AT HANGMAN'S WOOD, GRAYS. 251
wells for chalking land, he points out that they owe their depth partly
to a desire to obtain chalk free from the material in surface pipes,
partly to an idea that chalk from a depth is preferable, as "stronger"
in its effect as manure. With respect to the more permanent wells
for obtaining chalk for lime, we learn that they are sunk deep in
order to obtain stability as well as pure chalk, and also to get
"lumpy" chalk with which to arch in the lime kilns. Strange to
say, this existing preference for chalk from some depth has sometimes
been quoted as though it told in favour of the chalk-pit hypothesis
at Hangman's Wood. Of course, it does precisely the reverse.
People at Grays who wanted chalk from some depth below its surface
would naturally go where there was little or no superincumbent
material, and there sink a shaft 30 to 60 ft. or more in depth. Mr.
Bennett's diagram of a well for lime is, doubtless, a good example of
the kind of pit that would have been made. There we see a shaft
sunk through 15 ft. of Tertiaries and about 35 ft. of chalk before
headings were driven, but Mr. Bennett remarks that where the chalk
was bare the depth of a shaft sunk for a similar purpose, which he
saw, was only about 30 ft. Therefore, at Hangman's Wood we ought
to expect—on the chalk-pit hypothesis—to find the shaft penetrating
the chalk from 25 to 30 ft. before the headings were driven. But
instead, we find that the thickness of the chalk roof there averages
rather less than 3 ft., and that not only has the stability of the pits
suffered therefrom, but that a pipe has in one case entirely checked
the development of a chamber. The absurdity of the chalk-pit
hypothesis, as regards Hangman's Wood, might therefore be de-
monstrated from this one fact, that the excavators there, after sinking
through 60 ft. of sand and gravel have then contented themselves
with the very uppermost chalk. For the words of Lieut.-General Pitt-
Rivers, uttered in the Pen-pits controversy, are equally applicable
here. "The Britons, if such they were, who quarried here, probably
conducted their operations much as we should do."11
All these considerations unite to make it evident that if the primary
wish of the Hangman's Wood excavators was to obtain chalk, they
knowingly and wilfully concentrated their efforts of every kind so as
to ensure the least and worst possible return for their labour—a thing
which no people, ancient or modern, ever did or will do.
Thus it seems evident that our deneholes were denholes, and could
11 "Times," Sept. 25th, 1884.