8 MR. W. WHITAKER 0~$ THE [vol. lxxv, 



over a large tract of country, showed their true age. They were 

 at first, therefore, marked on the map only by the engraved words 

 'Pebble Gravel.' This mistake was corrected in a later issue of the 

 map, when the beds had been mapped and an acknowledgment 

 of it had been made to the Society. 1 



The first description of the outlier was given in fifteen lines of 

 .a Geological Survey Memoir, 2 based on the one good section that 

 liad been seen, and that description holds the field, so far as it 

 goes, no trace of the Chalk having been shown. 



It was many years later ere the section was again noticed in 

 print, through a visit of the Geologists' Association, and then but 

 little added, the only notable thing being the occurrence of sup- 

 2X)sed allophane. 3 



Seven years later another excursion of the same body led to 

 another short description, by Mr. N. F. Kobarts, which added a 

 record of pipes in the Chalk being shown in a pit at Nore Hill, 

 southward of the great pit at Worms Heath. 1 



Two or three years later, I know not exactly when, the cutting- 

 "back of the pit, carried close to the southern side of the high road, 

 showed something that Avas new and unexpected, the Chalk being 

 found to rise up suddenly, from beneath the Blackheath Beds, 

 until in places it came within a few feet of the ground-surface — 

 of course, in a very irregular way. 



One of the pipes being singularly like a well, or artificial hole in 

 the Chalk, the attention of Mr. Reginald Smith, of the British 

 Museum, was drawn to this, with a view of having it investigated 

 from an antiquarian point of view. I had the pleasure of going to 

 the place with him, in the autumn of 1908, and, after careful exami- 

 nation, we came to the conclusion that it was worth while to have 

 same amount of excavation done, so as to settle the question, though 

 we thought that a natural origin of the hole was more likely than 

 an artificial one. 



The work was carried out by the Surrey Archaeological Society, 

 with the following result. 



'Some experimental excavations during the year [1903] were also made on 

 behalf of the Society on Worms Heath, where a circular shaft in the chalk 

 outcrop on the side of a gravel pit appeared to be of such symmetrical 

 formation as to suggest the possibility of its being due to human agency. 

 After descending to some depth, though the remarkatle symmetry was well 

 maintained, the absence of any pick-marks in the sides and of any trace of 

 hiunan implements convinced the experts present that the shaft was the 

 result solely of natural causes, and the work . . . was abandoned.' 5 



It is satisfactory to have had this point cleared up, the more so 

 perhaps, as some old pits on the other side of the road have been 

 marked as earthworks on the 6-inch Ordnance Survey Map. 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxii (1866) p. 420. 



2 ' The Geology of the London Basin ' Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. iv (1872) 

 p. 257. 



3 Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xv (1898) p. 459. 



4 Ibid. vol. xix (1905) p. 134. 



5 ' Surrey Archaeological Collections ' 1910, p. xi. 



