In every case in which masonry is used for defence, whether wholly or in part, or as an inside wall to the rampart, or as the rampart itself, the fact should be mentioned.

The existence of mounds or tumuli entirely within defensive enclosures should be noted.

When a fortress is provided with more than one rampart or wall, the fact should be recorded, as also when the enclosed area is divided by transverse banks. It should also be noted whether such additional ramparts or their ditches are intermittent or continuous, and whether the entrances are direct or of a tortuous character.

It is specially desired that the position of each work be indicated by noting the number of the sheet of the O. S. (6-inch scale) in which it appears, and by giving the name of the nearest town or village.

Plans traced from the 25-inch O. S. maps should, if possible, be sent. Ramparts and ditches should be clearly indicated, as in the accompanying illustrations, as well as the O. S. levels, and accurate sections will be of great service. Precipices, as at Comb Moss, and abrupt slopes, as at Mam Tor, should be indicated as shewn on the accompanying plans, and named.

Although lists of all defensive earthworks and enclosures will be welcomed, it is to be borne in mind that plans and sections of them, based upon personal examination, are particularly desired.

Though not strictly within the scope of this enquiry, it is suggested that all medieval castles should be included in the schedules, since many of them originated in earthworks of Class E.

Assistance will be duly recorded in the report which the Committee hopes to present to a future Congress of Archæological Societies.

HARRISON AND SONS, PRINTERS IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY, ST. MARTIN'S LANE,

THE JOURNAL

OF THE

British Archaeological Association.

AUGUST, 1904.

THE CHISLEHURST CAVES.

BY T. E. AND R. H. FORSTER.

(Read February 17th, 1904).

HESE excavations are very extensive for chalk workings-perhaps the most extensive in this country; but the survey, so far as it goes, has proved them to be smaller than is generally imagined; on a first visit the place seems almost interminable, but distances underground are notoriously deceptive, especially to those who are not used to underground work. The workings shown on the plan cover an area of less than twenty acres.

That the caves have been a chalk mine, or rather a series of chalk mines, we have no doubt whatever they have been worked on systems commonly used in mining, and exhibit the characteristic features of mines in almost every detail. The middle series of workings in particular bear so strong a resemblance to some of the old High Main coal workings in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, that it is possible to conjecture that this portion has been worked under the management of an expert pitman from that district. These old North Country workings

date approximately from the early years of the eighteenth century; their galleries have been dressed up with the pick in just the same fashion as has been followed at Chislehurst; their general character is similar to that revealed by the recent survey; and the same practice occurs of driving small passages to prove the position of adjacent pits; the 80-ft. shaft is of the diameter 6 ft. -commonly sunk in Northumberland at the period mentioned, and it has apparently been closed in a manner which, unfortunately, was too often used at the same date-by a timber scaffold with a covering of earththough here the danger is lessened by the fact that an open drain-pipe has been inserted to mark the place. This shaft has a masonry lining through the Thanet Sand, and there is no reason to suppose that this lining is not as old as the shaft itself. It is not improbable that the other shaft-that which contains a drain-pipe from a garden on the surface-is a little older than the 80-ft. shaft the latter may have been sunk when the development of the mine in that direction made the barrowing of the chalk from the working-places to the drain-pipe shaft a laborious business. The flooring of this portion of the workings is undoubtedly in its original condition; and except where there has been a drip of water from the roof, the marks of the barrowwheels are every where discernible; some lead to one shaft and some to the other, according to the quarter of the mine in which they occur, the largest and deepest rut of all being that which enters the straight passage leading to the 80-ft. shaft, at the point where all barrows going to that shaft must have converged. Barrows were at one time used in coal mines for the purpose of conveying coal from working-places to the shaft, and the terms "barrow man" and "barrow way" long survived the introduction of other methods of transport. Possibly barrows remained in use at Chislehurst after trams, or wooden sledges, had become common in collieries.

The thickness of chalk worked appears to average from 10 ft. to 12 ft. In working beds of a similar thickness it is usual to follow one of two systems :-(1) So much