xl 
Journal of Proceedings. 
that the pits might have been utilised for other purposes, but he said 
they were unfit for residences ; a short stay in such damp places would 
soon destroy anyone with consumption, ague, rheumatism, and fever; 
neither did he consider them places of refuge; to go into such places for 
refuge would simply be to go into an open trap. The woods would be far 
safer for refuge than a hole in the ground. As for their being granaries 
and places for storing corn, he well knew as a fungologist that corn 
placed in such a position would be immediately and utterly destroyed by 
mildew. Corn to be kept good must be preserved in a dry barn. Some 
archaeologists were always talking about the ancient Britons’ enemies , as 
if they were always fighting like tribes of wild Indians; such speakers 
forget that the Britons were a pastoral people, with farms, farm imple¬ 
ments, herds, flocks, and dogs; they were not always fighting and running 
into perpendicular shafts 80 or 90 feet deep. What would become of 
their oxen and sheep under such circumstances ? 
The President remarked that in the explorations made at Cissbury by 
General Pitt-Rivers and Mr. Harrison, they found a deer-horn pick in the 
position where it was evidently left by the workmen. Therefore there 
was evidence that they did tunnel into the chalk, and he was disposed to 
think that Mr. Worthington Smith might be right in that. But he did 
not see why these Dene-lioles should not have been used successively 
for different purposes. If they were used in Neolithic times for flint¬ 
making, in later times they would have been taken advantage of for other 
purposes. 
Mr. Holmes said he had simply urged that the pits they had visited 
and those at Bexley were not such. No people in their senses wanting to 
get flints would begin in a stratum 50 feet above the chalk. They would 
begin near the chalk, as they had done at Cissbury and other places.* 
Mr. Worthington Smith asked what proof was there that these old 
excavators ever dug into the chalk at Grays Thurrock? There are 
plenty of pits now, but it does not follow that the pits were there a 
thousand or two thousand years ago. In the last hole descended there 
was one large flat place at the exact position where a band of flints had 
occurred; every flint was removed from the flat place, and not an inch 
of the chalk disturbed below. Still it was possible, and perhaps probable, 
that the Dene-holes were used for other purposes, as well as for quarrying 
flint; and the Essex Field Club might profitably employ some of its time 
in an attempt to solve this point.f 
The friendly discussion at the tea-table was somewhat prematurely cut 
short by the necessity for catching the return train from Grays, but it 
was continued on the way to town, the preponderance of argument being 
* For Mr. Holmes’s arguments at length, see his paper on Dene-holes in this volume 
of the ‘ Transactions.’—E d. 
i "We understand that Mi. Smith has since considerably modified his views as to the 
probable intention of these deep Dene-holes (see report of Meeting at Grays, on Sep¬ 
tember 9th, 1882, infra). —Ed. 
