274 REPORT ON THE DENEHOLE EXPLORATION
affect the preservation of anything within them. Besides the distinct
assertion of Diodorus, that corn was preserved in pits in Britain,
there can be little doubt that this method, which Tacitus says was
employed by the Germans (the ancestors of the Belgae and other
tribes of Northern France), was also used by some of those
tribes who migrated to Britain. Although most of the caves of
Kent and Essex are large, some are quite small. The making of a
great cave, when the excavator was obliged to go deep beneath the
surface, is the equivalent under changed circumstances for many
shallow caves at a slight depth. The construction of great grain
pits in Britain is also the result of a peculiar habit, not alleged of
the inhabitants of any other country, viz., that the corn was stored
in the ear, thus requiring increased space, one peculiarity whose
consequences must have affected many details in the garnering
of corn.
The deeper grain pits of Britain are in clusters, as well as scattered.
They are placed, as elsewhere, generally on high ground, although
they are also found on low valleys, which were dry in Roman time,
but which have since become water logged.
Very few instances of pits suitable for storing grain have
been found except in the chalk, and these have been preserved
chiefly in consequence of their great capacity and their narrow
entrances.
The means of getting into and out of the modern grain pit is by
windlass. Those, however, which have round shafts, have foot-holes
on either side of the shaft and opposite each other. When the shaft
is square, as in Africa, the holes are formed in the sides near a corner,
or one on each side of a corner as in the shafts found in Egyptian
tombs. In such cases the shaft is too wide to straddle across.
The mode of descent by the corner holes is curious. It was first
noticed (and was actually employed) in England, when a denehole
was discovered at Frindsbury near Rochester, a year or so ago.
At the time the hole was being examined the state of the shaft
was thus:—The upper 2 ft. of disturbed soil and 10 ft. of brick
earth, which was very hard and sandy, had been cleared away for
bricks; then Thanet sand 10 ft. to chalk. The shaft was of the
ordinary circular form in the chalk and some way up in the Thanet
sand, but then it commenced to become angular, and at the junction
of the Thanet sand with the brickearth presented a rectangular
form, the edges being nearly regular, with the following dimensions,