THE 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OE LONDON. 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



November 3, 1858. 



The Eev. A. S. Farrar, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, 

 was elected a Fellow. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On some Natural Pits on the Heaths o/Doesetshiee. 

 By the Rev. 0. Fisher, M.A., F.G.S. 



[Abstract.] 



On Affpuddle Heath and Piddletown Heath, near Dorchester, at an 

 elevation of rather less than 500 feet above the sea, the surface is 

 pitted with circular or oval hollows, like inverted cones, having oc- 

 casionally a double apex. Their number is very great ; and only the 

 largest are marked in the Map of the Ordnance Survey. 



They usually vary from about 60 to 80 yards ia circumference ; 

 hut one measures 130 yards, and another, called "Culpepper's 

 Dish," is 290 yards round : in the former the sloping sides are 23 

 yards high ; in the latter 47 yards. After observing that these pits 

 could not have been formed by the washing away of the underlying 

 sand-beds, the author proceeded to show that their formation seemed 

 to be due to the subsidence of the material into " sand-pipes" in 



VOL. XV. — paIit I. p 



