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Title: The Netherworld of Mendip - Explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, - Derbyshire, and elsewhere
Author: Baker, Ernest A., Balch, Herbert E.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Netherworld of Mendip - Explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, - Derbyshire, and elsewhere" ***
THE NETHERWORLD OF MENDIP
NETHERWORLD
OF MENDIP
EXPLORATIONS IN THE GREAT CAVERNS
OF SOMERSET, YORKSHIRE
DERBYSHIRE, AND ELSEWHERE
BY
ERNEST A. BAKER, M.A.(LOND.)
AUTHOR OF "MOORS, CRAGS, AND CAVES OF THE HIGH PEAK" ETC.
JOINT-EDITOR OF "THE VOICE OF THE MOUNTAINS"
AND
HERBERT E. BALCH
CLIFTON
J. BAKER & SON
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO.
1907
PREFACE
The objects of this work are twofold: to describe the actual incidents
of various interesting episodes in the modern sport of cave exploring,
and to give an account of the scientific results of underground
investigations in the Mendip region of Somerset. Speleology is the
latest of the sporting sciences: like orology and Arctic exploration,
it has two sides, sport and adventure being the lure to some, whilst
others are chiefly attracted by the new light thrown by these
researches on the geology, the hydrology, and the natural history
of the subterranean regions explored. The chapters dealing with the
scientific results are by H. E. Balch, who has been working on the
geology of Mendip, more especially among the caves, for upwards of
twenty years: the accounts of actual experiences, in which the sporting
side is predominant, are by E. A. Baker, who described the recent
exploration of the Derbyshire caves in his _Moors, Crags, and Caves
of the High Peak_, 1903. No attempt is made to traverse the ground so
perfectly covered by Professor Boyd Dawkins in his fascinating volume
on _Cave Hunting_, and elsewhere, most of the work described here being
supplementary to that done by him, and, largely, outside the scope of
his aims. The authors are indebted to the kindness of the Editors of
the _Liverpool Courier_ and _Daily Post_, the _Manchester Guardian_,
the _Standard_, the _Yorkshire Post_, the _Irish Naturalist_, and the
_Climbers' Club Journal_ for permission to use the substance of various
articles which have appeared in their pages, and to M. Martel, Mr.
C. Blee, and Messrs. Gough for permission to reproduce a number of
excellent illustrations by them.
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE CAVE DISTRICT OF THE MENDIPS 1
THE CHEDDAR GROUP OF CAVERNS 16
ANTIQUITY OF THE CAVES OF MENDIP 21
CAVE EXPLORING AS A SPORT 32
EXPLORING WOOKEY HOLE 45
STRENUOUS DAYS IN THE EASTWATER SWALLET 60
SWILDON'S HOLE 70
THE GREAT CAVERN AT CHEDDAR 82
FIVE CAVERNS AT CHEDDAR 91
THE BURRINGTON CAVERNS 99
THE CORAL CAVE AT COMPTON BISHOP 106
LAMB'S LAIR 115
A CAVE IN THE QUANTOCKS 123
CAVE EXPLORING AT ABERGELE 127
CAVE DISCOVERIES ON THE WELSH BORDER 133
THE EXPLORATION OF STUMP CROSS CAVERN 138
SWALLET-HUNTING IN DERBYSHIRE 144
EXPLORING NEW CAVES IN DERBYSHIRE 152
A VISIT TO MITCHELSTOWN CAVE 159
INDEX 169
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MAP OF THE MENDIP DISTRICT OF SOMERSET, SHOWING
SWALLETS, CAVES, AND OUTLETS 5
THE GREAT GORGE OF CHEDDAR 16
Photo by DAWKES & PARTRIDGE, Wells.
ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY, COINS, HUMAN REMAINS,
ETC., WOOKEY HOLE CAVE 22
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
HYÆNA DEN AND BADGER HOLE, WOOKEY HOLE 23
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
PLAN AND SECTION OF WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN 25
By H. E. BALCH.
THE GREAT SWALLET ON BISHOP'S LOT, PRIDDY 28
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
ST. ANDREW'S WELL, WELLS 29
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
PROFILE OF THE "WITCH OF WOOKEY," WOOKEY HOLE
CAVERN 46
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
AMONG THE POOLS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN 47
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
MASS OF STALAGMITE, WOOKEY HOLE 48
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
IN THE FIRST CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN 49
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
STALACTITE TERRACE, WOOKEY HOLE 50
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
GREAT RIVER CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE 51
Photo by DAWKES & PARTRIDGE, Wells.
SECOND GREAT CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE 52
Photo by DAWKES & PARTRIDGE, Wells.
ENTRANCE OF THIRD CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE 53
Photo by DAWKES & PARTRIDGE, Wells.
STALACTITE GROTTO: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE
CAVE 54
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE 55
Photo by CLAUDE BLEE.
STALACTITE PILLARS, WOOKEY HOLE 56
Photo by CLAUDE BLEE.
NEW STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE 57
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
THE GRILLE: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE 58
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
THE SOURCE OF THE AXE, WOOKEY HOLE 59
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
ENTRANCE TO GREAT CAVERN OF EASTWATER 62
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
SECTION OF EASTWATER CAVERN 63
By H. E. BALCH.
THE DESCENT OF EASTWATER CAVERN, THE SECOND
VERTICAL DROP 64
From Sketch by H. E. BALCH.
THE GREAT CANYON, EASTWATER CAVERN 65
From Sketch by H. E. BALCH.
ENTRANCE OF SWILDON'S HOLE 72
Photo by M. MARTEL.
WATERFALL, SWILDON'S HOLE 73
Photo by H. E. BALCH.
ENTRANCE OF STALACTITE CHAMBER, SWILDON'S HOLE 78
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
STALACTITE CURTAINS, SWILDON'S HOLE 79
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
STALACTITE CHAMBER, SWILDON'S HOLE 80
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
STALAGMITE PILLARS IN GOUGH'S GREAT CAVERN 84
Photo by GOUGH, Cheddar.
THE PILLARS OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, GOUGH'S CAVES,
CHEDDAR 85
Photo by GOUGH, Cheddar.
ORGAN PIPES, GOUGH'S CAVES, CHEDDAR 86
Photo by GOUGH, Cheddar.
"NIAGARA," GOUGH'S CAVE, CHEDDAR 87
Photo by M. MARTEL.
IN COX'S CAVERN AT CHEDDAR 92
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
GREAT RIFT CAVERN, CHEDDAR GORGE 93
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
ENTRANCE TO LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE 116
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
PLAN AND SECTION OF THE GREAT CAVERN OF LAMB'S
LAIR 117
By H. E. BALCH.
THE "BEEHIVE" CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR 118
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
STALACTITE WALL, LAMB'S LAIR 119
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
ENTRANCE TO GREAT CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR 120
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
LARGEST CHAMBER IN SOMERSET, LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE 121
From Sketch by H. E. BALCH.
STALACTITES IN ENTRANCE GALLERY, LAMB'S LAIR 122
Photo by BAMFORTH, Holmfirth.
THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE 128
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
INSIDE THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE 129
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
IN THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE 130
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
A PRE-GLACIAL CAVE, LLANDULAS 132
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
ON THE CEIRIOG 134
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
UPPER CEIRIOG CAVE 135
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
LOWER CEIRIOG CAVERN 136
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
IN STUMP CROSS CAVERN 140
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
THE PILLAR, STUMP CROSS CAVERN 141
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
THE CHAPEL: STUMP CROSS CAVERN 142
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
RICKLOW CAVE IN FLOOD 156
Photo by G. D. WILLIAMS.
A GREAT PILLAR: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN 160
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
A FAIRY LANTERN: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN 161
Photo by E. A. BAKER.
THE NETHERWORLD OF MENDIP
THE CAVE DISTRICT OF THE MENDIPS
"A land of caves, whose palaces of fantastic beauty still adorn the
mysterious underworld where murmuring rivers first see the light." In
these words an imaginative writer describes Somerset, which shares with
Derbyshire and Yorkshire the title of a land of caverns. Across it the
range of the Mendips, a region of Old Red Sandstone and Carboniferous
Limestone, 1000 feet above tide-level, stretches in a huge, flat-topped
rampart for nearly 30 miles, from the town of Frome to the sea. No
piece of country in the kingdom offers so much to explore. An abundant
harvest is there waiting to be reaped; for on every side are obvious
indications of half-buried gateways to the dark and secret pathways
to the netherworld, and everywhere upon the surface of the Mendip
tableland lie the open pits and hollows which the local speech calls
"swallets," that is to say, swallow holes, some of them dry, some
actively engulfing streams, but all testifying to untold ages of water
action.
This Limestone district lies far from the busy hives of industry,
remote and secluded in the very heart of lovely Somerset. Only on the
darkest of nights, with the clouds low in the sky, can the glare of the
lights of Bristol be seen reflected far to the northward. One main
line of railway, the Great Western from Bristol to Exeter, passes near
it, and even that does not intrude beyond the margin of this Caveland.
The rendezvous for the cave explorers of the district is usually the
quiet little city of Wells, lying calm and secluded under the southern
slopes of Mendip, in close proximity to all the principal caverns. A
mile to the south-east rises the bold and picturesque Dulcote Hill,
a fragment of the most southerly anticline of Mountain Limestone in
the kingdom. From this point, rolling northward in a great fivefold
anticline, Old Red Sandstone, Lower Limestone Shales, and Mountain
Limestone form the great mass of the worn-down stump of the once mighty
Mendip range. The extent of the denudation which has taken place
indicates that this range was originally at least 5000 feet high,
yet now in but a few places is the height of 1000 feet attained, and
this is reached only by the Old Red Sandstone ridges laid bare in the
prolonged course of that denudation. The first of these high ridges
rises boldly to the north of Wells, and a steep climb of 900 feet in
two and a half miles brings us to the summit of Pen Hill, or Rookham,
from which a grand southward view is to be obtained. Immediately below,
the three cathedral towers pierce the blue mist hanging over the little
city we have just left. Beyond, the peat moors of the Brue and the Axe
stretch away to the Isle of Avalon, sacred as the birthplace of our
Christian faith in England. Here below us is that
"Island valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with summer seas."
Here, where Arthur's bones are said to have been found, and where
traditions associated with him abound, his memory is kept green in
the names of many well-known spots; and yonder rises Cadbury Camp,
looked upon by many as the Camelot of romance. On the low ridge which
intervenes between the valleys of the Axe and the Brue lies Wedmore,
where King Alfred gained in the Peace of Wedmore such temporary
respite from his foes as allowed him to gather strength for the great
operations that resulted at last in the conquest and unity of the
whole kingdom. Yonder, too, are the marshes of the Parrett and the
Tone, around which cluster tales familiar to every schoolchild. In the
marshes between the Mendips and Glastonbury, exploration has unearthed
a most interesting example of a swamp or lake village, with great
store of antiquarian material, throwing a flood of light upon a period
of which little was known. Beyond lies Sedgemoor, where in 1685 took
place the last battle ever fought on English soil; and throughout this
neighbourhood the infamous Jeffreys worked his will in the judicial
slaughter of countless Somerset men.
In the far distance the sunshine glints on the waters of the Bristol
Channel, where, 60 miles away, the bold promontory of the Foreland
rises sheer from the sea; to the south, upon the farthest limits of our
vision, Pilsdon and Lewsdon mark the descent of our southern counties
to the English Channel; whilst, on a clear day, between them is seen
the summit of Golden Cap, the base of which is washed by our southern
sea. Surely here is as fair a scene as eye could wish to see.
Only a pleasant walk away, the great chasms of Ebbor and Cheddar
have rent the rocks asunder, forming two of the loveliest ravines in
the kingdom. Northward across the intervening syncline of Mountain
Limestone, pitted with swallets marking the entrances to many an
unknown subterranean labyrinth, are seen the Old Red Sandstone summits
of North Hill, crowned with its seventeen Neolithic barrows, and of
Blackdown beyond, from whose bare top is seen the broad estuary of the
Severn spreading out across the view, giving a glimpse of the coast
of South Wales in the far distance, its busy factories showing their
pencil-like chimneys against the dark hills behind. In the Channel the
little islands of Steepholm and Flatholm mark the line of the original
continuation of the great Mendip range into South Wales. The limestone
shores of the former rise sheer from the sea, forming an impregnable
fortress. Here, far below the level of the salt water around, a supply
of pure water is obtained from the Limestone, brought, doubtless, from
the Limestone area of Mendip by way of some hidden fissure.
Hard by, at Clevedon, is the grave of that great friend of Tennyson,
who sat here and listened to
"The moaning of the homeless sea,
The sound of streams that, swift or slow,
Draw down æonian hills, and sow
The dust of continents to be."
Very truly and accurately his words describe the action that is going
on, by which the swallet streams are undermining and honeycombing these
hills and bearing their component rocks away to the sea.
Standing on Pen Hill and looking northward, a great east and west
depression is seen forming a broad low valley in the tableland of
Mendip. Into this valley numerous springs and a liberal rainfall are
for ever pouring their waters. Yet nowhere is there a surface channel
which can carry this water away; and nowhere, save in the small hollows
of the Old Red Sandstone and Shales, does water accumulate. The reason
is not far to seek. The Carboniferous Limestone, evenly stratified
everywhere, has been split by vertical joints into a series of gigantic
cubes. Between them, the surface waters, laden with carbonic acid
obtained from the atmosphere and from vegetation, have for ages made
their way, enlarging them by both chemical and mechanical action, till
they have become fissures capable of giving passage to an enormous
quantity of water. So from one joint to another, from one bedding plane
to another, the water percolates downwards until it meets with some
impermeable rock beneath, or until it finds an outlet at the level of
the Secondary rocks forming the valley below. Such impermeable beds
are found in the Lower Limestone Shales, and the resulting outlets are
well known in the great risings of St. Andrew's Well in the gardens of
the Bishop's Palace at Wells, in the source of the Axe at Wookey Hole,
in the Cheddar Water and other large springs, of all of which more
hereafter.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE MENDIP DISTRICT OF SOMERSET, SHOWING
SWALLETS, CAVES, AND OUTLETS.]
Reference to the sketch map of the district will show that the majority
of the more important swallets lie along the line of the great
depression referred to. These comprise by no means all the swallets
of Mendip, yet they are the chief ones. It is obvious that the whole
of the mass of material represented by this great depression has been
removed in suspension by way of these swallets; and one is compelled to
ask, How long has this work been going on? What time is represented by
so vast a work? On the threshold of the inquiry we are met by such an
amount of evidence bearing upon it that the subject must be dealt with
separately. For, upon the upturned edges of the Carboniferous Limestone
rocks, which can have been brought down to their present plane of
denudation only by long-continued water action, have been deposited,
and still remain _in situ_, great masses of the basement beds of the
Secondary rocks, lying in such a manner as to convince us that swallet
action had prepared the denuded surfaces upon which they lie. And upon
this hinges the whole question of the antiquity of the caverns of
Mendip. But whilst the age of our caverns is a debatable matter, no
one can question the accuracy of the theory of ravine formation from
the collapse of cavern roofs, as evidenced by the instances supplied by
Mendip.
Through crevices and cracks, here, there, and everywhere, the
percolating waters find their way. Now some crevice is enlarged into
a passage; now some weak point in the passage becomes a chamber; and
on the water rushes, steadily joining forces and accumulating, until
on the level of the lower land it finds an outlet, and rushes forth
a considerable stream. In its headlong course the water again and
again leaps down some great series of potholes, as down some giant
stairway, forming many fine cascades, whose deafening roar goes on for
ever where there is no ear to hear and where no footstep ever treads
the rocky ways. Along the course of the larger streams huge chambers
occur; for the ever-eddying water, bearing sand along in its course,
eats out the sides of its channel, or, revolving stones in its bed,
carves out the pothole by friction. Or some pendent mass of rock has
its support undermined and comes crashing into the streamway, only to
be broken up and carried away by the ceaseless energy of the stream,
so ever enlarging the chambers upwards towards the light of day. But
whilst this action is going on underground, a more potent factor is
at work where the subterranean stream first sees the light. Here
very soon the action of the water alone gives rise to a little cliff
overhead. Now rain and frost, wind and tempest, loosen, bit by bit,
the fragments of rock forming the face of the cliff, which fall away
into the river, to be broken up and carried away. Little by little the
face of the cliff recedes, along the line of the subterranean river,
until the first underground chamber is reached. The undermined archway
of rock is less able to withstand the agents of denudation, and the
cliff front recedes apace. Such is the present stage at Wookey Hole,
the chamber whence the river Axe issues being still in process of
destruction. Thus the work goes on slowly, yet none the less surely,
until along the whole course of the subterranean river the roof of
the cavern is destroyed, perhaps effectually hiding the stream under
huge blocks of Limestone, such as those of Ebbor Gorge, near Wells,
or until the water finds another course for itself, as at Cheddar, to
begin the whole story over again. Every stage is abundantly illustrated
by our Mendip swallets and caves. The large swallets of Eastwater,
three and a half miles from Wells, of Swildon's or Swithin's Hole, a
half-mile nearer Priddy, and the more recent swallet of Stoke Lane,
half-way between Wells and Frome, are excellent examples of streams
engulfed on the summit of Mendip. The whole of the country surrounding
the two first-named caverns is dotted with innumerable small pits and
hollows. The great swallet of Hillgrove, three miles north of Wells,
in the exploration of which we are at present engaged, in an endeavour
to penetrate the labyrinth of ways to which it will undoubtedly
afford access, is a fine example of an intermittent swallet. Here
three ways, carved deeply through the stream-borne sands and clays of
some uncertain epoch of geological history, converge in a deep glen,
beautiful with its tropical wealth of ferns. In the bottom of the glen
huge spurs of Limestone stand up boldly, dipping towards the Old Red
Sandstone exposed to the south, and pointing to a great fault, along
the line of which the Limestone water is bound to accumulate in a
huge triangular reservoir, the outflow from which may account for the
summer flow of the Axe when the majority of the swallets are dry. In
winter the converging torrents here find ingress into the Limestone,
but, though pits and hollows abound on every hand, no foot of man has
ever yet trod the hidden ways beneath. At a depth of 10 feet we have
reached the first open channel, only to have it blocked subsequently by
a fall of the treacherous gravel through which we have been working.
Vast dry swallets are represented by a great depression which we call
the Bishop's Lot Swallet, on the road from Wells to Priddy. Here a huge
hollow in the ground, perfectly circular and 300 yards round, shows
us the largest swallet in Mendip. Though the surrounding land slopes
gently to the edge of the great pit, which is 60 feet in depth, there
is but the smallest trace of water penetrating it. It is ages since the
drainage of the surrounding land gravitated towards it, for it lies at
a considerable height above the level of most of the other swallets
in the neighbourhood. A mile and a half to the west, a similar pit
occurs called Sand Pit Hole. Here too water has ceased to flow, and it
remains, with precipitous sides, a problem for us to investigate in the
near future.
To enter either of the active swallets of Eastwater or Swildon's Hole,
and to follow it to its greatest depth, is to gain an insight into
the action of subterranean streams such as no other method can give.
The former is well illustrated by the annexed section, in which its
profound depth and its labyrinth of passages may readily be understood.
The difficulties and disappointments which we encountered when I
conducted the operations which at last resulted in our effecting
an entrance into this cavern, the existence of which was not even
suspected previously, need not here be recapitulated. Altogether, what
with volunteers and labourers, nearly a dozen of us were occupied ten
days in the determined effort which we made, and which at last was
crowned with success. From the point of view of the subsequent explorer
the reader is referred to the ensuing chapter upon Eastwater Cavern,
which will convey some idea of what the first explorers must undergo in
any such place when to the ordinary difficulties of such an exploration
is added the great uncertainty felt at every step taken, and when
every boulder upon which our weight is to rest must first be carefully
examined. The difficulty of our work at Eastwater is practically what
must be experienced in any new work undertaken in the Mendip region,
and there is much waiting to be done. If there is one thing more than
another to be learned from Eastwater Cavern, it is the great importance
of chokes in determining the lines of subterranean drainage. Here they
are seen in every stage of formation and destruction, and the channels
which have been carved by the arrested water may be readily recognised.
