lvi Journal of Proceedings.
Saturday, September 9th, 1882, A Second Visit to the Dene-
holes at Little Thurrock, Essex.
A meeting in Hangman's Wood was held on this day in order to
explore one or two of the open holes left unvisited on June 17th (' Pro-
ceedings,' iii., xxviii.)
The Directors were Mr. Holmes, Mr. Worthington Smith, and Mr.
Walker. A few members of the Club went down to Grays overnight, and
others, numbering about forty, arrived by various trains during the day,
which was gloriously fine. Among the visitors were Rev. Brooke Lam-
bert, M.A., and Mr. H. W. Jackson, F.G.S., President and Secretary of
the Lewisham and Blackheath Scientific Association, and Mr. S. J.
Mackie, of the ' Standard ' newspaper. Mr. Worthington Smith went
down to Tilbury, and made a little detour by Mucking, Horndon-on-the-
Hill and Orsett to Hangman's Wood. In a gravel-pit at Mucking, about
four feet deep, he found a Palaeolithic implement, with the point broken
off, and several " flakes " with it. He also found several Palaeolithic,
flakes in a gravel-pit near Orsett, the excavation being six feet deep. Both
localities are new, and therefore well worthy of record.*
Two or three apparently open holes were examined, and found to be
plugged up with boughs of trees and earth at various depths from the
surface, but it was nevertheless resolved to attempt the clearance of a
shaft. A promising-looking pit on the left-hand side of the woodland
path (No. 3 on small map on Plate II.) was finally selected for the experi-
ment, after several tentative descents had been made by Mr. Walker, Mr.
Thomas, Mr. W. Cole, and others. Messrs. Brooks, Shoobridge, and Co.,
who showed the Club so much kindness on their former visit to the dene-
holes, had made even completer arrangements this time to ensure the
comfort of the visitors, and make the exploration a success. They had
four of their men on the ground all day, and these at once set to work to
remove the obstructions. The task was achieved after fully three hours'
labour; shear-legs were placed over the mouth of the hole, a rope passed
from a capitally-constructed box to a windlass on the bank, and the
preparations were complete. The descent was a very different thing from
that which was made on the 17th of June. Then, one went down at a
time, either standing in a bucket, which swayed about to the alarm of the
nervous, or seated upon a stick tied in a loop of the rope. The latter
was the more comfortable of the two modes, but neither of them was
comparable to Messrs. Brooks's box, which was even provided with a
seat. Ladies, who could not make the descent before, were now enabled
to do so, and during the day some of them actually did venture into
the pit.
* Mr. Smith also gathered, in the stubble fields between Horndon and Orsett, many
plants of the flesh-coloured variety of the Pimpernel or "Poor Man's Weather-glass"
(Anagallis arvensis, var. carnea, Schrank), a fact which may interest our botanists.