Miscellaneous Notes on Deneholes. 
99 
“ chalk-wells.” Chalk-quarries naturally abound on the face 
of the escarpment, and their only peculiarity at Lenham is 
that they are much nearer the top than usual. This arises 
from the fact that the “ scarp-slope ” is there unusually slight 
and gentle, except close to the top, where it is much steeper. 
Hence the scarp-slope below a level of about 500 ft. is well- 
cultivated arable land, while between 500 ft. and 600 ft. is the 
belt of quarry-ground. But the land for which top-dressing 
would be mainly required would be the Gault and Lower 
Greensand below the escarpment, not the ground on its top. 
For though skilful agriculturists like Mr. Hatch are raising 
crops around the “ chalk-wells,” much of the country in 
which they exist is even now poor, barren, and largely 
covered by coppice-wood, as described by Hasted, in writing 
of Wichling and Otterden, a century ago. Hasted makes no 
mention of the chalk-wells ; and yet if any of them had been 
used in his time for top-dressing he would hardly have failed 
to note the fact as regards some one of the parishes on the dip- 
slope of the Chalk, in which they are known to exist. 
Are, then, these chalk-wells such as are likely to have been 
made in the present century for top-dressing? The existence 
of the quarries close by, at but a slightly lower level, would 
seem almost sufficient in itself to show the great improbability 
of this supposition. But, granting the need of a supply of 
Chalk even nearer at hand, would the construction of “ chalk- 
wells” be the natural and probable way of obtaining it ? In 
Norfolk, where marl-pits for top-dressing abound, we find 
them at an average distance of two or three hundred yards, 
more or less, from each other, the pits being open, broader at 
the top than the bottom, and about five to twenty feet deep. 
And similar pits, one to a certain number of acres, would 
have been the natural result of a similar demand at Lenham. 
While we are compelled to believe—on the top-dressing 
theory—that the inhabitants of Lenham, instead of trying 
this simple sort of pit, made the most elaborately troublesome 
and unprofitable excavations, distributed them over the 
surface in the most absurd and purposeless way, and went 
on constructing new ones on the same pattern, to replace 
