148 
MORTIMER : KILLING PITS. 
believed to be the foundations of Pit Dwellings. 
Since writing the preceding, I have seen tlie memoirs of tlie 
Geological Survey of the United Kingdom, and at page 236, Mr. C. 
Fox-Straugways, F.G.S., thus writes of Killing Pits : "A good deal 
of mystery hangs over these pits, and various theories have been 
started to account for their origin, but there can be little doubt that 
they are ancient workings for this impure ironstone. Similar shallow 
pits occur at many other places on these moors, but always just over 
the ironstone."" 
After these conflicting opinions and the firm assertions of so 
able a geologist as just quoted, a re-examination of these pits with 
the assistance of the pick and the spade seemed desirable. Therefore, 
on the 26th and 27th of July, 1893, with the assistance of two 
workmen, I excavated four of the most circular in form, but variable 
in size. The first was a medium-sized pit, one of the larger class. 
After having removed the peaty turf and rubbly soil beneath, which 
had accumulated to a depth of 18 inches, apparently during a lengthy 
period, the filling-in of the pit was found to be a mixed-up material, 
consisting of cla}^, peat, disintegrated gritstone, and a few gritstone 
blocks of various sizes, such apparently as had been cast from an 
adjoining pit in sinking it. These rested on a central depressed bed 
of almost pure peat-earth, varying from 5 to 10 inches in thickness. 
This had either accumulated during a considerable period at the then 
bottom of the pit previous to the casting in of the superincumbent 
matter, or had been the turf removed from the surface and cast there 
in excavating an adjoining pit. However, this was not the original 
bottom of the pit, as we observed under it a very similar mixture to 
that met with above. This mixture was observed to extend 5 feet 
below the layer of peat, and as we proceeded downwards it readily 
peeled from off the firm sides of the original pit, which had been 
quite circular, with vertical sides, and had reached 1 1 feet in depth, 
with a diameter of 8^ feet from top to bottom. The depth penetrated 
was through beds of disintegrated gritstone (moor grit), divided by 
beds of more or less clayey and shaley matter (calcareous shale). 
* Memoirs of the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. The Jurassic 
Rocks of Britain, vol. 1. 