There is a fascination in exploration work such as that at Eastwater,
where corridors, hitherto untrodden by the foot of man, open up all
around as you make your way ever downwards into the heart of the hills;
and even now there are many accessible passages into which as yet no
one has penetrated. Reference to the section annexed will show an upper
way, which terminates abruptly in a choke of stones and gravel, holding
up a little water, whilst allowing a considerable quantity to pass. It
is a remarkable fact that in all the labyrinths of galleries which we
have explored in the profound depths of this cavern we have not yet
alighted upon any portion which gives access to the continuation of
this channel. There, rendered inaccessible by the barrier of débris,
is, without doubt, a cavern as extensive as that which we have proved
to exist in the sister watercourse hard by; and these two channels,
starting from practically the same point, must diverge widely, and
certainly do not unite again before the depth of 500 feet is attained.
Farther eastward in Mendip, too, are similar swallet caverns. Not far
to the north-west of Stoke Lane is an interesting cavern locally known
as Cox's Hole. It is situated in the Limestone forming the southern
edge of the great basin in which lies the Radstock Coalfield. Owing to
the existence of this coalfield, there are no deep caves accessible in
this part of Mendip. Yet a good deal of water must be absorbed through
the innumerable fissures into the depths of the Carboniferous Limestone
underlying the coalfield, and it is by no means unlikely that this
water, heated to a high point by the subterranean temperature, gives
rise to the hot springs at Bath. Cox's Hole was at a remote period,
when the form of the hill was very different from that presented now,
an active water-channel, evidently draining towards St. Dunstan's Well.
It has two distinct entrances, one, the more westerly, being a cavity
of considerable size. For about 100 feet the cavern consists of a roomy
gallery running more or less horizontally. Then it pinches in, until
the height is less than a foot, and only those can get along who are
able to compress themselves into small compass. In a few feet, however,
it widens out into a good-sized passage, with fine stalactites here and
there, especially at a point on the northern side where an aven opens
into a chamber more than 30 feet high. Now roomy and now contracted,
the passage leads on until, at a distance of 100 yards from the
entrance, it becomes so small that there is considerable difficulty in
proceeding. Beyond this point the cavern becomes a simple water-tunnel,
of a type common in Yorkshire. At 130 yards there is a sharp descent,
the floor is littered with boulders, and 20 yards farther the passage
is choked with silt. A very small passage, which had water in it when
I was there, is said to be passable at times, though I am inclined to
doubt this. An almost vertical ascent amongst treacherous boulders,
however, seems an indication of a possible route onwards, which may,
I trust, with care be yet explored. The last 50 yards of the cave run
to the south-east--that is, away from the direction of St. Dunstan's
Well--a beautiful spring rising from the Carboniferous Limestone hard
by; yet I feel sure that it must of necessity be a part of the same
waterway. Either it was an inlet which received the waters of some
vanished Old Red Sandstone spring, or it was a former outlet for the
waters of that well. I am inclined to favour the former theory. As to
the present source of the waters of St. Dunstan's Well there can be
no doubt whatever. In the valley below Stoke Lane, and three-quarters
of a mile distant from the well and from Cox's Hole, there is a most
interesting swallet, of comparatively recent age. It is obviously
certain that, not so long ago, the stream which courses down the
valley flowed unchecked down its whole length, and so reached the
larger stream below. Slightly retarded, in all probability, by some
flood-borne silt, the water found a little joint in the western bank of
the valley, and by slow degrees so enlarged it that it at last became
capable of swallowing the whole. Even now a few hours' work would
divert the water and cause it to resume its former course. Upstream is
a mill, the owner of which has courteously given every facility for
testing and for exploration. It was found that the effect of damming
the mill stream entirely was to reduce the flow at St. Dunstan's Well
enormously, and to render the entrance of the swallet passable. Mr.
Marshall of Stratton-on-the-Fosse with his party made a successful
descent, and travelled a considerable distance, mainly parallel
with the valley without and to a great extent horizontally, through
water-tunnels of small size. As no measurements were taken one cannot
say yet how far it is passable, but he says that they did not get to
the limits of possible exploration, as the time which they spent there
was getting dangerously near the hour up to which it is possible to
dam the water, and they most wisely beat a hasty retreat. The first
opportunity will be taken by us to make use of a spell of fine weather
to carry this exploration to a successful issue. Not far distant,
too, is another swallet, from which the water has been diverted to be
used for water-supply. This is in the vicinity of a ruined hunting
lodge, and is said to lead in the same direction as the Stoke Lane
Swallet. The whole of this district is likely to be very interesting,
there being a series of remarkable rifts or fissures in the Dolomitic
Conglomerate which deserve attention. One of these, called Fairy Slats,
has been known for many years, and is indeed shown on the Ordnance
map; and the fact that such fissures abound has been forcibly brought
home by a disaster to a new reservoir, only recently completed by the
authorities of Downside Monastery, to supply the neighbouring villages.
Here a finely designed basin, having been constructed over one of these
fissures, had its massive concrete bottom burst out as if it were an
egg-shell the moment the water filled it, and in a single hour the
whole fabric was absolutely ruined. Some measure of the extent of the
concealed fissures may be gathered from the fact that 500,000 gallons
of water were absolutely swallowed up without a drop coming to light
in the neighbouring valley. An early visitor to the adjoining field
reported that air was being ejected through the grass all around him,
much to his alarm, as he was quite unaware of what had occurred. It
will be a most interesting subject for inquiry, as to how far such
fissures as these are the results of water action or otherwise, and
it is most desirable to descend one of them at the first opportunity
in search of evidence. At present I am inclined to attribute their
presence to movements in the Secondary rocks, due to the intersection
of the district by valleys. The Conglomerate mass has parted along the
lines of the principal joints, and the rifts thus formed have become
lines of drainage. This theory, in view of possible future discoveries,
may have to be modified.
Above Stoke Lane Swallet, and evidently connected with it in some
remote way, is a cavity without a name, the exploration of which would
probably be interesting, and would be most likely to yield remains of
primitive Man. Mr. Marshall also reports the existence of a fissure
of considerable size, where, after a very small entrance, a point
is reached with a vertical descent of great depth. All these things
indicate that there is a splendid field here for further work.
Indeed there are abundant evidences of this all over Mendip. One of
the most interesting problems has had further light thrown upon it
by work recently done by us at Wookey Hole. The Hyæna Den and the
Badger Hole are testimony that a large amount of underground action
has taken place upon the east side of the ravine, yet nothing has been
known hitherto of any series of dry channels upon that side. Recently,
however, we have succeeded in gaining access, by way of the smallest of
fissures, into what will turn out most likely to be a portion of this
very series. Here is to be seen a choked-up chamber of precisely the
same type as the Hyæna Den, but far deeper in the wall of the ravine.
Without doubt it contains prehistoric remains, yet its excavation will
entail great labour. We have already reached a distance of 80 feet from
the entrance, and only a partially choked passage bars the way.
High up in the ravine at Ebbor, too, there is a very promising field
for further research. This is immediately beneath a cliff on the
western side of the valley, where we have already done much preliminary
work. There is also a very promising little cave, slightly north of
Tower Rock in the same gorge and high up in its side. Here a narrow
entrance gives access to a small chamber, on the floor of which is a
deep deposit of cave earth, from which I have obtained Deer bones.
At Dulcote, again, there is a series of waterways and dry caves of
great interest, which in themselves bear corroborative evidence of the
great antiquity of the caverns of the district. From time to time the
quarrymen have broken in upon these waterways, which have been lost in
subsequent operations. Not many years ago a blast blew off the top of
an almost vertical shaft, carved out in the Limestone by water action
and descending to a great depth. The mass of rock blown off by the
charge turned over and fell down the shaft, blocking it at 30 feet from
the surface. It was possible to descend to this point and throw down
stones, which fell for a considerable distance; but the block was never
moved, and in the process of quarrying the hole became filled, and is
now lost in the general level of the quarry. Hard by, also, a cavern of
considerable extent was opened, and still remains. It contains nothing
of peculiar interest, though when I was first lowered into it, from
a hole 60 feet above its floor, it contained very pretty coral-like
splash stalagmite; and also, in the mud floor, the tubular linings
of calcite, formed from the drip from above. In this quarry, too,
were found a considerable quantity of the bones of Bear, Deer, Bos,
Horse, etc., and these are now in the Wells Museum, where they were
deposited some years since by A. F. Somerville, Esq. There are numerous
other minor caves in this locality. Farther up the same valley, above
Croscombe, is a small cave known locally as Betsy Camel's Hole, and it
appears to have been occupied by a woman bearing that name for some
years. She was, of course, carried away by the devil, according to the
same popular report. It may very well have been a rock shelter at some
stage of its history. Mr. Somerville informs me, too, that in Dinder
Wood there is a small cave which was almost certainly a rock shelter.
This also has never been explored. In fact, the whole district may
be described as an unexplored field, and there is abundant room for
willing helpers. The landowners, for the most part, are exceedingly
kind and ready to offer every facility for scientific research.
H. E. B.
THE CHEDDAR GROUP OF CAVERNS
The great gorge of Cheddar and its caverns form a subject of surpassing
interest to the student of Geology. Presenting some of the most
stupendous cliff scenery in England, the great wall of rock on the
southern side of the valley towers nearly 500 feet into the air,
defying all attempts at mapping contour lines; and the road which
traverses the ravine winds, with many a sudden turn, along the base of
this noble cliff, ever upwards, until in four miles the actual summit
of the Mendip downs is reached. At the entrance to the gorge, and
close to the caverns owned by Gough, the hidden river bursts into the
light, pouring forth a stream of great volume, which, after serving
the purposes of various millers in the village, hurries on to join its
sister stream from Wookey Hole, the two then flowing into the sea near
Weston-super-Mare. It is strange that in all the exploration work that
has been done at Cheddar, the underground channel of the stream has not
once been reached. Near the entrance in Gough's Cave a fairly deep hole
contains water, which changes in level along with the river itself, but
no open passage leads from it. A vertical rope descent of 100 feet from
the upper and practically unknown caverns belonging to Gough brings the
explorer to what must be regarded as the nearest point which has yet
been reached to the subterranean river of Cheddar. As this gorge is
the most stupendous in the Mendip region, so is this stream the most
considerable in volume. Mr. Sheldon of Wells has gauged its minimum
flow to be not less than three million gallons per day, whilst its
torrent at flood time must be many times as much, probably not less
than eight or ten millions.
[Illustration: THE GREAT GORGE OF CHEDDAR.
_Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells._]
This is considerably larger than the other two great outlets of the
subterranean waters of Mendip, those of Wookey Hole and Wells, each of
which, however, pours forth an enormous volume. That it is the Cheddar
stream which is responsible for the existence of the gorge itself no
one can doubt, and it is a most interesting subject for discussion as
to how this has been brought about. It is not difficult to determine
what points must mark the boundaries of the catchment area, the waters
of which drain to Cheddar. The road from Castle Comfort to Charterhouse
on the north-east, the outcrop of Shales south of Blackdown on the
north, and a line drawn from Rowberrow Farm north of Priddy to the
gorge itself on the south, enclose the whole area from which the supply
is obtained. This is somewhere about 12 square miles in extent. To this
must be added, possibly, some water from slightly more to the eastward.
It is now the commonly accepted theory that the whole of this water,
or at any rate the bulk of it, found inlet into a series of caverns
along the line now occupied by the gorge, and that then the processes
which are so well known to be going on gradually enlarged these to
the point of collapse, the falling débris being removed by the still
flowing stream. It is only right to add that M. Martel, arguing from
his long experience, which probably exceeds that of any man who has
ever studied the subject, sees in the gorges of Cheddar, Burrington,
and presumably Ebbor, the superficial channels worn by the escaping
streams from the ancient Mendip plateau. He says, "The numerous dried
valleys (Burrington Combe, Cheddar Cliffs, etc.), which cut through the
circumference of the Mendips, witness, as everywhere, to the ancient
superficial flowing off of the rivers, and to their capture by the
natural wells, successively opened and enlarged in the cracks of the
Limestone rock." That even small streams acting through a sufficient
period of time are capable of doing enormous erosive work it would
be idle to deny, but the difficulties in the way of accepting this
theory as alone sufficient are too great to admit of its acceptance.
It demands that the water of a very large area could find access to
the eastern end of the ravine, which itself demands that the general
configuration of the Mendips must have been very different from that
presented now. This, from the existence of the Secondary beds in their
present position, say near Harptree, was not the case; and therefore,
for the theory to hold good, we must suppose that the superficial gorge
was pre-Triassic. As it was not filled in, either in Triassic time or
subsequently, it could not have been superficial. Of course it may be
contended that the reversal of this line of argument demonstrates that
the gorge is post-Liassic and may then have been a superficial channel,
but I hold this to be disproved in my chapter on the antiquity of the
Mendip Caves. I am, accordingly, forced to the conclusion that the
Cheddar gorge was during the whole of the Secondary period a roofed-in
cavern. The only difficulty which arises is a doubt as to the ability
of the stream to remove so vast a bulk of falling material as must
be accounted for; but when we see the process in actual operation,
as at Wookey Hole, it is only necessary to demand sufficient time,
and the difficulty vanishes. That a time did arrive when the rate of
collapse more than kept pace with the destructive energy of the stream
is indicated by the rapid rise which takes place in the road through
the gorge. This favours the cave theory as opposed to the superficial
channel theory, inasmuch as a superficial channel would probably have
maintained a more nearly equal depth throughout.
That the portion of M. Martel's theory which explains the absence of
the stream from the gorge is correct is very clear, there being obvious
indications, notably at the western end of the ravine, where points of
absorption might be traced beneath the high cliffs, any one of which,
if excavated, would almost certainly lead to the present channel of
the river beyond Gough's Caves. The Long Hole above, as pointed out in
my chapter upon the antiquity of the Mendip Caves, is corroborative
evidence which tends to disprove the superficial valley theory, as it
is without a doubt an old cavern of absorption, which could not have
existed had the ravine been a superficial valley. Everyone must lament
the recent developments in the Cheddar gorge by which the northern side
is being hacked to pieces to provide road metal. There are thousands of
places where the same stone could be obtained, with almost equal ease;
and it does seem pitiful that one of the finest places in the kingdom
should be sacrificed to the most callous and sordid commercialism.
The conditions under which the work is being carried on constitute
also a public danger, as has now been exemplified by the collapse into
the gorge of a huge mass of the rock. The dip of the Limestone is to
the southward, and consequently any work done on the northern side is
removing the support that holds up the great mass upon an inclined
plane. Of necessity the mass above, its support gone, comes hurtling
down to the roadway, and it is practically certain that, if quarrying
operations continue, some day the gorge will be entirely closed by a
gigantic fall.
An interesting little tributary ravine and cavern, far up the gorge,
provides a perfect example of the cave theory of the formation of the
gorge itself. About two miles from the village, on the southern slopes
of the ravine, is an extensive fir wood. High up on the opposite side
this little ravine is visible, and it may be reached with ease. Here
sides that gently slope give way to precipitous walls, between which
you walk. Moss-grown stones give place to new-fallen stones, and then
you have before you the little ravine roofed in; you pass beneath,
and find yourself in the darkness of the cavern itself, which can be
followed for some distance. Here, at any rate, there can be no doubt as
to the process that has been at work.
H. E. B.
ANTIQUITY OF THE CAVES OF MENDIP
When we consider the question of the age of our caverns, we are met
at the outset by a mass of evidence forcing upon us the certainty
that they must be credited with a very high antiquity indeed. Here
measurement by years and centuries fails, and the imagination must
be called in to aid us to compute the epochs that have successively
elapsed since the first cave, to take one example, began to be formed
at Wookey Hole. These evidences are of three kinds: historical,
palæontological, and geological. In the first place, there has been
obviously little change in the general configuration of our caverns
since earliest historical times. The dens and caves of the earth
have afforded a retreat to the persecuted of all generations, and a
ready-made home when all else has failed. Here, too, with the rocky
walls behind him and his protecting fires at the entrance, early man
could defy the savage beasts that roamed the land in those far-off days.
At Wookey Hole it was only necessary to scratch the very surface of
the accumulated débris within the mouth of the great cave to turn up
fragments of Romano-British pottery and a human jaw and rib-bones.
These interesting relics are in the possession of myself and Mr. Troup.
From the very nature of the place, it is obvious that the tendency
has been to accumulate more and more débris upon the mass of cave
earth which contains these remains. Slightly deeper, yet still only
in the loose earth of the cavern mouth, we found pottery of still
earlier date, unwheeled and cruder. The fact is borne in upon us, that
certainly for two thousand years this entrance has remained much as it
is now. Perhaps a loose rock here and there has been dislodged from
the overhanging cliff outside, and, crashing to the stream bed below,
has there been broken up and carried away by the river. But no one can
doubt that the general outline is the same now as then. And farther
within the cavern an interesting sidelight is thrown on the slowness
with which things change in the underworld. At the descent into the
first great chamber a chalk inscription roughly made reads "E A 1769."
That inscription has been there unchanged, to my knowledge, for the
last twenty years, and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. If a
chalk mark remains unerased for a century and more, how long have those
solid walls stood, and how long will they endure?
As I have gazed upon that inscription, the thought has come, that such
a place as this would be an ideal site for national monuments. When our
abbeys and cathedrals are crumbled away, these great subterranean halls
will remain practically unchanged. And in the caves of Cheddar like
evidences meet the eye. In the loose material in the Roman cave there,
Roman and Romano-British remains have been found in abundance; and here
again we are forced to the conclusion that no change has taken place
since those remains were deposited.
But when we consider the evidences furnished by the remains of the
extinct mammalia, mingled with those of primitive man, much more is it
impressed upon the mind that we are dealing with relics of enormous
antiquity. The great assemblage of bones of the extinct animals which
occurs at Banwell Cave, and the numberless finds from the caves of
Cheddar, are indications of this; but those of the Hyæna Den of
Wookey Hole, and the conditions of their deposit there, afford us
much more reliable testimony. Here are two principal cavities on the
eastern side of the ravine, representing two of the five river levels
which the stream of the Axe has hollowed for itself in the Dolomitic
Conglomerate. These are branch or side chambers which have not been
totally destroyed in the process of erosion that formed the ravine at
the expense of the cavern. In the uppermost cavity, known as the Badger
Hole (it was the haunt of badgers until a few years ago), no traces
of the extinct mammalia are to be found, nor have I found definite
traces of prehistoric man. At seven feet below the surface, however,
there is a bed of river sand of precisely the same kind as that in the
upper chambers of the great cavern. In the Hyæna Den below, on the
other hand, so thoroughly and systematically explored by Professor Boyd
Dawkins, was found one of the most perfect assemblages of the remains
of extinct animals ever discovered. Many years after his labours were
completed I searched there again, and was rewarded with a by no means
poor collection of bones and teeth: Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros,
Irish Elk and Reindeer, Red Deer, Bison, Cave Lion and Bear, Hyæna and
Wolf, Wild Goat, Wild Horse, and Wild Boar have all been found. One
of my earliest trophies was a fairly complete skull of a young Bear;
and I have representatives of all the others. From a small hole in the
side of the valley hard by, which I thought looked promising, we have
obtained a large number of Rhinoceros teeth, together with those of
several of the other kinds present in the Den. The examination of these
cavities and their contents demonstrates the fact that they were the
actual dens of some of these animals. The abundant marks of gnawing
show that the Hyænas made their home there. Over the vertical cliff
many a worn-out beast was hunted to its death by the Hyænas and Wolves,
and its shattered carcass dragged to this hole.
