412 MORTIMER: BRITISH HABITATIONS ON DAXBY NORTH MOOR. 
dispel these contradictory reports, I wrote a letter to Canon 
Atkinson on May 20th, 1895, an abstract of which I give below. 
"I have just read your account of the Danby North Moor 
group of pits, in your very interesting book (Forty Yearn in a 
Moorland Parish ), and I ha^ e the same doubts as to their origin 
as you seem to express at p. 175. To endeavour to clear up this 
doubt it does seem to me most desirable that two or three of 
the Danby North Moor Pits should be emptied by an experienced 
workman. I therefore beg you will excuse me taking the liberty 
of saying that if you will kindly obtain permission to excavate, 
sa}^ two or three pits, I will undertake to send (supply) a com- 
petent workman and pay all expenses." 
I was disappointed in receiving the following reply, dated 
May 25th, 1895 :— 
" Dear Sir, — Viscount Downe absolutely prohibits any such 
tampering with the pits on Danby North Moor as that suggested 
in your letter to me, and desires that the manorial officers should 
be warned against any possible attempt of the kind. From my 
last letter you would see that, so far as your project was intelligible 
to me, I am heartily at one with his lordship. 
" Faithfully yours, 
"J. C. Atkinson." 
To this I answered — 
"May 29th, 1895. 
"Dear Sir, — I beg you to excuse the trouble I have given 
you in writing about the pits. I feel I must apologise for not 
making the matter more clear to you in my letter of the 20th 
inst. What I meant, and what I should have said, was I would 
take a competent workman — not send one. Of course you would 
have had an opportunity of being present, and also Canon Green well 
and anyone you desired to see the excavation. Perhaps I seemed 
to you to put too much reliance on 'a competent workman,' but 
no stranger to such work would be likely to distinguish the limits 
of the original pits ; hence the probability that he would, unknow- 
ingly, break into the sides and bottom of the pits, and so their 
