Miscellaneous Notes on Deneholes. 99
"chalk-wells." Chalk-quarries naturally abound on the face
of the escarpment, and their only peculiarity at Lenham is
that they are much nearer the top than usual. This arises
from the fact that the "scarp-slope" is there unusually slight
and gentle, except close to the top, where it is much steeper.
Hence the scarp-slope below a level of about 500 ft. is well-
cultivated arable land, while between 500 ft. and 600 ft. is the
belt of quarry-ground. But the land for which top-dressing
would be mainly required would be the Gault and Lower
Greensand below the escarpment, not the ground on its top.
For though skilful agriculturists like Mr. Hatch are raising
crops around the "chalk-wells," much of the country in
which they exist is even now poor, barren, and largely
covered by coppice-wood, as described by Hasted, in writing
of Wichling and Otterden, a century ago. Hasted makes no
mention of the chalk-wells ; and yet if any of them had been
used in his time for top-dressing he would hardly have failed
to note the fact as regards some one of the parishes on the dip-
slope of the Chalk, in which they are known to exist.
Are, then, these chalk-wells such as are likely to have been
made in the present century for top-dressing? The existence
of the quarries close by, at but a slightly lower level, would
seem almost sufficient in itself to show the great improbability
of this supposition. But, granting the need of a supply of
Chalk even nearer at hand, would the construction of "chalk-
wells" be the natural and probable way of obtaining it? In
Norfolk, where marl-pits for top-dressing abound, we find
them at an average distance of two or three hundred yards,
more or less, from each other, the pits being open, broader at
the top than the bottom, and about five to twenty feet deep.
And similar pits, one to a certain number of acres, would
have been the natural result of a similar demand at Lenham.
While we are compelled to believe—on the top-dressing
theory—that the inhabitants of Lenham, instead of trying
this simple sort of pit, made the most elaborately troublesome
and unprofitable excavations, distributed them over the
surface in the most absurd and purposeless way, and went
on constructing new ones on the same pattern, to replace