T. V. Holmes — On Deneholes and Bell Pits. 453 



from those entered), averao;ing from 40 to 50 feet in length, while 

 at Hangman's Wood they are 70 feet long and about 18 feet high. 

 The height of the Bexley pits is less. The thickness of the Chalk 

 roof varies from 2 to 5 feet. At the bottom of each shaft is a conical 

 heap, consisting of the material which has fallen down the shaft 

 since the disuse of the pit. At Hangman's Wood we found that 

 the lower part of this mound consisted chiefly of gravel with lumps of 

 chalk and many very large flints. The upper part was chiefly sand. 

 The large flints had evidently been used to ' stein ' the upper part 

 of the shaft and keep the gravel from tumbling in. It was noticeable 

 that the Thanet Sand had stood much better than either the gravel 

 above or the Chalk below, the footholes by means of which the 

 shaft had, when in use, been ascended and descended, being still 

 visible in the Thanet Sand, and still allowing ascent and descent 

 to some extent. Most of the shafts are now filled with debris. 



A most noteworthy point with regard to these groups of deneholes 

 is, that while they are most conveniently situated for hiding-places, 

 their position is in the highest degree absurd if they are supposed 

 to be pits for chalk. For whereas there is plenty of bare chalk 

 within a mile, both at Bexley and Grays, these pits have been sunk 

 where the Chalk is covered by from 30 to 60 feet of other beds. 

 It is said, on the other hand, that " chalk is considered to be better 

 the deeper it lies, and the top chalk, particularly if it lies within 

 three or four feet of the surface, very indifi'erent," etc. (Geol. Mag., 

 July, 1898, p. 299). But, granting that such may be the case, that 

 offers no explanation of the sites chosen for these groups of deneholes. 

 It must be obvious that the course which would then commend itself 

 to all seekers after superior chalk would be to begin operations 

 where chalk is at the surface, make a shaft 10 to 20 feet deep, and 

 procure chalk lying at that depth. But at Hangman's Wood, after 

 penetrating through nearly 60 feet of gravel and sand, the excavators 

 have taken chalk from the uppermost 20 feet. 



It is of course possible that in primitive times pits close to that 

 great highway the Thames might compete, even if the chalk were 

 unusually deep there, with others shallower but a mile or two 

 inland. But both at Bexley and at Grays there is plenty of bare 

 chalk much nearer the river than the groups of deneholes. 



Again, the fact that an isolated denehole might be found here 

 and there of unusual depth, would not necessarily tell against the 

 chalk-pit hypothesis. A farmer might naturally prefer to get 

 chalk at a depth of 60 to 80 feet on his own land rather than 

 procure it from some one else's pit a mile or two away. But when 

 we are asked to believe that any people at any period deliberately 

 concentrated their pits where they got the least return for their 

 labour, and where there was no counterbalancing advantage what- 

 ever — as they must have done at Hangman's Wood and Bexley on 

 the Chalk-pit hypothesis — the inference necessarily follows that the 

 makers of the pits were lunatics. 



About three-quarters of a mile west of Hangman's Wood I had 

 the good fortune to see a real primitive pit for chalk in 1889, 



