Mr. Barker’s meteorological Re gift er. 165 
it was in fpring time that i went to fee it. I then found it 
to be an oval hole, five yards over one way, and four another, 
and about four yards deep in the middle ; but fome of the. 
earth having lodged againft the fides of the pit, it was not fo 
deep there; yet the oval muft upon the whole have funk down 
about three yards, and gone diredlly downward, for the fides of 
the pit are left perpendicular. I found a little water at the 
bottom of the pit, and was told there had been a great deal 
more at firft. The bottom half of the pit is a blue clay, and 
from a foot to a yard thick at the top is a ftiff earth mixed 
with ftones. There were plain figns that a drain from the 
ground above had in wet times run down near where the pit 
now is ; fome of it probably ran into and under the ground, 
and had, in a courfe of time, undermined it ; and that feems 
to have been the reafon that the pit funk in as it has done. 
A man of Ketton, who has freeftone pits in the fame lord- 
fhlp, but on the oppofite fide of the town, fays, he fometimes 
meets with beds of clay in his pits, which are undermined, 
and have hollows in them. And to the northward of thefe 
ftone pits there are many hollows, which they call the Swal- 
low-pits ; becaufe, being hollow underneath, no water will lie 
in them, but runs through holes into the ground. Thefe 
fwallow-pits I know, and they feem to be clay at top ; and he 
fays, they do not appear to have been ever dug by men, but 
that the fur face of the ground has funk down into the hollow 
there was beneath it. 
# 
D d 
Vol. LXXIX. 