[Illustration: ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERY, COINS, HUMAN REMAINS, ETC.,
WOOKEY HOLE CAVE.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: HYÆNA DEN AND BADGER HOLE, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
It is easy to wander back in imagination and bring the state of things
that existed visibly before the mind's eye: to watch the unwieldy
Mammoth or the great Rhinoceros rolling its huge bulk along; to see the
pack of cowardly Hyænas or Wolves hounding some worn-out Bison to its
death, over the awful cliff close by their den, which purpose effected,
they themselves rushed headlong down the steep slope hard by, to fight
and wrangle over the shattered carcass of their prey; or to see the
Lion lying in wait by the peaceful stream in the little valley for the
noble Elk or timid Deer to come for its accustomed drink; and then to
behold savage Man, with his weapons of flint or bone, when out on his
hunting expeditions, arriving at this peaceful valley, and there for
a while making his quarters in the Den, and lighting his fires at the
entrance to scare the wild beasts from their lair.[1]
[1] Only a few years since, three cows were driven over the cliff by
several unruly dogs, and of course were instantly killed. Thus was the
tragedy of long ago re-enacted.
How long ago this state of things existed is a matter for geological
calculation. Suffice it that the earliest historical records show us
no wild beasts existing in the land except Bears and Wolves, along
with the Red Deer which is with us to this day. Now there is no sign
at Wookey Hole of the time when the Bear and Wolf alone remained and
all else had become extinct from the land. There is no trace whatever
in the Hyæna Den of the pottery which we find in the entrance of the
great cave. Without a doubt, the latest deposits here are vastly older
than the most ancient deposits there. The commingling of northern,
temperate, and southern forms gives evidence of oscillations in
temperature such as demand a vast time to have taken place. Yet the
whole of these remains accumulated between the time when the entrance
to the Den was left exposed by the gradual destruction and retreat
of the cliff face up the valley, and the infilling and choking of the
entrance by the accumulating gravel which eventually blocked it. It is
only within the last few years that the gravel arch which was first
formed, and then undermined in the search after bones, has collapsed,
revealing the true configuration of the cavern. Here we must again
postulate a great antiquity for our caverns, since these deposits exist
in what is really an insignificant fragment of the great cavern, and
are only an incidental part of the material which an exposed cavity
is sure to receive. But when purely geological evidences are taken
into account, the demand for time becomes still more imperative. The
subterranean Axe occupies, as its present channel, vast chambers formed
by the excavation of thousands of tons of the hard Conglomerate, great
halls over 70 feet in height and of fine proportions. The process which
formed these is still at work enlarging them, till in the course of
time they must collapse; yet no change is ever visible, no signs of
recent action can at any point be seen. The rarely occurring great
flood serves but to remove one film of sand from the floor and to leave
another in its place as the waters subside. So slow is the undermining
action that no eye can ever detect a change though the waters rise ever
so high. Yet this channel is but one of five distinct levels which the
river has occupied from time to time, until it has found in turn a
lower course, leaving its sands as a record upon each, here and there
sealed down beneath a mass of stalagmite. What untold ages have elapsed
since first the river flowed through these upper channels!
[Illustration: PLAN AND SECTION OF WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.]
But an examination of the top of the Mendips points to a vaster
antiquity still. The published horizontal section No. 17 of the
Geological Survey gives an excellent idea of the plateau of Mendip,
which stretches from immediately north of Wells to the neighbourhood
of Compton Martin. This plane of denudation would never have been
reached save by the long-continued action of subterraneous streams,
an assumption supported by the existence of the great depression
crossed by the road from Wells to Priddy. That depression of nearly
100 feet in depth and several miles in length, hollowed in the hard
Carboniferous Limestone, here dotted with every known type of swallet
or swallow hole, has been obviously formed by the slow action of
swallet streams prolonged through vast periods of time. Every atom of
the millions of tons of solid rock represented by this depression has
been borne down the course of the subterranean Axe. Tributary to this
depression a little valley has been eroded across the Old Red Sandstone
anticline immediately to the north, and in it are deposited masses of
Dolomitic Conglomerate, the component pebbles of which were derived
from the surrounding rocks. The same valley existed, therefore, in
pre-Triassic time, and as there was obviously no other outlet for its
water, the cavities into which it flowed--that is to say, the swallets
and subterranean channels--must have existed also, and are therefore
pre-Triassic in date. Though at first sight this appears impossible,
inasmuch as the known course of the resulting Axe River is through
Triassic Conglomerate, I propose to show that such a conclusion is
necessary and inevitable. Long ago I was struck with the fact that at
Wookey Hole the Triassic Conglomerate attains an abnormal thickness,
and measurements have shown that at the far end of the cavern there is
certainly a thickness of over 350 feet of this rock. As there is no
sign of any approach to the Limestone against which it must abut, nor
any change in the character of the Conglomerate itself at this point,
I think that we may fairly conclude that the total thickness of it
must be at least 500 feet. Now this is a vast deposit, far exceeding
any known to exist elsewhere, and it requires a special explanation
to account for it. Only one explanation is possible. The Conglomerate
is here filling in some great pre-existing valley in the Mountain
Limestone. That is just what I should expect.
The great Limestone cavern formed by the action of the swallet streams
in early Triassic times collapsed, and formed a Limestone ravine, into
which was rolled a great accumulation of fragments of the Limestone
derived from the slopes and crags above. With the whole of this part of
England these beds were subsequently submerged, remaining so during the
deposit of the whole of the Secondary beds; and on their emerging once
more from beneath the sea the lines of drainage were re-established
along the old courses, where these had not been choked with sedimentary
material. Forcing a way through the Conglomerate which then impeded its
flow, the river formed those cavities which we see. Indeed, it may well
be that the successive levels cut by the Axe through the Conglomerate
may represent stages in the uplifting of the land, the lowest channel
being the last and largest, as it has been formed during an extended
period of stability. But we are not without evidences of another
sort as to the existence of some of our swallet ways at that remote
period. The cavities found in the Holwell quarries, near Frome, filled
in with Rhaetic material containing bones and teeth of fishes; those
of Gurney-Slade, near Radstock; and numbers which from time to time
are laid bare in the Limestone quarries, all filled in with Triassic
sediment, show that penetrating waterways of considerable size then
existed. There was, too, at Charterhouse-on-Mendip, north of Cheddar, a
fissure, possibly a swallet, which, being open, received an infilling
of Liassic material that is known to extend to a depth of 300 feet. Had
these channels been closed by a narrow aperture temporarily blocked,
no infilling but by water would have taken place when the land sank
beneath the waters of the Triassic and Liassic seas.
Furthermore, in the position of the entrances of many of our swallets
there is corroborative evidence to the same effect. The great circular
swallet on Rookham, near Wells, situated far from any existing line of
drainage, yet withal one of the largest cavities on Mendip, shows that
great changes have taken place since it was an active waterway. The
position of the caverns of Compton Bishop and of Banwell, far removed
from any stream or any line of drainage possible with the present
contours, proves that the configuration of the country has utterly
changed since they formed the points of engulfment of any streams. The
Coral Cave (as we have called it) at Compton Bishop descends abruptly
into the earth, and its outlet must have been far below the level
where now the Triassic Marl forms an impervious barrier. The waters
of Banwell Pond rise through the Marl, forced upwards through beds
which do not yield water and ordinarily retard its passage. Doubtless
the Marl when it was deposited covered some earlier outlet from the
Limestone. The waters of St. Andrew's Well, at Wells, are forced
upwards through Dolomitic Conglomerate and overlying Pleistocene
gravel, the former of which was doubtless deposited upon what was once
a free and unimpeded outlet from the Mountain Limestone, similar to
that of Cheddar. The water of Rickford, near Burrington, resulting from
the streams engulfed at and around Burrington, is forced up through
the Secondary beds, which have been similarly deposited upon the
pre-existing outlet. All these things help to demonstrate that what I
contend is true, viz. that our caverns as a whole are pre-Triassic in
age. The Long Hole at Cheddar, high in the cliffs above Gough's Cave,
lends its evidence too. Contrary to all the other caves at Cheddar, it
was a channel of intake for the water which formed it. Doubtless it
is a fragment of a larger cavern, which, before the gorge of Cheddar
itself was formed, existed in the mass of rock occupying the whole
area. At the northern end of the Limestone defile of Ebbor, near Wells,
the ravine is carved through Dolomitic Conglomerate, which has been
much worked for iron ore. The fact that this Conglomerate was deposited
in a depression in the land, at the head of the present ravine, yet
without entering it, suggests that here was an entrance to a series of
caverns, the collapse of which produced the gorge.
[Illustration: THE GREAT SWALLET ON BISHOP'S LOT, PRIDDY.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth_]
[Illustration: ST. ANDREW'S WELL, WELLS.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
The Devil's Punchbowl, near the Castle of Comfort Inn on the Mendips,
is, in all probability, a collapse of the remarkable Lias beds which
there occur into some pre-existing cavity in the Mountain Limestone
below, somewhat in the same manner as the Shake Holes in the Glacial
Drift on the Yorkshire moors were formed. No one questions the
existence of the cavities beneath before the deposit of the Drift,
neither do I doubt the existence of swallets beneath the Trias and Lias
before these were deposited on the Mendips. The question naturally
arises, Why do we not find in our caverns remains of all the ages
that have elapsed since that time? Why are only Pleistocene remains
discovered? Surely, because we have not found them it does not follow
that they are nonexistent. The recent discovery of Pliocene remains
in a cavern at Doveholes, near Buxton (Derbyshire), is clear proof
that we may search hopefully for similar remains in the Mendips. It
must be borne in mind, that the further we go back in time, the more
certain we are to find that the contents of any Limestone cavern would
be completely mineralised, until the whole of the contents may have
become cemented into a solid mass. Where running water is present,
attrition may have destroyed them, or borne them onwards to those great
depths where, constantly submerged as they must be, we can never hope
to penetrate. I am aware, however, of the existence, in the Eastwater
Cavern, of very ancient chokes of water-borne material, from which I
have some hope of obtaining remains.
I might mention the demonstrated antiquity of the bosses of stalagmite
in Kent's Cavern at Torquay, and from it argue the immense age of
the great masses of stalagmite in the Mendip Caves, but, recognising
the variable rate of deposit of the carbonate of lime in different
caverns, and indeed in different parts of the same cavern, no useful
purpose would be served thereby. The huge Beehive of Lamb's Lair at
Harptree, the large boss in the first great chamber at Wookey Hole,
Gough's "Niagara" at Cheddar, the tall and slender pillars in Cox's
Cave at Cheddar, and the taller "Sentinel" pillar at Wookey Hole, all
demand for their formation a prodigious length of time, which it is but
folly to attempt to compute with our present information. Certainly
many thousands of years are required for some of them, and it should
be remembered that we have then arrived merely at the time when the
floor upon which they stand had received its final form, the action of
running water having ceased.[2] Who can doubt then, that, as we stand
in the great waterways of the profound depths of our hills, we are
looking upon scenes which have varied little since remote ages, and
that in some form or other these waterways played an important part in
the degradation of the earlier and loftier Mendip range?
[2] In 1894 the initials "T. W." were carved by Mr. Willcox of Wells
on the great stalagmite bank in the end chamber of Lamb's Lair. I
added "1894," that in years to come some measure may be obtained
of the rate at which this bank is being formed. I make a rule of
never making an inscription, but in this case I thought that the end
justified the means.
It is worthy of remark in this connection that the veteran M. Martel,
commenting upon the caverns of Mendip, says, "In consequence of the
existence, on the flanks of the Mendip Hills, of deposits of Triassic
Dolomitic Conglomerate (Keuper) of Rhaetian beds, and of possibly
Glacial alluvia, unconformably on the Carboniferous Limestone, the
outflow of the water in the risings operates in three ways: (A) by
large fissures in the Limestone itself, when it flows out freely, as
at Cheddar; (B) through the crevices in the Dolomitic Conglomerate
(the Axe at Wookey Hole, etc.); (C) where the outlet of the water from
the Limestone is hidden by alluvia (St. Andrews Well, at Wells). The
consequence of this arrangement is that it will be possible--notably
at Wookey Hole, when the explorations now going on have enlarged the
new galleries recently found--to ascertain whether the Dolomitic
Conglomerate is there shown in long beds of ancient shores, regularly
superposed on the Limestone, or rather accumulated in filled-up
pockets, in hollows pre-existing in the Limestone; that is to say,
there will be a material verification of Mr. Balch's hypothesis
(already outlined by Boyd Dawkins in 1874) of the very ancient
excavation of certain caves of the Mendip Hills, even before the Keuper
period. The lie of the Conglomerate under the vaulted roofs of Wookey
Hole appeared to me to favour this idea. And it is necessary to wait
till formal proofs have been gathered together here, that caves were
hollowed out there before the Trias. I recall, on this subject, that
long ago I concluded, with Messrs. De Launey, Van den Broeck, Boule,
etc., that the formation of caves could commence in the most distant
geological epochs, and that the pockets of phosphorites, among others
at Quercy and the Albanets of Couvin (Belgium), testify to caves or
abysses of at least Eocene times."
H. E. B.
CAVE EXPLORING AS A SPORT
We are called a nation of sportsmen; yet the first criticism we
level against any new sport, not our own, is the question, usually
unanswerable and always irrelevant, What is the use of it? One
may then, with a certain show of propriety, point out that cave
exploring is a sport not entirely lacking in utilitarian or scientific
objects. It belongs, in fact, to that large class which originated
as something else than mere pastime. Mountaineering and hunting are
typical representatives of that class. The earliest mountaineers were
geographers. Cave exploring was first of all taken up as a branch of
archæological and palæontological research, and then as a general
inquiry into the physical nature of caves. But a science that has
discovery as its principal object, and hardships and adventure as
its natural concomitants, is bound to attract as many sportsmen as
scientists. The geographical might be called the sporting sciences.
And so there are now many ardent cave explorers who would blush to be
called speleologists, their sole motive being the enjoyment of the
game, and scientific results purely a by-product. Thus the science of
caves has given birth to a sport that subserves its aims in the same
irregular way as rock-climbing and peak-bagging subserve the aims of
geography, geology, meteorology, and other sciences.
Speleology itself is, comparatively, a new science. Cave hunting, the
search for human and animal remains, has been an important bypath
of scientific investigation since the days of Dean Buckland and
the discoveries recorded in _Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_, 1823. Professor
Boyd Dawkins has in recent decades done still more valuable work
for palæontology. Speleology is a word of both wider and narrower
meaning; in the widest sense covering all kinds of knowledge about
caves, their geography, geology, hydrology, their fauna, their
palæontology. But most speleologists confine their attention to
the physical characteristics of caves. This side of the inquiry
has practical utilities. At Vaucluse, for instance, near Avignon,
M. Bouvier in 1878 explored the channels of a gigantic siphon that
carries the waters of an inaccessible reservoir into the Fontaine de
Vaucluse, a famous "rising." His object was partly scientific, and
partly to determine the nature of this permanent source, so as to
utilise its waters to regulate the level of the Sorgue, to extend the
irrigation system of the neighbourhood, and to secure water-power for
manufacturing purposes. The Katavothra of Pod-Stenami were enlarged by
an enterprising engineer, and protected by iron gratings, after their
subterranean exits had been explored, and so utilised to regulate the
drainage of the marshy plains of Laibach, and to prevent periodical
inundations. In our own country, underground exploration has brought to
light valuable water-supplies, and enabled us to safeguard the public
interests by pointing out sources of pollution. Caves are most abundant
in the districts where those great fissures known as rakes occur,
which are rich in minerals, especially lead, calamine, copper, gypsum,
and fluor-spar. During the short period in which cave work has been
taken up as a sport, discoveries have been made, which of course it is
impossible to particularise, that may be the source of considerable
profit in the future.
The majority of those engaged in this physical exploration of caves
are French. France possesses a Société de Spéléologie, the secretary
of which, Monsieur E. A. Martel, author of _Les Abîmes_, is a most
indefatigable and courageous explorer, and the man who has made the
science an important and a living one. But M. Martel himself awards the
title of "créateur de la spéléologie" to a forgotten predecessor, Dr.
Adolphe Schmidl, who published _Die Grotten und Höhlen von Adelsberg_,
in 1854. In this country, although such brilliant discoveries have
been made of extinct animals and prehistoric relics of humanity, cave
exploring of this kind is a new pursuit. M. Martel says, in _Irlande
et Cavernes Anglaises_, 1897: "In short, the underground of the
calcareous regions of the British Isles may be considered as being,
topographically, very insufficiently known; this is the conviction
impressed on me by my own researches in 1893." Something has been
accomplished since that date. Two or three clubs, consisting chiefly
of climbers, and a few speleologists working independently, have
effected a thorough examination of the great caverns of the Peak, the
extraordinary system of underground waters, huge cavities, and profound
abysses in the West Riding, and the beautiful caverns of Somerset. But
the ground that remains unexplored, the opportunities for adventure and
the possibilities of discovery are such as may probably astonish those
people who think there is nothing of the sort left in Old England.
Caves are formed in calcareous strata by the chemical action of water
laden with carbonic acid, and by the mechanical action of streams. In
consequence of the original structure of the Limestone, the joints of
which run at right angles to the bedding planes, these eroded hollows
have two dominant forms: the vertical pot, swallet, or hole, produced
by the widening of a master-joint; and the horizontal water-channel,
running in the same direction as the line of stratification. But the
strata being commonly tilted, these pits and abysses are often a long
way out of the vertical, and the caverns that follow the strata very
steep. Many of these ancient watercourses are now dry, but others
are still traversed by streams, and present the explorer with most
formidable obstacles. The complete exploration of any cave system would
involve the tracing out of all its passages from the point where the
stream or streams enter the earth to the point of exit. But I know
not a single instance where such a task has been worked out in its
entirety. In many cases the streams enter the ground merely as small
rivulets, and begin to excavate passages practicable to man only at a
considerable depth. "Siphons," or traps, as they ought to be called,
complete or partial chokes, and a variety of other causes, may put
insuperable obstacles in the explorer's way.
Take two of the most important cave problems still awaiting solution,
one in Yorkshire, the other in Somerset. A large beck is precipitated
into the abyss of Gaping Ghyll, 360 feet deep, and emerges from
an opening in the hillside, a mile away, close to the mouth of
Ingleborough Cave, which was itself an earlier exit. Several parties
have descended Gaping Ghyll, and followed the passages at the bottom
to a distance of more than 1000 feet. Then impenetrable water-sinks,
and muddy chambers with no outlet, have been encountered, and the
communication with the lower cavern has hitherto proved undiscoverable.
Both the dry galleries and the canals of Ingleborough Cave have been
explored, with great toil and daring, to a considerable distance
upwards, with similar results; and though many speleologists are
still absorbed in this problem, there is little hope that it will be
cleared up without adopting the drastic and costly measure of cutting
through the obstructions. The other problem is that of Wookey Hole,
the cave in Britain which has the longest history, and which is still
yielding interesting discoveries. A number of streams disappear into
the earth on the Mendip plateau, 2 miles away and 700 feet above, and
find their issue in the source of the Axe at Wookey Hole. Two of the
Mendip swallets have been explored to a great depth. Swildon's Hole,
an exquisite series of terraced galleries and stalactite grottoes, has
been penetrated to a depth of 300 feet. But a more determined attempt
has been made to reach the bottom of the Eastwater Cavern. This was
discovered in 1902 by my friend Mr. Balch, of Wells, by means of
opening the swallet, where a tiny brook ran away through small crevices
in a Limestone ravine. A far-extending cave was thus disclosed, full
of intricate ramifications, that explain in a graphic manner how
new galleries are formed and old ones left dry and deserted, as the
result of floods and partial chokes. We have, in the longest route
discovered in this complicated system, reached a distance of 2000 feet
from the entrance and a depth below the surface of 500 feet. At this
point no absolutely impassable barrier has been met with. There is
reason to hope that we may still advance farther into the mysterious
region between it and Wookey Hole. But the formidable difficulties of
the journey hither have set a limit to endurance. Hundreds of feet
of creeping through steep, narrow, and contorted passages, compared
with which a series of drain-pipes would afford luxurious travelling;
perpendicular drops of 50 and 90 feet, with no convenient ledges at
the top for letting men down; and, in addition, the necessity of
transporting great quantities of tackle to the bitter end of it, have
made a twelve hours' day underground as much as we could stand. The
difficulty may perhaps be got over by means of a subterranean bivouac.
Unfortunately, it would not do to leave the apparatus in position for
long beforehand, as it would deteriorate so rapidly. In Wookey Hole
itself, we have not yet succeeded in reaching a farther distance than
600 feet from the cave mouth; there a submerged tunnel has stood in
the way. But Mr. Balch has thoroughly explored the upper passages that
honeycomb the rock above the known caves; he has discovered a number
of promising galleries, which are being slowly cleared of débris;
and, among them, a series of the most beautiful incrusted grottoes in
Britain. A season of drought may reveal an opening up the river-course.
Innumerable similar problems still await solution. Some of us have been
engaged in trying with pick and crowbar to engineer a way into the
swallets above Castleton, which send their waters through the heart of
the hills down to the caves in the dale of Hope. One of these, which
we have penetrated to a distance of 350 feet, may turn out to be the
entrance to as wonderful a chain of caverns as those of Eastwater. Long
Kin Hole, Helln Pot, and other tremendous cavities in the Ingleborough
district, still promise good sport. Of all the varieties of cave
forms these vertical holes are the most impressive, and also the most
perilous to explore. No exploit stands out more finely in the record of
that intrepid explorer, M. Martel, than his single-handed descent into
Gaping Ghyll, the first ever accomplished. In the Cevennes, however, he
has reached the bottom of abysses still more profound, though without
the unpleasant accompaniment of falling water. One of the most awkward
of the descents described by him is that of the Aven de Vigne Close
(Ardèche), 190 mètres in depth. This strange pit is almost a corkscrew
in shape, comprising five perpendicular drops, the bottom of one being
a few feet from the top of the next. To manage the final pitch, with
a chain of rope ladders 40 mètres too short, it was necessary to get
six men down to the "Salle à Manger" at the foot of the fourth stage,
others remaining as sentinels at the head of the various stages. Some
of these waited on their narrow perches for eleven hours, in the dark,
with nothing to do but listen to the distant noises of their comrades
at work. One man, hanging at the end of a rope, succeeded single-handed
in fastening a pulley to the free end of the second ladder, and so let
down the third ladder to the required extent. This critical operation
was carried out under grave difficulties, the nerves of the whole party
having been shaken a few minutes earlier by the accidental fall of a
heavy lamp, which was within an inch of killing the men beneath.
Elden Hole, in the Peak of Derbyshire, a yawning cavity 200 feet deep,
with an inner cave 65 feet deeper, has been descended several times
recently. On the first occasion, through the inexperience of the party,
I had the privilege of spending nine hours in the hole, in a state of
uncertainty as to whether it was in the power of the other men to get
me out. On the next occasion, we let down a dozen men safely. But there
still remains the possibility that excavation might clear up the puzzle
as to the connection of Elden Hole with other swallets and caves in the
vicinity. The old miners believed that it had communication with the
natural chambers in the Speedwell Mine; and that is a problem which
will entail exploration in collapsible boats along the flooded levels.
The great chasm in the Speedwell, which used to be reputed bottomless,
has been proved to be only 90 feet deep. It has an upward extension,
in the same steep rake, which has not been climbed, nor its top so
much as caught sight of. It attains a height, most probably, of at
least 400 feet. That is a problem worthy the mettle of our most skilful
cragsmen. In the Blue John Mine, a vertical fissure has been climbed,
by a party properly roped up, to the height of 130 feet, between walls
splendidly adorned with polished and translucent stalagmite. Ladders
may sometimes be rigged up, one above another, to reach hollows in
the roof of caves. In this way a handsome grotto was discovered above
Peak Cavern. When these vertical fissures are open to the sky, it is
a simple matter to fix tackle, and even a windlass, for letting men
down. When they open in the floor of a well-nigh impracticable gallery,
as in the Eastwater Cavern, the difficulties of securing pulleys and
ropes are serious. There our troubles are aggravated by the proximity
of deep, gaping chasms at the foot of each pitch, lying in wait to
receive falling bodies. Nevertheless, by an ingenious arrangement of
life-line and pulley, the entire party gets safely to the bottom of the
gulf and back again, although it is usual in such situations to leave
a sentry behind at the top. Grandest of all these underground cavities
in England is the great chamber of Lamb's Lair, in the Mendips. The
approaches and subsidiary chambers of that marvellous cavern are
magnificent in the richness of their incrustation and their colouring;
but this mighty hall surpasses the rest by far. Floor, walls, and
roof, of a dome-shaped chamber 110 feet high, are a mass of sculptured
transparencies, fantastic reliefs and glowing enamel, all the colours
of the rainbow being produced by the different veins of minerals. Only
a strong party of experienced climbers or cave workers, fully equipped,
should venture to explore this fine cavern in its present dangerous
state.
No chapters in _Les Abîmes_ are more absorbing than those describing
the exploration of underground waters. By means of collapsible boats,
M. Martel explored the concealed streams that tumble into the canyon
of the Ardèche. In 1890-91, M. Mazauric, with enormous toil and
considerable danger, traced out the labyrinthine ramifications of the
Bonheur at Bramabiau (Gard). The Tindoul de la Vayssière (Aveyron),
with its yawning abyss and powerful subterranean torrent, and the
Causse de Gramat (Padirac), both entailed the descent of a deep chasm
and the navigation of large streams. At Padirac the exploring party
made their way in four boats along a river, with frequent portages
caused by dykes of stalagmite, and discovered some of the most
exquisite and romantic stalactite scenery in the vaults through which
the river flows.
As a sport, cave exploring ranks high. The exertion it entails is
exceedingly severe. The innumerable obstacles and difficult problems
to be faced make incessant demands on our inventiveness, adaptability,
and presence of mind. The exposure, the hardships, the dangers that
must be encountered, form an admirable discipline. Those who consider
these any detraction from the merits of the sport, must condemn, not
one sport, but a whole class. Running risks, we must remember, is
always foolhardy, but to nullify danger by means of science and skill
is an aim worthy of the noblest kinds of sport. It will, of course, be
objected that the lack of exhilarating conditions, and of the stimulus
of fresh air, deprives the sport of the usual benefits of outdoor
games. But the air at the bottom of a cave 100 or more feet deep is
usually as pure and sweet, and not seldom as dry, owing to its free
circulation, as that on the hills. Then the darkness and the sense of
imprisonment, you say, are not conducive to healthy enjoyment. But a
cave explorer, enthralled by the manifold interest and excitement of
the pastime, will never admit this. The variety of entertainment it
affords constitutes a peculiar charm.
Only to judge by the number of climbers that have taken up cave work
as a pastime, there must obviously be a natural relation between this
sport and rock climbing. Certainly, there are many methods common to
the two sports, and the expert cragsman has an immense advantage over
others when he takes to cave exploring. But the methods and appliances
of the mountaineer are restricted by artificial regulations. There are
many things that must not be done, even to enable a climber to ascend
an otherwise inaccessible peak or to avoid serious peril. In cave work,
on the other hand, the difficulties and dangers are multiplied so
formidably by the singular conditions, of which darkness is but one,
that such prohibitions would be absurd. When one may be called upon to
climb a wall of mud, or a sheet of slippery stalagmite, or to traverse
water-swept rocks with an unfathomed pool or swallet underneath,
every safeguard must needs be utilised. Any mechanical means of
accomplishing, facilitating, or expediting a passage is legitimate in
cave work; ropes, pulleys, ladders of rope and wood, windlass, rafts,
boats, crowbar, pick, shovel--all these, and an enormous variety of
other things, have their place in the cave explorer's equipment.
One might write a volume on the equipment of cave explorers. Hardly any
other sport requires so formidable a variety. I must limit myself to a
few words. The explorer's dress should be a boiler suit, made all in
one piece from neck to heel, and with no pockets or buttons to catch
in the jagged Limestone, plenty of both being provided inside. He must
renounce any hankering after waterproof garments, the proper precaution
against the effects of wet being to wear thick woollen underclothing.
His boots should be nailed after the manner of those worn by rock
climbers. Candles are the best illuminant, much better than any
lamp--acetylene, electric, or other. But a supply of magnesium wire
should be carried, with waterproofed matches in water-tight boxes; and
a powerful limelight, burning ether instead of hydrogen, for the sake
of portability, is a useful auxiliary. Boats have been used in some
of the caves in the Peak, in Wookey Hole, and in the cavern of Marble
Arch, explored by M. Martel, in Ireland. Plenty of rope--not of the
Alpine Club material, but hempen--is necessary, and a few rope ladders
often come in handy. The only rule of the game that I should like to
insist upon is, that no damage should be done to the beautiful features
of a cave. It is a rule observed by every cave explorer worthy of the
name. The temptation to acquire specimens must be resisted.
The first thing that the cave explorer, eager for discovery, has to
learn, is not to lose himself. In many cases no special precautions are
necessary, but if there are numerous bifurcations, specific measures
must be adopted. Often it is sufficient to station a hurricane lamp or
a good-sized candle at the cross roads; a surer method, but one that is
rather troublesome, is to unreel a thread as we advance. Such a cavern
as Goatchurch, in Burrington Combe, Somerset, is a perplexing maze,
where one loses one's bearings completely two minutes after looking
at the compass. The mass of the hill is shivered into innumerable
fragments, of giant size. Passages striking off along the fractures
often lead one back imperceptibly to the point of divergence. At the
Eastwater Cavern, in the same district, after I had already gone four
times through the enormous aggregation of shattered rocks at the top,
where a human body is like a beetle in a heap of macadam, I tried in
vain to make my way out without using the life-line. Although there is
but 100 feet of it, one takes half an hour to get through. The original
explorers spent a much longer time in discovering a practicable route.
For my own part, I was lost in a few moments, and compelled to return.
The imprudence of two men in the Bagshawe Cavern, in Derbyshire, who
went too far in advance in their anxiety to be discoverers, led to an
uncomfortable experience both for them and for their rescuers. This
very extensive cavern has a number of ramifications. The two men who
were following reached a distant and unexplored part of the cave, only
to find that they had missed their comrades, the sand and clay on the
cave floor being still perfectly smooth and untrodden. They failed to
discover the wanderers in the neighbouring passages, and lost their
own way for a time before they got back, through the winding tunnels,
low-roofed fissures, and deep canals, crawling, scrambling, and wading
breast-deep through icy water, to the place where they had parted.
They hoped the truants had found their way back, but there was no sign
of them, and preparations had to be made for a second journey. After
a fatiguing quest, that lasted several hours, they found the missing
adventurers in a remote part of the cavern, nursing their last shred
of candle and waiting to be rescued. The experiences of some youthful
explorers in Wookey Hole, who found themselves on dangerous ground and
all their matches gone, are described on another page.
There is a romance about cave exploring that is almost unrivalled.
The conditions of the sport are so weird and exciting, so strangely
different from everything we are accustomed to. To be so near to, and
yet so far from, the scenes of our everyday life; to be launched on a
voyage of discovery on an English river, or to be the first to gaze on
some miracle of fantastic crystallisation only a few miles away from
a large town--these are among the attractions of the sport, at least
in its present stage. There is nothing in this country to compare with
the prodigious caves of Kentucky or the terrific subterranean defiles
of Adelsberg. One might as well look for the magnificence of the Alps
among our English mountains. Yet the caves and gulfs of Derbyshire and
Yorkshire have a grandeur of structure and diversity of character, and
the Somerset caves a brilliance of crystalline deposits, that are fully
as admirable and impressive.
E. A. B.
EXPLORING WOOKEY HOLE
"Where Albion's western hills slope to the sea,
There is a cave, and o'er its dismal mouth,
Whence come to quick, mysterious ears hoarse sounds
Of giant revelry, the ivy grew
And shut the old sepulchral darkness in;
And by its side a well, whence ever full
And ever overflowing, silent, deep,
And cold as death, the waters creep
Adown the broken rocks in search of day.
Above it frowns a fretted, stony brow,
And only from the setting sun e'er came
Within that place the joyfulness of light."
W. W. SMITH, _Angels and Men_: a Poem.
Hardly anywhere else in Britain is the mind borne down with such
a sense of incalculable antiquity as at Wookey Hole. Nowhere,
certainly, is there anything like such a continuous record from ages
inconceivably remote. To touch first of all upon periods that are
historical and measurable, we have the name Wookey, which appears to
be the one bestowed by the ancient Britons; for it is a recognisable
corruption--especially as the people of the district sound it,
"Ookey"--of the Celtic Ogo, a cavern, the same word, Ogof, as the
modern Welsh still apply to several caves in the Principality. Clemens
Alexandrinus, in the second century A.D., has a reference to the
cavern, and there are periodical allusions in Latin and English writers
from that time to the present. In the Middle Ages its fame as one of
the wonders of England was great. William of Worcester has a quaint
description; he says, "Its entrance is narrow, and the ymage of a man
stands beside it called the Porter, of whom leave to enter the Hall of
Wokey is to be obtained." What became of this janitor is now unknown,
unless he be represented by the recumbent monolith still to be seen
outside the portal. References to the antiquities of Wookey Hole occur
in Leland's _Itinerary_ and in Camden's _Britannia_, and there is
incorporated in Percy's _Reliques_ a ballad, by an eighteenth-century
virtuoso, Dr. Harrington of Bath, entitled "The Witch of Wokey,"
recounting an old legend of the neighbourhood.
"In aunciente dayes, tradition showes,
A base and wicked elfe arose
The Witch of Wokey hight."
So it begins, and goes on to relate, in the sham antique style of the
day, how a malevolent old woman was for her misdeeds changed to stone
by a "lerned clerk of Glaston." The Witch, a black, aquiline profile
in stone and stalagmite, is with her culinary utensils the chief
attraction to sightseers in the first great chamber, or, as it is
sometimes called, the Witch's Kitchen.
[Illustration: PROFILE OF THE "WITCH OF WOOKEY," WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: AMONG THE POOLS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
It is impressive enough to stand beside the very modern-looking
paper-mill, where the infant Axe, still dazzled by its sudden entry
into the sunlight, is harnessed to assist in the manufacture of such
workaday commodities as Bank-note paper, and to see before one things
that carry the memory back all those stages; yet it is but the last
few pages of the voluminous history that we are considering now.
Professor Boyd Dawkins, who won his spurs as a palæontologist by his
researches at Wookey Hole, discovered in the neighbouring Hyæna Den,
which is really a branch of the old cavern, human and animal remains
whose antiquity, compared with the periods just reviewed, is as the age
of Stonehenge compared with that of a man. In the less known passages
of the Hole itself, such relics have constantly been found in the
course of our investigations. Potsherds, celts, bone implements, the
carbonised embers from ancient hearths, all sorts of refuse lying in
odd corners, have continually brought us, as it were, face to face with
the time when man was little more than the king of beasts. Whosoever
would read in the deeper chapters of this vast chronicle must be
referred to the fascinating pages of _Cave Hunting_; there will be only
an occasional glance at the human history in this record of a different
class of exploration. Palæontological research has not been our object.
Several of my companions have made some valuable discoveries in this
line, and are intent on making more; but my own original motive, and
that of several others, was the sport, as much as the scientific
results, to be enjoyed in endeavouring to work out the great problem of
the waters that have made themselves a road through the underworld of
Mendip, and found an escape from bondage at Wookey Hole. This cavern
has been known so long and so familiarly, that it must have seemed as
if there were nothing more to be found out about it. It will, surely,
be a surprise to many to learn what important additions have recently
been made to the extent of its known and accessible passages, and
what progress there has been in explaining the secrets of its water
system. We are, in all probability, on the brink of yet more startling
revelations.
Drayton complained, in "Polyolbion," that the renown of the Devil's
Hole in the Peak of Derbyshire, then as in the present day, had robbed
the Somersetshire cave of some of its glory.
"Yet Ochy's dreadful Hole still held herself disgrac'd
With th' wonders of this Isle that she should not be plac'd:
But that which vex'd her most, was that the Peakish Cave
Before her darksome self such dignity should have."
Many things here bring to mind the Derbyshire cavern, which several
of our party had explored pretty thoroughly before we did any serious
work in Somerset--the approach along the deep wooded ravine cut through
the Dolomitic Conglomerate, the river pouring out from vast reservoirs
within the earth, the legendary associations, and the mystery shrouding
the stream's subterranean course. From the drainage area about Priddy,
700 feet above, on the top of Mendip, these waters find their way
down through a multitude of channels. Most of these passages are
quite unknown, but the two most important, of which a good deal will
be said presently,--the Eastwater Swallet and Swildon's Hole,--have
been explored to a considerable depth. In the latter we have got to a
depth of 300 feet, but natural obstacles and other difficulties have
prevented us from following the stream-course farther. Mr. Balch has
traced the Eastwater Swallet, which he opened in 1902, to the depth
of 500 feet below the point of absorption--almost, that is to say,
down to the level of Wookey Hole; but an enormous thickness of rock
still remains unexplored between the farthest points attained, from
below upwards and from above downwards. Most likely, when we get
farther, if we succeed in passing the present obstacles, we shall soon
find ourselves entering the canals and water caverns that lie on the
same level as the great natural reservoirs of Wookey Hole; in other
words, we are approaching the plane of saturation. Exploration in the
Eastwater Swallet is still being carried on, though perforce very
slowly; and concurrently therewith, efforts are being made, not without
success, to trace the passages in the lower cavern farther and farther
back.
[Illustration: MASS OF STALAGMITE, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: IN THE FIRST CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
The summer tourist, conducted through the three principal chambers
of Wookey Hole by a guide armed with a can of benzoline, for making
stalagmites into torches, comes out having a very imperfect knowledge
of the geography of the cavern, and a totally inadequate idea of
its beauties. I well remember how little I was impressed by my first
visit, under these conditions, many years ago. The weak illumination
seemed to reveal only the proportions of some rather large cellars,
pervaded by oily pools, into which the contents of the can were poured
and set on fire, producing an unearthly glare through the darkness and
the waters; and a number of dingy and unconvincing natural effigies,
black with the accumulation of soot. Our exploring party in March 1903
saw these things under an illumination such as had never been kindled
there before, and I for one was quite unprepared for the revelation of
brilliance and spaciousness and beauty that we were to witness.
"Wokey Hole," says Bishop Percy, "has given birth to as many wild,
fanciful stories as the Sybil's (sic) Cave in Italy. Through a very
narrow entrance it opens into a large vault, the roof whereof, either
on account of its height or the thickness of the gloom, cannot be
discovered by the light of torches. It goes winding a great way
underground, is crost by a stream of very cold water, and is all horrid
with broken pieces of rock: many of these are evident petrifactions,
which, on account of their singular forms, have given rise to the
fables alluded to in this poem," the story, that is, of the blear-eyed
hag who was turned into stone. This quaint description is true in every
particular. The first cavern, or the "Witch's Kitchen," has a weird
similitude to Gothic architecture. Arch springs from arch up to the
lofty summit, and the walls and vaulting are full of canopied recesses,
with wild foliations of glistening calcite wreathed from niche to niche.
Below us, as we enter, a broad deep pool stretches away into darkness.
Could we follow the gently moving current in a boat, we should enter
another great vault, whose existence the ordinary visitor never
suspects. There, in a small passage beyond the water, Mr. Balch
discovered human remains. Whilst we peered into the gloom, the
limelight was burning up, and now it flashed across the cavern to where
the black scowling head of the Witch overshadows terraces, basins, and
wild imageries of spectral stalagmite.
"A glow! a gleam!
A broader beam
Startles those realms of endless night,
While bats whirl round on slanting wing,
Astonished at this awful thing.
The rocky roof's reflected rays
Are caught up in the waterways,
And every jewelled stalactite
Is bathed in that stupendous light,
One moment only; then the caves
Are plunged again in Stygian waves;
The fairy dream has passed away
And night resumes her ancient sway."
The Vicar of Whiteparish, near Salisbury, wrote these expressive lines
after seeing Wookey Hole lighted up with magnesium. Our beam of light
was less transitory, and gave us ample leisure to contemplate the
glories of this magnificent chamber. Its walls for the most part are
coloured a rich red, which absorbs light readily and makes photography
a slow business. The first exposure took half an hour. Against the
warm red, the pearly streaks of stalactite and stalagmite shine in
exquisite relief. There is a superb mass of stalactite near the Witch;
to say truth, the eye is confounded by the wild grouping of fantastic
piles of dripstone around that uncouth head; the colours of the rocks
and the flashing crystallisations are reflected in the pellucid water,
and confused again with our glimpses of the river-bed, smitten by the
moving shaft of light. On the nearer side of the cave, where a narrow
arch leads into an incrusted grotto, a gentle stream has deposited
a fairy-like series of fonts and stoups, ending in a pure white
sheet of dripstone, over which the water murmurs. The surface of all
these fabrications is diapered over with a network of delicate pearly
ridges; so that here you see a mass, as it were, of polished brain
coral, and there madrepores and alcyonaria, where the deposits have
continued their growth under water. Some of these efflorescences are
like petrified filaments of water weed. The foul scurf and soot that
covers the Witch's cooking apparatus and other accessories would,
doubtless, disappear under a fresh deposit of pristine white, would
the guides but cease for a twelvemonth to drench them in benzoline,
for the delectation of such as love conundrums in stone. Still, these
things are but a small part of the scenery, when all is lighted up as
we were able to light it. Our work done, a Bengal fire was set off, and
the glimpses it gave us along the waterway to the inaccessible chamber
beyond added vastness and mystery to the scene.
[Illustration: STALACTITE TERRACE, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: GREAT RIVER CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells._]
The next chamber is a loftier vault, and the arching is more decidedly
Gothic in its suggestiveness. Two low arches at either side form
the portals, far above which a series of pointed arches spring to a
height of 70 feet, their summits converging in a polygonal cleft, like
the lantern of some cathedral dome. Then we make our way across the
sandbanks, between the pools, into the largest chamber of all, with a
roof of enormous span, whose breadth dwarfs its height, arching over
the sleeping river and the broad slopes of sand, whereon grotesque
Limestone monoliths take the likeness of prehistoric monsters sleeping
by the waterside. Through the clear water we can discern a submerged
arch communicating with more distant caverns. There is a tradition,
coming down from the mediæval historians, that unfathomable lakes lie
behind the barrier. This is probably true in so far as it points to the
existence of enormous reservoirs of water beyond the accessible parts
of Wookey Hole, the theory being confirmed by the behaviour of the silt
at flood time. Were the hatches belonging to the paper-mill opened,
and the water lowered a few feet, an attempt might be made to solve
these problems. Mr. Balch did, in fact, at a time when the water was
partially lowered, make his way into two unexplored chambers, fed by
tunnels submerged a foot or so below the surface.
[Illustration: SECOND GREAT CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells._]
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF THIRD CHAMBER, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Dawkes & Partridge, Wells._]
The older and the newer caves and passages of Wookey Hole lie at five
levels, one above the other like five storeys, the topmost of all
representing the oldest channel of the subterranean Axe, which has
in the course of ages forsaken first one and then the other, boring
fresh passages in the Conglomerate. Of these five storeys, one alone,
the nethermost, is known to the uninitiated visitor. Portions of the
other four had been explored from time to time by Mr. Balch, who in
1903 made such discoveries of unknown continuations as fill us with
hopes of penetrating deeply into the mysterious region beyond. Climbing
into the Upper Series from a spot near the threshold of the Witch's
Kitchen, we made our way eastward over dry rocks, and came speedily
to the junction with another passage from nearer the cave mouth.
Only a thin leaf of rock separates the two, for it is characteristic
of all these upper passages that they run almost parallel to each
other whilst rising to other levels. Altogether, we doubled back on
our original direction three or four times, creeping through holes
in the walls partitioning the corridors, and ascending to the top of
several lofty bridges, formed by fragments that have fallen from roof
and walls and wedged themselves securely. The construction of these
bridges is often marvellous to see. In one case a number of rocks form
an irregular arch, at the top of which a keystone wedges the whole
cluster together. Obviously they must have fallen and come together
practically at the same instant. This was what happened hard by with
two great boulders that fell down the rift and caught each other in
mid-air. Another impressive natural structure is known to explorers
of Wookey Hole as the Spur and the Wedge. The huge horizontal peak of
Limestone projecting into the chasm brings to mind a famous passage in
Mr. Rider Haggard's _She_. This spot was the scene of a droll adventure
that befell one of my companions years ago. With several other boys,
he wandered into these passages, when suddenly the one candle they
had with them went out. A boy had been commissioned to bring a supply
of matches, but it was ascertained that he had only one left, which
on being struck promptly went out. In this emergency, the lads could
do nothing but sit still until help arrived. They had no food, and
in trying to feel the time, they broke the hands of the only watch.
They computed that they had been in durance three days when the rescue
party reached the spot, but the protracted and hungry period of waiting
turned out to be only eight hours. Their resting-place was the flat
back of the pinnacle, with a 60-foot drop on one side and jagged rocks
on the other.
In two places in these galleries there are fine displays of stalagmite
on the wall, in the form of corrugated sheets, the ridges of which,
stained red with ferrous deposits, hang straight down like a series of
organ pipes. The walls glisten here and there with minute crystals.
But the most striking sight is where the Dolomitic Conglomerate, of
which the walls are composed, appears in clean-cut sections. One of
these, which has been successfully photographed, shows the differently
coloured pebbles, chiefly Mountain Limestone with a few of Old Red
Sandstone, embedded in the matrix, and surrounded with distinct layers
of cement, all as brilliantly defined as the concentric rings of an
agate. Hard by is a corner where Mr. Balch discovered the bones of
a man; they were mineralised, but it was impossible to tell their
period, or even whether they represented an interment, or were merely
the remains of some wanderer from his tribe who had perished in this
forlorn spot.
Sleeping bats hung from many a coign, and would not be awakened even
when lifted down. Big cave spiders crawled over the walls in the parts
adjoining the open air, where the breeze found its way in, although
we could not see through the narrowing crevices. Here and there the
cocoons of the spiders hung from the roof in white, woolly balls. At
the farthest point reached was a settlement of jackdaws, with a number
of untidy-looking nests, and there we could hear a thrush singing in
the trees outside; for we were close to the main cliff, and the river
was flowing out beneath our feet, under a great thickness of rock.
[Illustration: STALACTITE GROTTO: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVE.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Claude Blee._]
By the natural falling in of the roof, the first great chamber of
Wookey has broken through into the galleries above, and certain
passages of the Upper Series now open high up in the vault of the
Witch's Kitchen. One of these openings has been known for years;
another, which we reconnoitred carefully in March 1903, has now had
its barrier of cave earth cut through, with the result that a group
of stalactite chambers of wonderful beauty has been disclosed, with
untold possibilities of further advance. Boxing Day 1903 was spent in
an exploration of these new chambers. Climbing on my shoulders, Mr.
Balch got hand-hold in a chink of the Limestone, and pulled himself up
10 feet. Here a stalagmite peg held the rope ladder whilst we clambered
after, entering a cross gallery that gives access by another short
scramble to the loveliest of the new grottoes. When the discovery was
made, Mr. Balch and his assistants had to keep watch and ward day and
night, until a door had been fitted up, and every hole and crevice
securely blocked; for the entire village was quickly on the scene, and
irretrievable damage might have been committed.
The grotto is irregular in shape, and the incrustations are
disposed without order or system. From every nook and corner in the
superimpending rocks bundles of stalactite spears are thrust; bosses
and pillars spring from the floor, and sometimes meet the descending
shafts. Of all these frail pillars, the finest, rising on the very edge
of the rift we had ascended, seems to support the whole ponderous roof,
like the fragile column left by a dexterous architect, to cheat the
eye, in some cathedral vestibule. Certain of these hanging shafts are
shaped like the barbed head of a spear, a slanting stalactite having
intercepted and coalesced with the dripping calcite from an inch or
two away. A creamy, brownish yellow, with a golden lustre like that of
amber, is the prevailing tint; but, here and there, plaques of dazzling
white shine out against the burning magnesium.
Crawling in and out among the stalagmite pedestals, grievously afraid
of injuring the diaphanous fabric, we emerged in a very low chamber of
great area, right across which a grille of translucent rods, each a
foot high and ranged in regular line, fills the narrow space between
roof and floor. This extraordinary and strangely beautiful railing is
some 30 feet long, and only in one spot is it possible, by dint of
careful wriggling, to pass between the rods into the farther parts
of the chamber. Mr. Balch entreated me not to attempt this. When he
tried it, a fortnight ago, he had indeed got through to the series of
caves beyond, but, in returning, a projection had caught him at the
lowest spot, where the chamber is only nine inches high, and he had
struggled hard for twenty minutes before he could move an inch. Two
of us, notwithstanding this advice, ventured through. After draining
off a pool of water that was held back by a thin rim of dripstone, we
traversed the low chamber and a short tunnel beyond, climbed a vertical
cleft, and entered another low chamber of immense length and breadth,
whose various extensions we explored until the accumulated deposits
of boulders and cave earth stopped our advance for the time being.
In returning through the tunnel and the low chamber with the grille,
we tried successfully to dive under the archway and wriggle into the
opening head foremost, in spite of two opposing stumps of stalagmite.
By these tactics we escaped the worst of the squeeze.
[Illustration: STALACTITE PILLARS, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Claude Blee._]
[Illustration: NEW STALACTITE GROTTO, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
Whilst engaged in this excursion, we had heard the sound of hammering
somewhere away in the heart of the rock. It was our three friends
attempting to break into a promising gallery, which ought to cross
the vestibule of the main cavern and connect the two groups of upper
caves. We were not long in joining them; and now with pick, hammer,
and crowbar we attacked the barrier in force. The chief obstacle was
a great flat rock standing on end across the unexplored opening, and
propped up by a heap of boulders, which we gradually smashed up or
removed to one side. Still the big fellow would not budge, and we
had to sap his foundations by degrees. Yet this huge rock was but a
fragment that had fallen from the edge of a vast and threatening leaf
of rock, which now hung over our heads like a monstrous guillotine. The
upper caves are waterless, and it soon became desirable to send one
of our number to fetch us a drink. Presently we heard a plaintive cry
from the distance: his candle had gone out, and he had forgotten the
matches. Going to the rescue, I found him groping about on a shelf of
rock, 30 feet from the floor, hard by the Spur and Wedge; he had lost
his bearings altogether. On his return, we made another onslaught upon
our rocky adversary, the five of us sitting on his shoulder and pushing
against the wall, whilst our leader waxed grimly facetious as to what
would happen to us if the shock brought down the guillotine. Slowly
and painfully we tilted the mass of rock over, but only a few inches,
leaving just room enough for a thin man to crawl behind. Squirming
eagerly into the opening, I looked under, and was disappointed to see
that, if wide, it was still heaped right to the crown of the arch
by the rubbish flung there long ago by the river. Nevertheless, Mr.
Balch was not dissatisfied. Though parts of these ancient waterways
are choked with débris, it is unlikely, nay impossible, that the main
channels should not remain open. Our day's work had taken us on another
stage in our slow journey. The labour of removing the new obstacle will
be considerable, but the result is sure.
In 1904 we had the pleasure of escorting that veteran speleologist,
Monsieur E. A. Martel, through the old and the new caves at Wookey
Hole. About the same time efforts were made anew to force a way into
unexplored territory, with not uninteresting results. Many hours were
spent one day by three of us in a hole that we had discovered just
within the doorway of the cavern, a thing that had most unaccountably
escaped observation hitherto, though right under our noses. The opening
pointed in the direction of the lower cave mouth, where the Axe comes
out; but it certainly did not look very promising. Crawling in, we
found ourselves in a steeply descending passage, almost completely
choked by stones and cave earth. But at the end of the first portion it
was noticed that the floor dropped suddenly, indicating a chamber or
gallery below. An afternoon was spent in the laborious task of shifting
rocks, small stones, and earth, and passing up the fragments, great and
small, from hand to hand, until they could be placed in safe positions
near the mouth of the hole. Eventually, an ancient channel through the
solid rock was disclosed, and at the end of 60 feet or so a broad low
chamber appeared, floored with rocks and earth, and roofed in with
solid rock at a height of 12 or 14 inches. Pushing on, the leader
speedily found he was jammed between floor and ceiling, and could go
no farther without more engineering; but an elder wand was procured,
a candle tied to the end of it, and this rough-and-ready torch being
pushed forward, it was possible to see some 35 feet ahead into the low
chamber, in the depths of which a row of spiky stalactites stretched
across like an alabaster grating.
To explore this chamber thoroughly, it will be necessary to hollow out
a passage in the soft floor. In all likelihood, it crosses the present
river-course at a level only a few feet higher. Quantities of pottery,
bones, teeth, and fragments of charcoal were found in digging out the
obstacles. It seems most probable that the hole was stopped up by human
agency in prehistoric ages; perhaps it was a place of sepulture. The
obstacles were carefully wedged together, and their removal caused
much difficulty. It is not pleasant to lie on one's back in a hole,
whose roof is only a few inches above one's face, and have a block of
Limestone rolled from end to end of one's frame, without allowance for
projections in either. In all several tons of material were shifted and
carried out of the way. Much of the pottery had designs of a primitive
character worked on the surface; the more elaborate was Romano-British.
Considerable sections of amphoræ and other vessels have since been
pieced together.
[Illustration: THE GRILLE: NEW CHAMBERS, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: THE SOURCE OF THE AXE, WOOKEY HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
Next day I made a curious find at a point farther in. Where the path
from the entrance rises over a big accumulation of rocks, just before
it reaches the first great chamber, a hole in the floor had been
noticed. It had not been explored, but was waiting for someone capable
of standing an exceptionally hard squeeze. The depth being uncertain, I
had a rope tied on, and after a brief struggle managed to get through
the first hole, into a crooked passage of no great length, which
brought me down to a small bell chamber. This had simply been produced
by the piling up of huge quantities of rocks and stones on the floor of
the original cavern, the whole structure having since become thoroughly
cemented and solidified by the growth of stalagmite. There were many
teeth lying about, but the most interesting object was a wooden bowl,
slightly flattened out, and resembling the top of a man's skull in
shape and size. It felt soft, like a piece of cork, but was perfectly
sound. What its age would be one could not tell within a century or
two. It is now in the possession of Mr. Troup of Wells.
E. A. B.
STRENUOUS DAYS IN THE EASTWATER SWALLET
From two to three miles north of Wookey Hole, on the top of the Mendip
tableland, is a broad, shallow valley, surrounded on every side by
higher ground. It is a grey, desolate tract, with few trees dotted
over its surface, but a thick belt of wood on the south, the dark
green of which in summer, and the black stems in winter, make the grey
landscape seem the more arid, gaunt, and desolate. The ruined engine
house of a deserted lead mine does not add to the attractiveness
of the scenery. But that is soon lost to sight in the vastness of
the rolling tableland, which swells up in the distance to 1000 feet
above the sea on Pen Hill to the east, and again to the same height
at Priddy Nine Barrows on North Hill, the general brown tints of the
heather and bracken showing that the Old Red Sandstone comes to the
surface on these and the other saliences of the plateau. Within this
shallow basin the rock is Limestone, and the causes of the existence
of a valley without any visible outlet for its drainage are at once
manifest. In many places the surface of the ground is scored and pitted
by innumerable depressions of diverse shapes and sizes; roundish
basins, steep funnels, craggy troughs with streams running in and
disappearing, and mere dimples, grass-lined and perfectly dry. Through
these swallets, or swallow holes, the whole of the drainage finds a
vent, and all the material excavated by the forces of nature in the
process of hollowing out this valley, has been carried off in the
same way. The work is still going on. At Eastwater a little stream,
flowing down a long ravine, suddenly comes against a Limestone cliff,
and begins to burrow. Less than a mile away, another stream, big enough
to be called a brook, pours into a cleft in the ground and is seen no
more. This second swallow is known as Swildon's Hole, Swildon being a
corruption of Swithin. Years ago, in the course of a lawsuit, it was
proved that the waters about the village of Priddy, which stands on
the edge of this upland valley, find their way into the Axe, uniting
their streams somewhere in the heart of the hill between this point
and Wookey Hole. When there were storms on the hilltop, or the upland
waters were fouled artificially, the Axe came out turbid. That the
area drained by the underground Axe is a large one is proved by the
size of the river, which must be formed by the junction of a good many
streams of the volume of Eastwater and the Swildon brook. Probably that
area extends as far east as Hillgrove, where a series of swallets in a
woodland ravine are now being enlarged by Mr. Balch, with a view to an
exploration of the underlying caverns.
In 1901 Mr. Balch's party made a descent into Swildon's Hole, and got
to a depth of 300 feet below the point of absorption, which is at the
same level as the Eastwater Swallet and that at Hillgrove--that is, 780
feet above the sea. Difficulties having been put in the way of a more
complete exploration by the owner of the field in which the swallet
is situated, he turned his attention to the neighbouring stream of
Eastwater, which, unfortunately, runs away through holes impenetrable
to man, and therefore had not promised so easy a route into the
unknown. Undeterred by the obvious difficulties, Mr. Balch set to work
early in 1902, and, as he describes, made his way at last into the open
passages underneath the swallet. In the course of two or three visits
he reached a point nearly 500 feet below the cave mouth, and distant
about 2000 feet in horizontal measurement.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO GREAT CAVERN OF EASTWATER.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: SECTION OF EASTWATER CAVERN.]
He invited a large party to descend with him on March 18th, 1903, for a
more elaborate exploration. Besides the leader, Mr. Balch, experienced
cave explorers came from Oxford, Derby, Holmfirth, Glastonbury, and
Wells. Driving up from Wells early in the morning, we donned our
overalls at the mouth of the swallet. Everything was in readiness
for the adventure, and at eleven o'clock or thereabouts the first
man descended the artificial hole, 20 feet deep, into the enormous
accumulation of loose rocks that extends for more than 100 feet into
the head of the cavern. The blocks forming the sides of this shaft,
and many of those beyond its foot, had been carefully underpinned with
timber. Everything bore witness to the labour and perseverance spent in
engineering an entrance. The baggage having been let down by a rope,
we pushed on through the confusion of rocks by a maze of passages
resembling the intricacies of the well-known Goatchurch Cavern, at
Burrington, although the rocks, instead of being huge rectangular
masses, were shattered into the most irregular forms and sizes,
leaving holes between scarce big enough for a human body to squeeze
through. The first explorers were two hours in finding a way through
this bewildering labyrinth. Some of our men went head foremost, others
crawled on their backs with feet in front. The rocks were water-worn
and jagged, and often so rotten with the action of water laden with
carbonic acid, that a finger could be thrust in up to the hilt, as into
clay. We formed ourselves into a chain to hand on the luggage; this was
a trying business, for we were taking down more than 500 feet of rope,
besides a pick, a shovel, a bucket, various steel pulleys, an ample
stock of candles, and provisions for three meals, to humour which
through these unaccommodating passages was worse than coaxing one's own
body along. Both horizontal and vertical openings occurred here and
there, and had to be avoided carefully, one of the most important of
these being a flood-way formed by the stream entering the swallet. It
was curious to find a withy stick making desperate efforts to put forth
leaves in the darkness, and succeeding in producing a long white sprout.
Suddenly the noise of falling water was heard, and the leading men
called for the rope ladder. The masses of loose rock end abruptly. To
the right a steep tunnel, called the 380-foot way, carries a small
stream down; to the left is a large, irregular chamber; and beyond it,
the main passages of the cavern. The ladder being secured, each man
resigned himself to the inevitable drenching, and descended into the
rugged cave at the head of the 380-foot way. A camera was got down so
far, but most of the apparatus was left at the parting of the ways. Our
road was now decidedly easier. The water-channel was rugged, but the
roof rose fairly high, and there were few boulders. A large tunnel,
cut in the solid rock, brought down a tributary stream on the right;
on the other side, a horizontal tunnel was marked down for further
investigation. The real termination of the 380-foot way has not been
discovered. At present there is no passing beyond a choke of stones
and gravel that fills it nearly to the roof; but Mr. Balch proposes to
remove this.
We returned to the horizontal tunnel. It led into an extensive sloping
chamber whose shape is peculiarly characteristic of this cavern.
Roof and floor, roughly parallel, are inclined at an angle of fifty
degrees. For a long distance there was space to creep along under
the roof, then the space grew less, and at length the leading men
shouted that they could get no farther. Being rather slighter in
build than those who were in front, I made an effort to pass them, and
succeeded by clambering along at a higher level. A hole between some
choke-stones and a stalactite gave me admittance to a continuation of
this extraordinary chamber. Then, dropping into a dry water-channel, I
wriggled downward and downward, following the noise of some dislodged
stones that rattled away to a considerable depth. At last I found it
impossible to get any farther, though two more feet would have led
me into a sudden widening that looked rather promising. The next man
behind was unable to get within 50 feet of this point.
[Illustration: THE DESCENT OF EASTWATER CAVERN, THE SECOND VERTICAL
DROP.
_From Sketch by H. E. Balch._]
[Illustration: THE GREAT CANYON, EASTWATER CAVERN.
_From Sketch by H. E. Balch._]
After an exceedingly painful journey back to the mouth of the tunnel,
we sat down to lunch, before re-ascending the rope ladder, and carrying
our baggage through a series of awkward holes and pits, all deluged
with water, into the big chamber at the head of the main passages.
In this chamber, whose walls, floor, and roof are formed of gigantic
blocks seemingly on the point of collapsing, is an opening in the
roof, through which a stream comes tumbling in. At the farthest corner
therefrom a large opening leads to the bottom of a chimney or aven.
Great quantities of clay on walls and roof show that this cavern has
frequently been filled with water through the choking up of the lower
exit. The stream runs away into the rocky floor at the lower end of
the cave, and a few feet above it is a flood-way, a short, low tunnel,
through which we crawled. Then begins one of the most interesting
portions of the cavern. In one of those broad, low-roofed fissures,
inclined at the same angle of fifty degrees as the general dip of
the strata, and formed, in fact, by the widening of a bedding-plane
in the Limestone strata, a deep, winding channel has been cut by the
stream we have just passed. It has been called, from its likeness, the
Canyon. For a considerable distance our path lies down the Canyon,
and with our heavy burdens we find the passage far from easy. As far
as possible, we keep near the top of the ravine, straddling across.
Sometimes, however, there is no help for it but to drop right to the
bottom. Before we reach its termination, we have to climb out on the
smooth, sloping floor of the main fissure, and wriggle forwards lying
on our sides or on our backs. Foot-hold and hand-hold being singularly
scarce hereabouts, we shall find this one of the most troublesome
places in returning. On the right, we have a glimpse through a hole
here and there of another great low-roofed fissure sloping at the same
angle; then there are cross roads, with a tunnel on the left admitting
to a stalactite chamber, and a passage on the right leading to the
lower end of the Canyon.
We now reached the most constricted portion of the main channel. It is
a low, roundish tunnel, with an S curve at the distant end. A good deal
of our locomotion might be likened to crawling through drain-pipes;
we were now coming to a sort of trap. The S bend has to be taken with
the body lying on its right side. Once in it, the explorer cannot turn
round, since the diameter every way only just admits a human body,
and the three curves are close together. My candle went out half-way
through, and to unjam my arm and get it down for the waterproof matches
was a difficult and protracted operation. Moving the luggage through
was a very severe task, the width of the hole at one spot being only
nine and a half inches.
We issued into a good-sized passage. Immediately on the left a twisting
fissure went down to the head of the first perpendicular drop; but,
leaving this for a while, we spent nearly an hour exploring the
lofty chamber straight ahead of us. It rises to an unknown height in
a vertical fissure, narrowing gradually. At the bottom is a deep
cutting, which some of us passed by back and knee work, at a height
above the floor. On the left, that is the eastern, wall are openings
into a parallel tunnel with good stalactites. At the far end both this
tunnel and the passage itself are blocked with clay and gravel.[3] On
our second visit, a day or two later, I explored a tunnel in the other
wall 10 feet from the floor. It led into another of the vast sloping
fissures already described, which I was too much exhausted to explore
very far. These fissures, all inclined at the same angle, and either
parallel or else lying in one plane, are most impressive features of
the Eastwater Cavern; their extent is evidently enormous, and it seems
as if only a few frail pillars of jammed stones served to prevent the
great mass of the hill from settling down and crushing roof and floor
together. On a more minute survey it may turn out that these are all
portions of one huge fissure, merely partitioned off by different
chokes.
[3] Recently, October 1906, Mr. Balch dug through an obstruction here
and entered a vast fissure chamber, which he climbed to a height of
150 feet: it has a remarkable shaft as its outlet.
It was four in the afternoon when we entered the twisting fissure
leading to the first vertical descent, and two of the party had now
to return. Through an oversight in not bringing a short rope for
harnessing the pulley, nearly two hours were spent in rigging up the
tackle, the situation being awkward for letting men down safely. We
were ensconced in a little chamber, the boulder floor of which opened
into the top of a narrow rift widening downwards, where, about 60 feet
beneath, the walls funnelled into a yawning pit 60 feet deep. This pit
had been explored previously, and was found to be choked at the bottom;
it formed a safe and certain receptacle for anything lost or dislodged
by persons descending the cliff above it. The configuration of our hole
was such that only one man at a time could get a steady pull on the
life-line, which ran over a pulley. A manilla rope was therefore let
down from the same belaying-pin, for a man to climb up and down by, so
far as he was able, the life-line being used merely as a safeguard. One
by one the explorers dropped over into the abyss. The last three or
four had the best of it, since, with a hauling party below, full use
could be made of the pulley.
We were now drawing nigh to the final tug of war. A quarter of an hour
of indescribable wriggling brought us to a narrow and lofty rift, into
which as many of the party as it would accommodate wedged themselves,
right over the second vertical drop. Much the same tactics were
resorted to here, save that, instead of a fixed pulley, each man in
turn had a large steel pulley belted to him, through which ran 200 feet
of rope, one end fixed to a wedged boulder beneath us, the other end
in the hands of the hauling party. A 90-foot manilla was, as before,
allowed to hang free, as a guide-rope, over the crags, and enabled each
man to do something for himself and assist those above. Only four men
essayed this last descent.
The gigantic cavity into which we now dropped is one of the most savage
and impressive things it has ever been my lot to see. At the top,
over the heads of the hauling party, it runs up into the rocky mass
of the hill as a vertical chimney, under the mouth of which lay what
appeared to be a deep black pit. We alighted, one by one, on a sloping
shelf that traversed the side of the cavity at a considerable height.
Creeping along this ledge, we saw at the end of it a huge cavernous
opening descending into darkness, with a mighty rock wedged across it
like a bridge. The black, gaunt walls on each side of us were craggy
and rifted; their surfaces glistened with streaming water. Our ledge
ending abruptly, we dropped, hand over hand, on the rope, to the edge
of a large pothole, into which a stream was rushing. At this point a
tunnel goes off to the left, and, as it had not been explored, I was
asked by Mr. Balch to proceed down it. Two of us crept and clambered
and slid down a very dirty watercourse, till, at a distance of perhaps
50 yards, we found ourselves atop of a high clay bank, closely overhung
by rocks, with a stream rumbling along to the south-south-west. I got
within 10 feet of the water, but without a rope to get us up again
we would not venture farther. We had now been in the cave nine and a
half hours, and were too much fatigued to undertake new work. It was
ascertained, beyond reasonable doubt, that a fine series of potholes
that exist in the continuation of the great cavity must drain into the
stream just discovered. Beyond those potholes, to pass which involves
much hard work, is another cavity, and beyond that what?--at present no
one can tell. All we know is, that the water finds its way ultimately
into the vast reservoirs inside Wookey Hole; but whether there are
other vast cavities, or merely narrow crevices and impassable clefts
between, is a question that will require labours almost Herculean to
solve.
In scrambling back along the ledge in the big cavity I gave the
final shove to a dangerous loose rock weighing something like six
hundredweight. It fell into the ravine beneath, and hurtled onwards
toward the chain of potholes, making the whole grim place ring with a
crash of echoes. It took us two hours and a half to return to the cave
mouth, although we were unencumbered with apparatus, for we had left
the ropes and pulleys in place for another descent. Getting seven men
up the higher of the two vertical pitches was a tough undertaking at
the end of an arduous day, and when we returned through the famous S
tunnel more than one explorer seemed disposed to snatch a sleep on its
procrustean bed. We had been twelve hours underground when we revisited
the glimpses of the moon.
It had been proposed to continue the exploration next day, but no one
was fit for such a repetition of exhausting labours. The day following,
a party of three was mustered to recover the apparatus that had been
left in the depths. Two of us reached the head of the nethermost pitch,
and after hours of severe work got everything up to the mouth of the
swallet. Once more we drove back over Mendip in the dark. All around
us on the desolate plateau was impenetrable gloom, but in the northern
sky, and it seemed but a few miles away, the lights of Bath and Bristol
flared across the heavens like two immense conflagrations. Never does
one feel the sublimity of the open, windy earth, the starry sky, and
the free sense of space, so profoundly as after striving for a long
day to break through the barriers that shut us out from the regions of
mystery under the hills.
E. A. B.
SWILDON'S HOLE
An insignificant crevice, a hole scarcely wide enough to tempt a dog
or fox, alone gives admittance to what is perhaps the wildest and
most magnificent cavern in Britain. Swildon's Hole, it has already
been stated, lies at the same level, 780 feet above the sea, as the
Eastwater Swallet and that of Hill Grove. It lies in a separate trough,
within the same basin as the Eastwater stream, with whose waters it
unites somewhere in the bowels of the rocky hills, to flow out of
Wookey Hole as the river Axe, of which it may be considered as the
principal feeder. A few years ago the actual swallet was visible,
the brooklet running away into holes under a bank of earth and rock
crowned with foliage. More recently, in order to make a small fish
pond, the landowner has made a dam above the swallet, which is entirely
concealed by this means, an entrance remaining, however, into the maze
of cavities and waterways through a narrow crevice at the side. Mr.
Balch was the first person to recognise the importance of Swildon's
Hole as a chief feeder of the Axe, and in 1901 he made preparations to
explore it. But through some delay, three members of his party were the
first to enter the cave, without him--namely, Messrs. Troup and H. and
F. Hiley. A short while after, Mr. Balch was able to carry out a more
extended exploration. Then for some time no one entered the swallet,
which gradually became choked with stones and litter brought down by
the stream. Very few had ever heard of the cave, and hardly anyone
realised that one of the most beautiful pieces of underground scenery
in Britain was lying there unseen, and one of the most important of
hydrological problems remaining quite unsolved.
The next visit took place about Christmas 1904. Mr. Troup, who had been
one of the first in the cave, took the lead of our party. My other
companions were Messrs. Bamforth and E. E. Barnes, but we expected to
be joined some hours later by Mr. Balch and Mr. Slater.
When the first explorers entered this cavern some little while ago,
they met with serious difficulties owing to the presence of ancient
chokes or dams that held back pools of water, but they were assisted
by the dryness of the weather. We, on the contrary, made our descent
after a period of heavy rains, and the volume of water that accompanied
us down was twentyfold as great. We had one advantage, however: the
original discoverers were with us to point the way. With luggage
reduced to a minimum, two ropes, plenty of illuminants, food, and
two cameras, we passed through the uninviting entrance, and attacked
methodically a close-packed mass of débris that had been washed into a
narrow gut since the former visit.
Whilst we lay at work, the sound of falling water in the depths below
broke on our ears, a musical but ominous salutation. The obstacle
wasted two hours of valuable time. Wriggling through at last, feet
foremost, our legs came out over the rift, a narrow chasm some 20 feet
deep, with the head stream of the cavern tumbling in over a choke-stone
at one end. Our goods were let down carefully into the hands of the
first man, who lodged them in a sheltered spot whilst we scrambled
hastily down through showers of spray. Now began a painful advance into
the depths. Along the tilted bedding planes, down the perpendicular
joints of the Limestone, widened by the water into broad, low chambers
and deep shafts and canyons, we forged ahead, hugging the stream, which
grew larger and angrier as tributaries came swishing in from walls and
roof. At one point the water swept horizontally along a straight canal,
but was stopped at the end by a recent choke, and now tumbled through a
hole in the wall into a huge pothole. Through this lay our road.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF SWILDON'S HOLE.
_Photo by M. Martel._]
[Illustration: WATERFALL, SWILDON'S HOLE.
_Photo by H. E. Balch._]
The water poured down a staircase of similar basins, where to keep
clear of the stream was impossible. So far we had kept tolerably dry,
but as we clung to this watery ladder I pricked up my ears at the
remark, "Will you have your back or your stomach in it?" Crouching on
all fours, with back pressed against the low roof, and looking between
my legs, I watched the performances of my comrades, as each in turn
went through the final archway. Not one escaped a severe wetting.
But I was going to be more wily--at least, I thought so. With hands
and knees in the rushing stream, I squirmed hastily but cautiously
through. I seemed to be getting on famously, and gave a spurt. That
moment the rocks ended; they were undercut. I found myself sliding
down a waterfall 10 feet high, and floundering in a big pool at the
bottom. Drenched we were; but what better preparation could we have for
the troubles ahead? This part of the cavern shows traces of enormous
changes in the course of the stream, which has planed down great masses
of stalagmite, the growth of ages, when this section of the tunnels was
dry or all but deserted by the streams, which found a way down by the
horizontal canal or some higher channel. Between this first water-chute
and the second lies the most nerve-trying part of the journey to the
farthest point hitherto attained. It is a succession of lofty rifts,
giving into each other at right angles, the water sweeping from one to
the next through curving fissures and sudden falls. For a while we kept
above the canyons on a water-worn shelf, all that remained of a low,
flattish chamber that sufficed for the small streams of older times.
This giving out, we scrambled along the cliffs of the canyons, which
seemed in the gloom without top or bottom, bestraddling the rift, or
with feet on one side and back to the other pushing on from hold to
hold. The Limestone grips would have been amply sufficient for this
mode of progression had they not been drenched and slippery. Below us
the waters raced and bellowed. At the junctions of the canyons they
sounded on all sides at once; the invisible hollows all round seemed
to be alive with angry voices, mad to be at us. What if a thunderstorm
burst over Mendip now? Such thoughts would occur, although we knew we
could climb into safety on the upper shelves of the canyon; for with a
water-chute above and another below, a little flood would make us fast
prisoners.
At the Well, the stream tumbles suddenly into a deep round pit, in
which it is churned to foam before being driven out with accelerated
speed along a rugged gorge to the second staircase of potholes. Shreds
of magnesium ribbon dropped into the Well lit up such a turmoil of
waters as one might see in some gigantic turbine going at full speed.
Two of us now went ahead to report on the condition of the next stage.
The gorge was too wide for climbing, but we found a footing on the
rocks in the bed, then squirmed through a narrow fissure, and began to
descend the potholes. These were deep basins, with high walls on the
upper side where the stream poured in, and the other side broken down
by the force of the torrent. Below them lay the second water-chute,
a big fall pitching into a hole underneath a low arch, and sliding
out into a turbulent pool. It was a sort of culvert, with very little
head-room above the water. Had we not come through so many tribulations
already, and had we not known of the glories that awaited us in the
great stalactite chamber beyond this last trial, we should certainly
have been turned back by this obstacle. After some little hesitation
we resolved to attempt it, and went back to the head of the Well for
our companions. One of the cameras had already been left behind; it was
decided to leave the other here. The leader went down the water-chute
on his back; the rest adopted all the other attitudes possible short
of a complete header. But it made little difference; all got a most
effectual drenching.
Running the gauntlet beneath another tributary, which came swishing
in just over our heads, we pushed on into a high and ample chamber,
where in times gone by a volume of water had accumulated in a sort of
gigantic cistern. The rocky roof was flat and smooth, its cracks and
fissures fringed with meandering lacework of stalactite. In front,
the rocky mole that once held up the reservoir was cloven into a
series of Limestone seracs, between which the stream found its way
down into the remoter cavities. Masses of clay, some 15 feet thick,
deposited by the ancient waters, still flanked this rugged portal
into the unknown. Bones of sheep, cattle, horses, and lesser mammals
lay about in profusion, enough to reconstruct whole skeletons; with
them were the relics of animals now extinct on Mendip, deer and other
creatures. Higher up sherds of Samian pottery had been found, brought
down by the stream from the rubbish heaps of long ago. What struck the
imagination as still more wonderful was that in this sunless spot, 300
feet below the surface, there were creatures that lived. Empty snail
shells were abundant, but yet more plentiful were tiny snails that were
actually crawling over the clay, feeding, no doubt, on water-borne
vegetable matter. Gossamer-like webs stretched across many chinks in
the Limestone, but the microscopic spiders we could not see. What flies
did they live on? Surely not the caddis, whose corpses lay about in
plenty on every shoal.
From this chamber the stream quickly descends into the great Water
Rift, one of the most wonderful things in the whole cavern. It is but
a few feet wide, but its height is enormous. The walls go up like
mountain cliffs, but are lost in gloom instead of mist. Here tremendous
changes had taken place since the former exploration. At that time
the rift was blocked up in one place by a vast barrage of rock and
stalagmite, that came down to the stream and forbade human progress
save by one strait and difficult way. At a height above the water a
hole ascended seven feet into the barrier, its orifice all but closed
by a fringe of stalactites. Contriving to enter, the explorers crept
up this pipe, and down a corresponding one on the other side, coming
out on a cliff face overhanging the continuation of the Water Rift, to
attain the bottom of which was an abstruse gymnastic problem. A little
farther on they reached the utmost limit of their journey, where the
stream beats violently against the termination of the rift, is hurled
sideways, and finds an outlet through a low crevice, whence it tumbles
in a 40-foot cataract into an unknown pool. Our main object to-day had
been to descend this 40-foot pitch; that was the reason why we had
encumbered ourselves with two long ropes. But now all was different.
In the short interval that had elapsed since the former visit, the
strength of the ungovernable torrent had swept away the whole of this
vast structure, the work of thousands of ages--for the Pyramids are
recent erections compared with these products of unimaginably slow
crystallisation. Hardly a vestige remained; and now the current dashed
unimpeded from end to end of the Water Rift, and the incessant thunder
of the cataract deafened ears already attuned to the noise of the
higher falls and canyons. Probably the removal of stones and dams by
the former party, in making their way down, had contributed largely to
this extraordinary event.
Nothing could be done in the face of such a volume of water. We turned,
accordingly, out of the main passage into a lofty gallery or transept
that branches off to the west, the general direction of the cavern
being due south. To say it branches off is slightly incorrect, for it
is really the course of a tributary brook, and quite possibly may have
been in remote times the channel of the main stream. At all events
its shape and magnitude indicate that it was once a very important
section of the cavern. Scrambling cautiously along the sides of the
toppling fragments of the mole, we crossed a deep gap and entered the
gallery. At the portal a great hollow corbel of stalactite stood out
from the wall, like an enormous stoup, its huge rims curved over like
the petals of a flower. It stood there in solitary grandeur, but it was
a token of transcendent glories beyond. A few more steps, and we saw
that we were on the threshold of a fane more beautiful than any made
with hands. The rocks to right and left were sheeted with crystalline
enamel, its surface powdered thickly with a minute splash deposit, so
frail that it gave one a twinge to crush the lovely efflorescence as
we moved. One could not go a step without destroying hundreds of these
delicate spicules, the work of untold ages of water action. More great
corbels stood out from the walls as we advanced; they were richly
moulded with concentric rings of stalagmite, and these again were
carved and chased with wonderful reliefs. From the corbels sprang huge
pillars right to the roof, pillars 40 feet in height; and from their
capitals shining curtains hung down in ample folds, heavy as Parian
marble, and as lovely in hue. One would have called them white, had
we not seen, hanging from a cleft high up in the lofty walls, a mass
of curtains as white as arragonite, the whitest thing there is. So
dazzling was their immaculate purity that the rich creamy surface of
the other incrustations showed dusky in comparison. We were veteran
cave explorers, yet it seemed to us that all the caves we had ever
seen in Britain could no more vie with this than parish churches
with cathedrals. At each turn there was a new and more enthralling
vista: more pillars, ampler curtains, piers and arches of Oriental
magnificence, fluted and moulded into wildest fantasies. It struck one
with a curious wonder to think that all these splendours had lain here
unbeheld by living eye, untouched by a gleam of light, until one casual
year in the twentieth century.
But the photographer was exercised by other feelings. He was here, but
where was his camera? It had seemed a Herculean labour to bring that
much-enduring instrument down to the 300-foot level, but he declared
that the task was not superhuman, and, furthermore, he was determined
to do it. He could not do it alone, however; that was obvious. The
expedition, therefore, came down out of the stalactite gallery. Two
went through the water-chute, two remained just outside it, to assist
in the last and most dangerous stage of the transportation. We waited
a long time; in fact, we had leisure enough to explore an interesting
side gallery whilst the others made their way to and from the head
of the Well. At last their welcome shout was heard. Standing in the
water, with light held low under the arch, we caught sight of a hand,
and then of a wading and much-crumpled-up man, lugging the camera,
which he kept out of the foaming water with admirable skill. We grabbed
it, and put the precious instrument in a place of safety; ten minutes
later the flashlight was at work, taking our breath away with its
gorgeous revelations. The photographer had his troubles even here,
though not such as to be compared with those of the water caverns
we had recently traversed, where at this moment two of our party,
following us down, were engaged in photographing the canyons and the
falls, under difficulties that few cameras have ever been confronted
with. Here there was no marble pavement suitable to the splendours
of the walls; nothing for the camera to stand on but an inch or two
of slippery ledge, with a depth of mud in the middle that none of us
cared to fathom. The only place that could be found at one spot for the
flashlight was the top of my unfortunate head, which I generously put
at the photographer's disposal. On it was laid a piece of stone, on
which the gun-cotton was spread and sprinkled with the powder, which,
when it went off, made me shut both eyes for fear of the shower of
sparks, and so I missed the glorious blaze of light that illumined the
cavern.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE OF STALACTITE CHAMBER, SWILDON'S HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: STALACTITE CURTAINS, SWILDON'S HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
These stately columns, soaring vaults, and sweeping marble draperies
were strangely out of proportion to the narrowness of the place. But
now the sinuous aisle broadened out, and the style of the architecture
was changed entirely. We were at the junction chamber where, in the
remote past, two big streams came down from the yawning passages to
the left and right, and met here, probably as the main stream of the
cavern. The roof is a spacious dome, hung with resplendent candelabra.
But the unique feature of the place, the thing that impresses itself on
the memory as one of the most dazzling creations of the wonder-working
calcite, is the stalagmite bridge. Bridge, I say, but it is more than
a bridge, for its complicated arches support a beautiful piazza, with
a huge array of dripstone terraces, crystal basins, massive pedestals,
and obelisks of stalagmite, which all but fills the chamber and extends
some distance up the alcoves behind. Standing on one of the great
hemispheres of dripstone, one could put one's head among the pendulous
shafts above, and see how each was marvellously twisted, moulded, and
fantastically embossed and gemmed with flashing crystals. The splash
formation covered everything beneath the roof, save portions of the
polished floor, with millions of tiny spicules. We had to move about
cautiously, not only for fear of doing damage, but to avoid gaping
pitfalls in the bridge, the surface of which was smooth as ice.
[Illustration: STALACTITE CHAMBER, SWILDON'S HOLE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
Whilst we were at work photographing a distant shout was heard, and
soon the two men who had followed us down arrived at the big chamber.
But our party was again reduced to its original four by the departure
of two other members, who were to go back by the aquatic route in order
to pick up certain articles that had been deposited on the way down. We
ourselves hoped to get to the surface by another and a drier course.
At the previous exploration two men had missed the rest of the party,
and found their way, after divers adventures, through the ramifications
of the cavern, to what they described as a great stalactite chamber,
which was presumably our gallery. When they reached it, however, no
one was there, nor any trace of human presence; either the explorers
had finished their work and departed, or the pair had missed their way
altogether. It was believed that they had come down to this very spot
by the gallery joining this one on the north, and we purposed following
that passage out. But this, as we presently discovered, was all wrong.
Two of us now went off on an exploring trip into the great passage
running west. At once we encountered a series of huge obstructions.
This passage was of the usual rift pattern, and, save for holes and
crevices between, was wholly blocked up by large masses of tumbled
rocks. One of us climbed to the top of the Cyclopean pile, whilst I
attempted to make my way along at the middle height, but eventually
found it easier to crawl through the culverts and water-gaps,
regardless of mud and wet. Even among the piled-up rocks there were
charming little nooks adorned with rich incrustations. When the rocks
ended the open tunnel began to ascend rapidly; then, after a while, we
came to another tunnel joining it on the north. This, though smaller,
was the more important passage; the other shortly came to an end in
a lofty grotto, bountifully tapestried with curtains and tassels of
stalactite. We climbed the northern passage, through several brilliant
displays of incrustation, and reached a level approximately 70 feet
below the surface, by aneroid; there we could get no farther. But,
unknown to ourselves, we had brought back important information.
We had noticed mysterious bits of string at two points in this series.
When we reported the discovery to the two men left behind, they at once
saw its significance. The two men whose route down to the stalactite
chamber had caused so much perplexity had used a ball of string to mark
their way out--these were the relics. Our casual trip had, perhaps,
saved us from a night of blind wandering in the unknown branches of the
great tunnel on the north. All being in readiness for our departure, we
now proceeded to take up this providential thread. It was not an easy
task. Often not an inch of string remained undecayed for many hundreds
of feet together, and often we nosed the walls and floor, eagerly but
in vain, for droppings of candle grease left by our predecessors.
The way was dry, that was a relief, after six or seven hours in wet
clothes; but it was a tighter squeeze than the other, and the sharpness
of the turns was often aggravated by a portcullis of crystals on our
backs, and a _cheval de frise_ of stalagmite spear-heads against our
stomachs. All the while we wondered whether we should really find the
exit, or whether we should have to return and undertake the canyons
after all. Mr. Balch compared our task of finding the desired exit
to an attempt to ascend from the mouth of a river to some unknown
point upon one of its tributaries, with nothing to indicate which way
to take. This puts the position clearly enough, I think. There was
no string to be found in the higher parts. At last the man in front
disappeared feet foremost through the ugliest hole we had yet seen, out
of which the noise of waters sounded ominously. A cheering cry came
back to us; he had found the rift, where we had descended seven hours
ago into the route through the canyons. A few more yards of determined
wriggling, and the candle left by the other two men hove in sight. We
found they had got out two hours ago. The stars were shining from a
clear sky, and a keen frost was on the fields, but the excitement and
the success of our adventure were stimulant enough to keep out the cold.
E. A. B.
THE GREAT CAVERN AT CHEDDAR
The ultimate goal of our researches at Cheddar has been the discovery
of the underground river-course. Not many yards below the entrance to
Gough's, or the Great Cavern, a large body of water wells up at the
foot of a cliff, spreading out into a beautiful mere, half encircled
by crags; flows on thence through the village, performing a great deal
of industrial work on its way; and, finally, proceeds a mile or two
farther as the Cheddar Water, to join its brother, the Axe, which has
a similar origin. But less is known about the darksome course of the
Cheddar Water than about the stream flowing out of Wookey Hole. With
its tributaries, it has doubtless been the principal agent in the
formation, not only of the caves, but also of the famous Cheddar gorge,
which bears every evidence of having been produced by the gradual
destruction of a series of caverns. Yet this important stream has
actually not been met with hitherto at any single point of its course
underground, and we have anything but complete information as to its
sources on the uplands of Mendip. The owners of the Great Cavern, the
Messrs. Gough Brothers, tell me that they intend to blast away about
10 feet of rock immediately overlying the exit of the river. When the
stream is very full, water often bursts forth here from cracks and
joints several feet above the normal level, and they imagine that
there must be a chamber of some height just within. This, however,
in my opinion, is not a necessary inference, since every cavity and
crevice behind the outlet would at such times be heavily charged with
water, under pressure, and the large cavities might be a long way back.
It is curious that the water in a low tunnel recently discovered in
Cox's Cavern, which lies some distance from Gough's, and at a lower
level, rises and falls in unison with the movements of the water-level
of the river outside, although that always remains 10 feet higher.
Cox's Cavern is occasionally flooded, yet the water never rises to a
point within 10 feet of the river level. Obviously the subterranean
connection must be of a complicated and roundabout form.
At the time of my first serious attempt to explore the caves of
Cheddar, when our party contained Dr. Norman Sheldon, Mr. J. O.
Morland, and Mr. Harry Bamforth, two of whom have not since been able
to join us in Somerset, I had not the advantage of knowing Mr. H. E.
Balch, and we were utterly unaware of the great work he had been doing
in the cave region adjoining Wells. On the other hand, we received
invaluable assistance from the brothers Gough, who are not only
proprietors of show caves, but take a sincere interest in underground
exploration. Their father, who died in 1902, was the discoverer of the
caverns that bear his name, and was actively at work pushing his way
farther and farther into the rocky bosom of the hill up to the year of
his death, at a good old age.
[Illustration: STALAGMITE PILLARS IN GOUGH'S GREAT CAVERN.
_Photo by Gough, Cheddar._]
[Illustration: THE PILLARS OF SOLOMON'S TEMPLE, GOUGH'S CAVES, CHEDDAR.
_Photo by Gough, Cheddar._]
The Great Cavern was discovered in 1898. The parts open to visitors
extend in a generally easterly direction for some 600 yards, and
consist of natural chambers and passages, connected here and there
by artificial tunnels. We began work early in the morning, carrying
into the cavern a large quantity of ropes, ladders of wood and rope,
and plenty of illuminants, including a 2000-candle-power limelight,
which with its lens or condenser is one of the most valuable aids in
subterranean work. Many openings are seen overhead and in the walls
of the cavern as the visitor advances, some of which end abruptly,
whilst others lead into small grottos and galleries. One of the most
conspicuous chimneys, or perpendicular caves, has at its base a
peculiar staircase of stalagmitic basins, formed by the deposits of
a calcareous spring that is now dried up. These basins are known as
the "Fonts." Our conductors had been in the habit of climbing about
50 feet up this lofty chasm, over the crust of stalagmite, and a wire
rope had been fixed to assist visitors in ascending to a broad, deep
ledge. Above this point the rocks were much steeper. No one had ever
succeeded in seeing the top, and at first we thought it would be
impossible to ascend any higher without some sort of apparatus. We sent
for a ladder, and meanwhile Dr. Sheldon and I tried to clamber over
the jutting arch of rock that formed the first obstacle--a cave-pitch
in a gully or chimney we should call it in climbing parlance. To our
surprise, we succeeded in reaching the continuous channel or gutter
above it, which ascended at a high angle, with sheer walls to right
and left, and the other side of the huge shaft overhanging it. The
holds were shallow and slippery, and with one hand grasping a candle we
found the ordinary difficulties of a rock-climb multiplied enormously.
Half-way up my candle went out, but my companion was now well ahead,
and I groped my way after him with confidence. When a shout from below
announced that the ladder had been hoisted up to the platform above the
"Fonts" we were within a few yards of the top. At a height of 120 feet
(by the aneroid) above this platform and of 170 feet above the floor
of the cavern we found the shaft completely blocked up with débris and
clay. We were in a subterranean pot, or swallet, of large dimensions,
formed in remote ages by a big stream, which had worked through its
Limestone bed, and continued its path at a deeper level. Whether this
was the main stream that now flows in an unknown course hundreds of
feet below, or only a tributary, it is at present impossible to tell.
Mr. Bamforth's limelight was now projected up the chasm, revealing
grand masses of superincumbent rock on the farther side, whilst the
view downwards, past our friends into the dark bottom of the pit, was
very curious. Roping ourselves together for the descent, we kept near
each other for fear of a slip, and took the utmost precautions not to
dislodge any stones on the heads of those underneath. The limelight
was a great advantage, although many dark reaches had to be carefully
inspected with a taper before we could secure foothold. When we got to
the critical bit at the bottom we found the ladder placed ready for us.
Not far from the entrance to the "Fonts" is the mouth of a low passage
on the other side, with a hole at the far end of it, that our guides
thought must communicate with the underground river which, they
conjecture, has its channel not far below this spot. We crawled into
this burrow and fixed ourselves in the confined space round the black
pit, which we found, by throwing in stones, had water in it. With a
rope round my waist I climbed down the fissure, whose sides were of
sharply corrugated rock though they looked like wet clay. About 30 feet
down the hole grew so narrow that I could not turn round; I could just
reach the water with my foot, but found that it was quite a small pool.
Another "well," nearer the cave mouth, was explored after our further
operations had been carried out. It was situated at the extremity of
another burrow, but was much larger in circumference. Steadied by the
rope, I climbed to the bottom and found a large pool of great depth
about 30 feet below the edge. No current was perceptible, and its
connection with running water is hardly probable. Some years later,
a perfect skeleton of a man was exhumed from the clay beneath the
stalagmite in this burrow; accompanying it were numerous flint flakes.
Some peculiarities indicate that the find was that of a man of early
Neolithic age. It is shown by the Gough Brothers at the entrance of
their cave.
While some of the party were photographing the "show place," a lofty
dome-shaped cavern with its sheet of stalagmite poured over the cliff
like a petrified waterfall, two of us retraced our steps from "St.
Paul's," as this beautiful sight is nicknamed, to the branch leading to
the other principal shows. "Solomon's Temple" is a wonderful grotto,
walled, roofed, and floored with gleaming white and ivory calcite, and
set at the top of another great fall of stalagmite which has flowed
on and on in a gentle stream and covered the floor of a lofty cavern
with dimpling waves of crystal. Nor are these all its attractions, for
on turning round the spectator sees on the opposite cliff a broad and
voluminous sheet of stalagmite, rippling down, spouting and foaming
over the rocks like a waterfall, but still as marble and white as
frozen snow. We had seen all these things before, however, and were
anxious to move on to new ground again.
[Illustration: ORGAN PIPES, GOUGH'S CAVES, CHEDDAR.
_Photo by Gough, Cheddar._]
[Illustration: A STALAGMITE FALL, GOUGH'S CAVE, CHEDDAR.
_Photo by M. Martel._]
In the fork between the main passage and this big cavern is a large
irregular opening, with disorderly blocks of Limestone heaped up on
its floor. We picked our way across these, and at a height of 40 feet
reached the edge of an abrupt rock some four yards high. We dropped
over on to an earthy floor, and going a little farther found ourselves
in a domical chamber with three low exits. First of all exploring
that on our left, we had a look at a slanting shaft filled with a
"ruckle" of big shattered blocks wedged insecurely, above which are
two small chambers incrusted with stalagmite, but with no apparent
exit. We climbed down again, and tried the third opening. It led
through a series of caves and narrow clefts into a larger chamber,
all maintaining the same easterly direction, and there we found two
possible ways onward. The first of these brought us in a few moments
to the brink of a steep cliff, which seemed to be one wall of a
considerable cavern. We preferred to wait for the limelight before
venturing to let a man down into this unknown abyss, and meanwhile
to examine the other passage. A few minutes' crawling brought us to
a great pit, which sounded very deep when we threw in some fragments
of rock. Apparently it was the chasm that had been described to us as
300 feet deep by one of our guides who had descended part of the way.
We approached the edge with respect, and as a preliminary step let
down a rope ladder into the upper part, which is strangely twisted. At
a depth of 20 feet I found a possible landing-place; the second man
joined me, and by dint of careful manoeuvring the third got down to
the same spot. With an 80-foot rope tied on, I now explored the next
section of the chasm, and was delighted to find that there was just
enough rope to reach a slope of big rocks at the bottom. A little more
scrambling brought me into a vast chamber, the floor of which was piled
up with enormous blocks, while the lowest part seemed to offer two
possible routes onwards. One of these proved to be a mere hollow, but
the other was evidently the channel of a stream, and apparently led
onwards into further caves. But the roof was extremely low, and it was
quite impossible to wriggle through. One of my companions, who had now
joined me, also failed to squeeze through the opening, and we decided
to leave it until the hole could be enlarged with pick and shovel.
The alleged 300 feet was found by aneroid to be exactly 100 feet. In
a corner of this lofty cavern was a steep fissure which seemed to be
well worth exploring. The bottom half of it was completely walled in
by an enormous flake of Limestone that had come down from the roof,
and looked as if a touch would send it tumbling on the heaps of rock
at the bottom of the cave. We scrambled up the fissure at the back of
this, and reached a promising gallery; but, to our disgust, this was
entirely blocked up with clay and mud at the top, and it was impossible
to proceed. Gaining the summit of the huge Limestone flake, we lit up
the cave with magnesium wire, and were deeply impressed by its height
and the grandeur of the shattered crags bristling on walls, roof,
and floor. Everything was black, save one long, dripping cascade of
stalagmite on the wall over against us; its unsullied whiteness shone
weirdly out of the gloom as the fierce light fell on it. Just at that
moment voices were heard, and from a rent in the rocky wall in front
the intolerable beam of the searchlight came right in our faces. The
remainder of the party had followed us up, and reached the spot where
we had first looked over into the deep chasm. Revealed in all its
extent by this penetrating light, the cave reminded us strongly of
the enormous chamber that we had explored a few months earlier in the
lowest part of the Blue John Mine in Derbyshire. On the way back one of
the acetylene lamps fell down the pit by which we had entered, and was
completely smashed. With no other mishap, we made our way through the
tortuous passages and amongst the chaos of tumbled rock masses back to
the cavern under "Solomon's Temple."
