NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 75
really similar to the Grays holes ; those at Brandon were clearly shown to have
been made in search of flints ; here there are few flints, those that exist appear to
have been disregarded, and there are no clippings. In fact, each set of Dene
or Dane-hole:, must be judged by its own surroundings primarily."
The writer discusses the various theories which may be
advanced respecting the precise age of the deneholes, and urges
the desirability of further investigation to complete the work
begun by the Club.
Visit to the Deneholes, Hangman's Wood.— The
Croydon Natural History and Scientific Society having decided
to visit the deneholes of Hangman's Wood, Grays, on June 4th,
1904, were good enough to invite me to join them. Dr. H. C.
Male, the director, had made the necessary arrangements for the
descent. We entered the pits by the shaft of No. 4 (Plan of
Deneholes, Essex Naturalist, vol. i.). The party appeared to
be much interested in what they saw. When in No. 5, an
attempt was made to take a photograph, which was unfortunately
unsuccessful owing to the variability in the amount of the light
afforded by magnesium wire. Reference to the denehole plan
will show that No. 2 is a five-chambered pit, the position of the
sixth chamber being represented but by a very slight concavity.
But when we were working in these pits nothing appeared to
give any presumption as to the cause of the absence of the sixth
chamber. For the other chambers are rather below than above
the average size, and a sixth chamber of more than the usual
length might have been made without too near an approach to a
neighbouring pit. In June this year, however, the reason for the
non-excavation of the sixth chamber was almost certainly
revealed by the appearance, in the slight hollow representing it,
of an area of a few inches in extent consisting of Thanet Sand,
and marking the existence of a "pipe" in the chalk there.
These pipes, as every one knows, are extremely varied in shape
and in the way they ramify. There is a large one shown in the
roof of another part of No. 2, the existence of which no doubt
caused the original excavators to desist working at the sixth
chamber at the sight of the slightest quantity of sand in the
chalk six or seven feet above the floor.—T. V. Holmes, F.G.S.
The Chislehurst (Kent) Caves.—At the meeting of the
the Club on October 29th, 1904, Mr. T. V. Holmes exhibited a