action of the weather, and, being considered unsafe to carry the weight of the superstructure, was cut away by the architect.

The addition on the top consists of an ornamental octagonal room, 15 feet high, lighted on each side by a well-proportioned Perpendicular window, except on the east and south-east faces, which on account of the proximity of the church were left blank, and the south-west side, where a small opening with a flat lintel served some unknown purpose.

Three tiers of holes, five feet apart, two to each side, marked the place where a strong wooden framework for carrying the bells had been fixed, and above the roof a light parapet wall pierced with one embrasure on each face terminated the whole.

GROUND-PLAN OF PHAROS. DOVER.

Scale 18 feet to inch.

B

III.-NOTES ON THE SHAFTS DISCOVERED AT THE SHOT YARD Battery,
DOVER CASTLE.

In excavating the sites for the two 10-inch guns and their magazine about ten deep shafts were discovered sunk in the solid chalk. Rectangular in form with the corners slightly rounded off, and averaging four feet square, they reached a depth of from 16 to 20 feet below the surface. The contents consisted principally of a light friable earth much resembling decayed matter, with occasional layers of charcoal, containing large numbers of the shells of oysters, limpets, cockles, and whelks, together with bones of many kinds of animals, those

of the horse, ox, and pig mostly predominating; intermixed were great quantities of coarse broken pottery, similar in character to the Roman cinerary urns, often blackened by fire, and occasional fragments of vessels for holding liquids, both in a red and a black ware. Flints were of common occurrence, some unmistakeably fashioned as cutting instruments and arrow-heads, and numerous iron nails; a few spear-heads and knife-blades were also found, besides a stirrup-iron and a very perfect iron spur with fixed rowel, the surface of which had been first bronzed and then gilded; also an ivory ornament probably used as a brooch.

In form and contents these shafts closely agree with those opened by the Hon. R. C. Neville at the Roman station of Chesterford, as described in The Archæological Journal for June 1855, and also by Charles Warne, Esq. F.S.A. at Ewell, in Surrey, alluded to in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries in January 1861.

a

Their use and object have been a subject of much discussion; the commonly received opinion, that they were intended as cloaca, is hardly in accordance with the fact that no discolouration of the chalk can be traced; while the unnecessary labour involved in excavating them as receptacles for rubbish, when their site is within a few feet of the edge of a then sea-washed cliff, is equally against this supposition. No evidence exists to identify them with the underground receptacles for grain still in use in the East.

From the character of the pottery it seems more probable that their object was sepulchral, in which case the presence of the bones would be explained by a reversion to the earlier British sacrificial rites in connection with burial, though it would still be difficult to account for the mutilated condition of all the pottery; this peculiarity, however, may perhaps be the result of some local causes, as the graves at Chesterford supply many unbroken specimens of ware.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.

PLATE XXIV.—Plan of the upper floor of the Keep of Dover Castle; and a portion of the floor beneath, showing the chapel and guard room.

PLATE XXV.-External elevation and section of the Pharos. The section is taken on line A B in the ground-plan on the previous page. The Roman work is coloured yellow. At a a the angles of the Roman work had been worn away before the medieval octagonal belfry had been added. In the upper window on the right-hand side of the section, at b, are remains of a dwarf wall of Roman times to protect the window opening. The courses of Roman tiles are indicated by black lines.

a Proc. 2d Ser. i. 309; see also Proc. i. 218, for an earlier account.

XIV.-On Flint Workings at Cissbury, Sussex, by ERNEST HENRY WILLETT, ESQ.

Read April 8, 1875.

IN 1868 Colonel A. Lane Fox, F.S.A. contributed a paper to this Society, on the Sussex Hill Forts, and on the principles of castrametation which a most careful examination of the whole series led him to conclude had been adopted by the tribes who had constructed them."

In the course of his inquiry, and in the description of the seventeen earthworks that line our Sussex downs, he mentioned the occurrence, in several places, of various pits in and about the camps. The instances are at Wolstanbury, Highdown Hill, Mount Caburn, and Cissbury-most notably the latter.

This paper was shortly followed by another, giving a detailed account of the extensive excavations carried on by him at Highdown and at Cissbury." In this communication he dwells at length on the pits situate within the latter camp, their character and contents; the flint implements especially are elaborately classified and fully described by him. The examination of about thirty pits resulted in the following information,-to which I may be permitted briefly to refer in order to be intelligible. That they were from 20 to 70 feet wide, and of a depth of from 5 to 7 feet below the surface. That they contained a great quantity of flint implements, a few bones, dead land-shells, charcoal and fragments of coarse pottery distributed in layers of red clay and chalk rubble, the pottery being only found immediately beneath the turf.

In considering the object and use of these pits, Colonel Lane Fox states that he believes them to have been for the purpose of obtaining flint for manufacturing implements, and subsequently to have been used for habitations.

I hope to add confirmatory evidence of both of these theories.

I believe that the exploration of Grime's Graves in Norfolk first gave an idea of the labour necessary to procure the flints for manufacturing implements in the Neolithic age, and very great was the amount of information contributed by Archæologia, xlii. 53-76.

a Archæologia, xlii. 27-52.

a

their patient investigator, Canon Greenwell. The question being once started, fresh discoveries have been, and will I hope yet continue to be, made in other parts of the country; and it is the endeavour to link together the facts elicited by Canon Greenwell, with those already noticed by Colonel Lane Fox at Cissbury, by means of fresh evidence obtained quite recently, that is my excuse for making this communication.

In March 1873, when on a visit to Canon Greenwell, I received from him a description of his excavations at Grime's Graves, when he expressed his belief that the Cissbury pits were of the same nature, and advised a deeper search to be made in them.

In the autumn of the same year I examined one of the pits which had been previously explored, and found that what on first sight had appeared to be the chalk bottom, was not solid, but composed of large blocks, their interstices filled in with rubble. On moving these, it was found that the pit, which had been left undisturbed by its first explorers at a depth of 6 feet, was in reality much deeper, and it was not till 14 feet from the surface of the ground that the solid chalk bottom was reached, through débris of chalk rubble and blocks interspersed with flint implements, charcoal, and red-deer bones.

Leading from this open shaft were small chambers of about 5 feet in diameter, connected with one another; of these I took careful measurements and memoranda, but unfortunately, owing to the loss of the note-book containing them, I am unable to record them with accuracy.

I then determined to open one that had not been previously disturbed, in order to examine the contents from the surface to the base, and I selected the pit of which the position is shown at A on the plan. (Plate XXVI. fig. 1.) The opening was commenced last August, in the presence of Professor Boyd Dawkins and myself. The site was indicated by a depression of about 16 inches from the slope of the hill.

The result of the excavation showed-first, surface soil similar to what is found over all this side of the camp, containing chipped flints, flakes, and broken implements, land and oyster shells, numerous water-worn pebbles, a few pieces of bone, and fragments of coarse pottery. Below this, to a total depth of 5 feet, came a layer of small chalk, rubble, and loam, of a yellowish colour, containing a few flint implements, one or two fragments of bone, and deposits of charcoal surrounded by calcined chalk. This stratum seems to extend beyond the area of

a See a memoir "On the opening of Grime's Graves, in Norfolk," by the Rev. William Greenwell, M.A., F.S.A. in the Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, 1870, vol. ii. p. 419.