ON A RECENT SUBSIDENCE AT MUCKING, ESSEX. 249
bordering the Mediterranean. And, of course, the excavations
are made in the surface rock of the locality in which they are
needed. "The effort to keep out the damp is a constant trouble.
It is accomplished in a measure by beating hard the sides of the
pit, if of clay ; by enveloping the deposit of corn with straw,
reeds, fern, or bavins ; by endeavouring to harden the sides by
burning with fire, which could only be done in very shallow
pits ; by erecting wooden walls and floors ; by covering with
mastic or cement; and finally by building the interior either
with stones, finished masonry, or with bricks and terra cotta."
I would also remind members of the Essex Field Club that
on pp. 5 and 6 of Vol. II. of the Essex Naturalist (1888) there
is a "Note on the use of Pits in Brittany for Storage of Grain,"
by Charles Browne, M.A., who states that when travelling in
Brittany in the preceding autumn he noticed slight mounds,
sometimes in the centre, sometimes at the sides of the fields.
Upon inquiring of the country people he was told they marked
the sites of pits used for the storage of corn. They also told
him that after filling a pit with stores of this sort they covered
over the top with a layer of clay or earth, rammed hard to keep
out the wet. The slight mound was simply to mark the position
of the pit. Mr. Browne, unfortunately, was not able to examine
any of these pits, but his note is valuable as showing subter-
ranean storage to be still in use in a country so near our own as
Brittany, and one, like Essex, bordering the sea.
I now pass on to consider the bearing of the remarks of Mr.
Spurrell and Mr. Browne on the nature and distribution of these
underground storehouses on the recent and (in all probability)
earlier subsidences at Mucking.
I have already noted the advantages and disadvantages of
the position of this Essex district between Purfleet and
Stanford-le-Hope, and the special need of its inhabitants many
centuries ago for secret storehouses when there was no Count of
the Saxon Shore to protect south-eastern Britain from pirates.
Hence, no doubt, the abundance of deneholes in the chalk
between Purfleet and Hangman's Wood. But the people of
that part of the district between Hangman's Wood and Stanford-
le-Hope would need secret storehouses as much as their neigh-
bours south and west, and would be compelled to make their
subterranean granaries in the sands near the surface. For it