AT HANGMAN'S WOOD, GRAYS. 249
vases which had been crushed by the fall of the roof. The exact
position of this pit is not given, nor have we any means of ascer-
taining whether it differed in shape or character from the other pits
mentioned, or whether its structural affinities were rather with a
columbarium, a Hangman's Wood denehole, or any other variety of
excavation in chalk (Arch. Journ., vol. xxvi., page 191).
But, in any case, the evidence is decidedly against the view that
the Hangman's Wood pits were columbaria. Against the supposi-
tion that they were ancient flint workings, we need only mention
their position, with 60 ft. of sand and gravel above the Mint-bearing
chalk, the absence of any sign that the one prominent flint band in
them had been specially worked, and the total want of flint flakes in
the mounds.
The hypothesis that our Hangman's Wood deneholes are not
denholes but ancient chalk pits, has arisen apparently from know-
ledge of the existence of modern chalk wells, coupled with ignorance
of the nature of ancient deneholes. Indeed, before the last five or
six years, Mr. Spurrell appears to have been the only scientific
observer who ever gave any real attention to the latter and their
characteristics. The documentary evidence supposed to tell in
favour of the chalk-well view, consists simply of the following passage
from Pliny, who speaks of the extraction of chalk "by means of
pits sunk like wells, with narrow mouths, to the depth, sometimes, of
one hundred feet, where they branch out like the veins of mines;
and this kind is chiefly used in Britain." 9 It will be at once noticed
that the above account could not have been given to Pliny by any
man who had ever descended into one of our Hangman's Wood
deneholes, which are entered by means of narrow shafts, but whose
lofty symmetrical chambers cannot be described as "branching out
like the veins of mines." On the other hand, the galleries at the
bottom of the shafts at Grimes Graves might be described as
"branching out like the veins of mines," but the shafts themselves
were some twenty or thirty feet in diameter. Possibly Pliny's
informant heard something of various kinds of pits in chalk, and
"combined his information." But even had he shown unquestion-
able personal knowledge of the Hangman's Wood Pits, his views
as to the purposes of their makers would not necessarily possess any
value. For the chalk extracted from a pit made for the sake of the
excavation, would be utilized as much as that removed from a pit
9 Pliny Nat. Hist. Lib. xvii. Cap. 8, Translated in Mr. C. Roach Smith's "Collectanea
Antiqua," vol. vi., pp. 243—247.