152 MORTIMER : SMALL PITS ON ALLERSTON AND EBBERSTON MOORS. 
obtaining water for their cattle on tliese high grounds ; and that the 
sloping side was to admit of the cattle reaching the water. I believe 
this is now almost the only way of collecting such an important 
requisite for their live stock. This series of pits runs with its northern 
end into a somewhat shallow trench called " Wetmoor Dyke," so 
named most probably from the water which stands there in hollows 
on the surface more frequently than in other parts of the moor. 
The next series of pits consists of two lines running northwards 
from " Ebberston common house," commencing a little over a mile 
N.E. of those just described. These I also carefully examined. In the 
southern end of the largest of these two excavated lines, the pits are 
very similar in appearance to those on Allerston Warren to the 
south ; but in proceeding northwards along the line, they were 
observed to increase in length and to run somewhat into one 
another. This tendency continued to increase till they finally 
formed a continuous trench before reaching the north end of a 
double entrenchment, which met them at right angles, and the 
two seem to end in one in the southern branches of "Deep Dale." 
In venturing to comment on the two theories above referred to, 
I do not hesitate to remark that the pits on Allerston and Ebberston 
moors are mostly too small, and would have been very unsuitable for 
human habitations, as many of them in this immediate neighbour- 
hood must have been, during the greater part of the year, half filled 
with water. The habitation hypothesis of the antiquary I cannot 
therefore endorse. 
In regard to the speculations of the geologist, I have the pre- 
sumption to say that there is no ironstone to be found on this moor 
near the surface, and, therefore, it is hardly likely that these numerous 
shallow excavations would have been made in searching for this 
material. 
Equally unsatisfactory is the suggestion that they might be 
natural sinkings of the surface, for such would not have been 
so regular in line and distance from each other; moreover, such a 
cause would not account for the more or less raised bank which is 
visible on one, and sometimes slightly on both sides of the lines of 
pits. 
