416 MORTIMKR: BRITISH HABITATIO.VS OX DANHY NORTH MOOU. 
from 9| to Hi- feet.'"" This group of pits, consisting of two 
rows similarly arranged, is distinctly different from the single 
lines of small pits forming the groups on Alliston Moor, in the 
neighbourhood of Scamridge Dykes ; and it differs from the 
group known as the "Killing Pits," on the north-west brow of 
Goathland Moor. Both these groups have been described by me 
in the Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological and Polytechnic 
Society (Vol. XTII., 1896). 
Mr. Cole's pitfall theory seems at first sight a plausible one, 
but for such a purpose the wide opening or gate-ways shown 
crossing the group near the centre presents a decided objection. 
Neither is the situation near the foot of the sloping ridge 
well chosen, as the animals would have been much more readily 
forced into pitfalls situated in the hollow ground (small valleys) 
through which run little streams of water near the ends of the 
line of pits, as shown on the accompanying map (Fig. 2). Besides, 
the pits in the two lines should not have been planned diametrically 
opposite, as they reall}' are, so as to give a clear passage straight 
between two pits in both lines. Moreover, the bank of earth — 
traces of which still remain — fencing the pits on both sides is, 
I think, fatal to their having been constructed to drive wild 
animals into. On the other hand, their small and uniform depth, 
as well as their arrangement at regulai- distances one from another, 
in two parallel lines, would not ha\-e been adhered to had they 
been made to obtain minerals of any kind. Besides, there is no 
mineral worth excavating. 
Therefore, if we must admit these objections against their 
suggested origin, for what purpose were they made? The old 
belief that they were pit-dwellings Canon Atkinson at one time 
These measurements closely correspond with those given by Mr, 
Atkinson (as he then was), the writer in the Gentltnian'i MagarSne for 
1861, which I quote at p. 407. These are the measurements obtained during 
the excavations made by the Whitby gentlemen quoted, and then believed 
in by Mr. Atkinson in 1861, though afterwards he stigmatised these same 
as ' ' wiseacres. " 
