AT HANGMAN'S WOOD, GRAYS.
253
Figs, 8 and 9.- Pits in the Isle of Portland. Reduced from Drawings by Mr. A. M.
Wallis. Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. viii., page 305.14
Fig. 8.—One pit above another.
Fig. 9,—Two pits close together with an opening between them—a, soil ; b, rubble-stone ",
c;, clayey seam ; d, hard "slate ;" e, rubble, with which the space close to the outside was filled
after the construction of the pits.
14 These pits were described by Mr. Holmes in the papers in the Proc. Geol. Assoc, and Trans.
E. F. 0. referred to above. His attention was first called to them by Mr. A. M. Wallis, of the
Isle of Portland. The pits hitherto discovered have been all situated a little eastward of the road
between Yeales and Easton, towards the northern end of the island, and they were found by the
quarrymen when removing some fifteen or twenty feet of Purbeck Beds at the surface in order to
get at the Portland stone beneath "These beehive-shaped pits were all walled-in by pieces of
the rubble-stone in which they are mainly excavated, and varied considerably in size. The largest
chambers were seven or eight feet in height, and about nine feet in diameter at the bottom, the
floor being eleven or twelve feet beneath the surface of the ground. The smallest chambers were
only about four feet high, and six feet in diameter or thereabouts. The entrance to them was a
narrow opening in the middle of the roof, just large enough to admit a man, and covered by a
piece of hard flaggy stone, this stone being placed just below the vegetable soil, "which is from one
to two feet thick. In one of these holes a considerable amount of blackened corn was found,
mixed with black earth, the latter probably marking the total decomposition of a much larger
quantity. Three old querns have been found close by the beehive-shaped pits, about twelve or
fourteen of the latter having been discovered." Mr. Holmes refers to the general resemblance
between these Portland pits and the "Rock Granaries" of Southern India, described in G. P.
Sanderson's "Thirteen Years among the "Wild Beasts of India" (Lond., 1878).—Ed.