Two of us explored the openings above "St. Paul's" a few days later. A
30-foot ladder was placed against the corner of the stalagmite fall,
and a yard or two of scrambling took us to the top. On the left was an
ascending vault, with openings to right and left. Taking the latter
to begin with, we found it gradually trend downhill and dwindle away
into a series of holes scarcely big enough to let a human body pass.
Squeezing through with a good deal of trouble, I reached a flattish
cave with a floor of rock and stalagmite all cracked and fissured.
The whole of this part seemed to have been shivered by some large
movement of the rocky strata. One of the fissures gave entrance to a
passage underneath the floor; but this speedily narrowed, and when
it was impossible to get farther I found myself right underneath my
companion, who was holding my rope and paying it out as I advanced
from his original position in the outer passage. No other exit being
discoverable on this side, we crossed to the passage on the right, and
after a few yards of crawling under a depressed roof we found ourselves
on the largest expanse of stalagmite either of us had ever met with.
It had flowed down from fissures high up on our left and spread over
a wide, rocky slope; it had then contracted and poured over a cliff
immediately on our right. We still kept the rope taut, and moved about
cautiously, for the crystalline floor was extremely slippery, and the
cliff immediately beneath us would have made the slightest accident
serious. A broad flat roof of rock overhung the floor of stalagmite
closely, and was covered with thin pipes and reeds of stalactite. We
soon ascertained that we had returned by a different route to the crown
of the petrified cascade in "St. Paul's," although a craggy partition
separated us from our route up the ladder. We explored the edges of
this huge surface of stalagmite, which we could not measure, having no
better light to guide us than a few tapers, but which could not be much
less than 100 feet wide. Where the deposits came down through crevices
at the top they had settled in jewelled and diapered masses of the most
fantastic patterns. Our situation was, however, too precarious for
lingering in this strange spot, and without another man to back one up
it was impossible to explore the hole at the top. We gave up our quest
reluctantly and returned towards our ladder, incrusted from head to
foot with the thick, plastic clay. A convenient knob of stalagmite
enabled us to give the rope a hitch whilst we scrambled down to the top
of our ladder.
One other passage from the main cavern was explored, with a curious
cluster of vertical cavities near its extremity. The end of the
passage was coated in every direction with tinted deposits, among
which we noticed beautiful specimens of the branching stalactites
that were called _anemolites_ by the explorers of the Blue John
caverns, who thought they had acquired their abnormal shapes through
the irregularity of evaporation caused by air currents. I climbed 30
or 40 feet up one of the openings in the roof, whilst Dr. Sheldon
explored another. At the top we found no exits big enough to afford
a man passage. A wider cavity in the middle of the roof looked more
promising. A ladder was adjusted, but fell short; but my companion,
with considerable risk of a dangerous fall, clambered up to the rocky
slope and over the piles of jagged blocks that well-nigh filled it.
This too failed to afford us a passage, and the daring climber had
great difficulty in coming down, being forced to thread the rope and
let himself down on it to the ladder. During the operation a flake of
rock came hurtling down and hit the ladder, but luckily did nothing
worse than smash a rung. These cavities in the roof were extremely
interesting, and no doubt are connected together and have a common
origin in some neighbouring fissure or waterway.
FIVE CAVERNS AT CHEDDAR
The Cheddar gorge, which is the deepest and narrowest defile, and
on its south side presents the loftiest face of absolutely vertical
rock in England, is not dissimilar, though far superior in height
and grandeur, to the Winnats pass in Derbyshire. The huge chasm runs
east-north-east across the dip of the Limestone beds, which are tilted
up towards the saddle of Mendip; one of its sides, consequently, is
formed mainly of shelving rock, and the other is almost continuously
precipitous. If, as may be assumed with confidence, the original
cause of the ravine was a stream or streams flowing through a chain
of caverns, one would naturally expect to find openings on the abrupt
side through which the underground waters were successively tapped,
and followed the trend of the strata to a lower level. This view is
confirmed by observation. Except at the jaws of the defile, where
both sides are equally high and precipitous, there are no caves on
the northern side, but on the south openings both large and small
are frequent, some narrow and lofty--"slitters," they are called
locally--the others low and wide, according as they originated in a
vertical joint or a bedding plane. They occur at various levels, some
on inaccessible shelves high up in the cliffs, others along the base.
But the larger number of these openings have in the lapse of time
become silted up with clay and débris, so that the entrance is either
completely masked or it is impossible to penetrate far without toilsome
work with pick and shovel.
After exploring the Great Cavern our party of four devoted some time
to an examination of these openings, so far as could be done without
excavating. There are three important caverns in close proximity to
the Great Cavern, or Gough's. The best known is Cox's, a small but
exceedingly beautiful stalactite cavern (see frontispiece). No one
interested in caves would think of visiting Cheddar without seeing
the Great Cavern, nor would any such person dream of missing Cox's.
Each is the complement of the other as a piece of underground scenery.
The spacious vaults and vast stalagmite falls of the one fill one
with a sense of power and majesty; the other is a gem of fantastic
architecture, embellished with the most lawless and fairy-like designs
of the subterranean artificer, and unique in one respect--the wealth
and diversity of the mineral deposits that have dyed its multiform
incrustations with luminous tints. No sane man, however, would attempt
to describe Cox's Cavern in detail, and a photograph can give only
colourless glimpses of its kaleidoscopic beauties. The cavern seems,
at first sight, to be a solitary freak of nature, having no connection
with the general system of caves and streams. But since the visit just
referred to, several new passages have been opened, among them the
interesting water-tunnel with its ebb and flow corresponding to the
movements of the Cheddar Water outside, which, as already described,
flows at a higher level. Of three other good-sized fissures or ancient
channels radiating from the same large chamber, two after a while
dwindle away almost to nothing, but the third has indications of a
channel striking downwards, which it might be worth while to clear of
rubbish. All these passages were choked with clay until quite recently.
[Illustration: IN COX'S CAVERN AT CHEDDAR.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: GREAT RIFT CAVERN, CHEDDAR GORGE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
The next cave also is of minor interest to the speleologist, although
it contains many curious sights. It is called "Gough's Old Cavern,"
and its entrance is close to the mouth of the Great Cavern. It is an
ascending cleft, apparently not linked at present with the other caves,
although it was once probably a sloping aven draining into the big
series of caverns that have been gradually cut back by the falling in
of the defile. Whoever likes such things may find here plenty of those
freaks and alleged similitudes that puzzle and delight the ordinary
sightseer. On a stalagmite excrescence nicknamed the "Ribs of Beef" we
had the luck to see a far more interesting phenomenon. The calcite mass
was clustered over with a number of motionless black objects, which
we found to be roosting bats, hanging head downwards by their claws.
They were not disturbed in the least by our presence, and one that
was lifted off gently just showed his teeth and claws, and clung on
again as fast as ever when replaced on the rock to resume his patient
sleep. A photograph of this curious sight was obtained by means of the
flashlight. At the head of the cave are several incrusted grottoes,
where the process of deposition is still going on, roof and walls
streaming with moisture. This part is not unlike the show places in the
Bagshawe Cavern in the Peak of Derbyshire.
In many respects the Roman Cave is much more interesting. Its mouth is
situated about 150 feet up the cliffs, almost immediately over the cave
just described. Quantities of Roman pottery, coins, bones, and other
remains, have been discovered there, showing it to be one of the places
that sheltered fugitives after the evacuation of Britain by the Roman
legions. The entrance is a broad anticlinal arch, and the main passage,
high-roofed and ascending gradually, runs east for perhaps a furlong.
Then the floor, which has been covered with earth and stones, becomes
rugged and rock-strewn, and suddenly we creep through a lowly portal
into a high and gloomy chamber, the shadowy corners of whose roof
our lights are too feeble to explore. To all appearances this was the
end of the cavern; but we had been told that the passage takes a turn
here and goes on nearly a quarter of a mile farther. We scanned every
part of the walls as far up as we could see, but no accessible opening
disclosed itself. In a recess on one side a number of fallen rocks
were piled up and wedged between the converging walls. To examine the
cavity from a vantage spot, we climbed with a good deal of difficulty
to the top of these, and there, to our astonishment, a wide passage
sloped up at right angles to the one we had entered by. A curious slit
in the wall opened into a perpendicular fissure that was situated right
in the roof of the latter, and through the hole we caught a glimpse of
our friends following us up. Three men now pushed on up the new passage
and entered a chamber whose sole exit was a small and uninviting hole.
We crawled and scraped through, and on over sharp stones till at last
we could get no farther. We had evidently doubled back over the main
cavern, and that we could not be far from the open air was shown by
the presence of a bewildered bat, who flew to and fro in the confined
space and hit us in the face several times. And in the extreme recess
of this narrow branch a steady draught of air blew in through a crevice
and nearly put the lights out. Through an oversight we found ourselves
at this point reduced to two tapers and a bit, and to economise we
kept only one alight at a time, so as to have enough for the return
journey. All went well, however, and the sole difficulty we met with
was in getting down over the wedged blocks in the big chamber, a climb
that proved extremely awkward when taken the reverse way. In many
parts of this cavern we noticed prodigious quantities of moths on the
walls, as well as many huge spiders. But a more interesting thing was
the vegetation naturalised in the caves, examples of which we found
in other Mendip caverns as well. It will be advisable to have them
examined by a botanical specialist. All I can say about them now is
that they consist of extremely slender branching tendrils, some white
and translucent, others brownish, thin as cotton.
It was late in the afternoon when we entered the Roman Cavern; it
was dark now, and the stars were out. Returning in advance of the
others, I sat down just within the majestic gateway of the cavern, a
flattened arch about 100 feet wide resting on enormous rocky jambs, and
looked out across the deep wooded abyss where Cheddar lay, its lights
reflected here and there by the dark waters of the mere, towards the
craggy heights of Mendip opposite, just sinking down towards Sedgemoor.
The Great Bear was shining brightly right in front--it almost spanned
the breadth of the cave mouth; and the solemnity of the place and
the hour could not but bring to mind the miserable fugitives who sat
in this forlorn asylum, hemmed in by foes, and looked out on the
same giant constellation thrice five hundred years ago. The place is
admirably adapted for defence. A rear attack was of course impossible,
whilst a frontal attack by way of the cliffs would be easily repelled;
and a tolerable water-supply was to be found inside the cavern. The
huge natural glacis of the fortress is covered to-day with a dense
tangle of ivy and other climbers, through which we made our way
heedfully, for a slip would have been easy in the dark, and a terrible
fall the consequence.
Next morning we strolled up the defile and looked at the mouths of
several caves that are now choked up. Two furlongs above its entrance
the ravine makes a double curve like a gigantic figure three. The
two crescents of beetling Limestone, with their jutting horns, that
appear to the astonished beholder underneath like towering pyramids
and slim aiguilles, rise to a vertical height of 430 feet, and,
being absolutely unassailable, they fill a crag climber's mind with
admiration tempered by regret. What enhances their grandeur, while it
softens the savage aspect of the sheer and ledgeless precipice, is the
bountiful vegetation clinging wherever it can find a hold, dark shrouds
of ivy and darker masses of yew standing out against the grey rock in
beautiful relief. Would the indomitable scramblers who haunt Lakeland
at Easter, we asked ourselves, have forced a way up these tremendous
"chimneys" if the Cheddar cliffs had been pitched somewhere in the
latitude of Wastdale? We went so far as to reconnoitre one alluring
fissure, 200 feet or more in length, but the gap between its base and
the first feasible lodgment was insuperable. Not far away a long talus
of scree marks the foot of an easy though rather sensational way to
the cliff top. Passing it by, we stopped at the mouth of a vertical
fissure that opens on to the roadway. It expands slightly inside, and
the roof soars higher and higher; then the floor breaks away, and the
two men who descended the next 80 feet had to be steadied by the rope.
The walls were wet and soft, being incrusted with a sticky calcareous
substance. At the bottom of the precipitous slope the magnesium ribbon
revealed the enormously lofty walls of a narrow chamber, whose farther
extent was blocked up by an accumulation of rocks and débris.
Returning to the open air, we ascended to the cliff top, and, skirting
each promontory and rounding the edge of every bay, proceeded towards
the mouth of the defile on the lookout for openings. Not far from the
highest point we had noticed from the road a series of dark cavities.
One man scrambled along a ledge to the uppermost of these, and found
that it was merely a shallow niche, and another, on a ledge some 50
feet lower, proved to be only 20 feet deep. He made a determined effort
to reach another fissure on the same level as the last but sundered
from it by a wide space of cliff which was covered with dense brambles.
Holding on to the prickly stems, and fighting his way through, he got
near enough to see into the fissure, but was quite unable to enter
it for a closer examination. An opening in the cliffs at a lower
point, but still some 200 feet above the road, led a long way into the
recesses of the Limestone strata, making two wide curves to the right,
but maintaining a generally easterly direction. The passages were very
low, narrow, and awkwardly shaped, involving a great deal of unpleasant
crawling; and when we reached the stalagmite grotto at the end we
found that it had been pillaged of every bit of calcite that could be
removed. This cavern, the "Long Hole," must have been the channel of a
stream that once flowed from somewhere on the other side of the gorge,
through the mass of rock that has now been swept away by the forces of
disintegration. Though several hundred feet long, it is but the tail
end of the cavern that once existed.
The remainder of our time was devoted to two of the Burrington caverns,
on the opposite side of the Mendip Hills, and to a fruitless search
for a large chasm or swallet hole into which the drainage from the now
abandoned lead mines on the top of Mendip used to fall and ultimately
find its way to Cheddar, where it poisoned the trout stream. A score
or more of years ago I saw these mines, still in working order; but
now the dried-up pools and the wilderness of refuse, with fragments of
ruined buildings, look as old almost as the remains of the Roman mines.
Of the important opening that we sought there is now no trace; it may
have been filled up intentionally and the stream allowed to revert
to its old channel, whence it had been turned artificially. Hard by,
in the Long Wood near Charterhouse, and elsewhere, there are smaller
swallets that we were already acquainted with; and there are others at
Priddy, the waters of which find an exit farther to the east.
The ground we were on is well known to readers of Walter Raymond's
romances, and we were much interested when it was pointed out that the
lonely house facing us was the actual Ubley Farm that figures in _Two
Men o' Mendip_.
E. A. B.
THE BURRINGTON CAVERNS
Burrington Combe is a smaller Limestone defile on the north side of
Mendip--that is to say, the opposite side to that of Cheddar. It is
smaller, and because of its proximity to Cheddar it has to suffer
disadvantageous comparisons. Anywhere else the grandeur of Burrington
Combe, the magnificence of its crags, with dark, heather-clad Black
Down lowering behind them, and the beauty of the copses that lurk in
its corners and clamber up its precipices, would excite the admiration
of guide-books and attract crowds of tourists. Like the Cheddar defile,
Burrington Combe was doubtless formed by the gradual destruction of a
series of caverns, and there remains of that series a number of caves
or openings of blocked-up caves on either side of the ravine. Of these
the most important and the only one well known to speleologists is
Goatchurch Cavern, which was explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins in
1864. The next in importance is Aveline's Hole, discovered in 1796,
but not explored till 1820, when about fifty human skeletons were
found lying side by side with their weapons, a stalagmitic crust
sealing bones and implements to the floor. This cavern has since had
its mouth silted up by drainage from the road, so that troublesome
excavation will have to be undertaken before it can be entered again.
It would well repay a thorough exploration, for it is reported that
a natural pit, covered by a slab, has never yet been descended, and
leads probably into important cavities. Foxe's Hole is interesting for
its curious bosses of tufaceous stalactite. A nearly vertical cave,
Plumley's Den, has been stopped up with a plug of timber and stones
at the depth of 80 feet, in consequence of a fatal accident to a man
who tried to descend it in 1875. At a level probably a few feet below
that of the caves whose destruction was the origin of the Combe, a good
road with a grassy margin now ascends towards the top of Mendip, where
it joins the old Roman road that runs from "Severn Sea" to Old Sarum,
along the crown of the ridge.
Our waggonette when we left the Bath Arms at Cheddar was piled up with
ropes, cameras, gas cylinders, condensers for the searchlight, and an
incredible amount of needful and superfluous things, for we were quite
unable to say what would be wanted. Climbing to the miniature mountain
pass across Mendip at Shipham was hard work for the horse, and we
walked up the hill. Dr. Sheldon and Mr. Bamforth were my companions.
Our clothes, still richly daubed with the clay and mire of the Cheddar
caverns, made our appearance both business-like and picturesque. The
north side of the Mendips is very different from the bleak and craggy
slopes on the south. From the broad bare top of the hills down to the
valley stretches, almost continuously, a deep mass of trees that looks
in the distance like a wall of dusky verdure. We drove between orchards
where great bushes of mistletoe grew on nearly every tree, till we
were within a few hundred yards of Burrington village; then, turning
towards Mendip, we drove through more orchards, till suddenly the rocky
entrance of the Combe appeared and we heard the clink of pick and
crowbar in the Limestone quarry not far from Plumley's Den. Half-way up
the gorge makes a sudden bend towards the east, a little below which
point a shallower ravine comes in on the other side. About 120 feet
above the bed of this dry ravine is the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern.
We coaxed the horse over the stony turf and up the ravine till the
roughness of the ground and the thickness of the bramble bushes stopped
him. At this point we were met by the lord of the manor, Mr. James
Gibson of Langford, who is the owner of the Burrington caves. His men
assisted us to get our apparatus up to the cave mouth, and afterwards
convoyed us and the luggage throughout the less difficult parts of the
cavern.
A few years ago the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern was an insignificant
hole, through which adventurous boys used to crawl as far as the
first considerable chamber, where Professor Boyd Dawkins found a few
remains of extinct animals. Owing to the depredations which were made
by neighbouring villagers in search of specimens of calcite, Mr.
Gibson recently had the entrance enlarged and closed with a padlocked
gate, the public being admitted only on certain days of the week or
by appointment. It is a pity this step was not taken before many of
the finer stalactites had been carried away. In this long chamber,
the floor of which is covered with sheets and bosses of dripstone, we
entered some of the funnel-shaped openings in the roof by means of a
ladder, but soon perceived that no discoveries were to be made that
way. At the end of the chamber a precipitous hole goes down to the
left, and fixed ropes are used for getting into the lower galleries.
We found ourselves at once entering on a maze of passages, where
the presence of our guides saved valuable time. So intricate and
bewildering are these ramifications that Mr. Balch tells me that he
discovered a passage some years ago that led him eventually to a much
deeper part of the cavern than had ever been reached before, but every
attempt to rediscover the passage since has failed. In spite of our
efforts to examine every branch of the various passages, we also missed
this important link. It would seem that the solid mass of the hill has
been shivered here into vast, roughly cubical fragments, between which
lie the irregular passages and narrow chambers of the cavern. Many
tempting galleries lead the explorer on and on till they dwindle to a
mere rabbit hole, or till he finds himself wedged in the cleft between
two enormous surfaces of rock. Disorderly accumulations of boulders
and splinters cover the floor; there is hardly a level spot anywhere,
and it is desirable to explore every yard carefully with a taper or a
lantern to avoid the consequences of a rash step. We crawled on hands
and knees and wormed along through insignificant holes, making our way
into spots that had probably not been inspected before; but we always
came back to the main channel, where our guides were waiting, having
made no noteworthy find.
Assembling again in a more roomy chamber, about 140 feet below the
entrance, we all proceeded along a tunnel that showed evident traces of
the action of a stream to another chamber, where the sound of running
water came up from a grim-looking chasm. