to leave their tools one can't say, but 

 probably it was so. The next that is opened will 

 probably show ; for one cannot think that the picks 

 were of no value, some indeed are quite worn, but the 

 others are quite fresh. The horns are longer than the 

 average fen horn, but not so big as those of the drift. 



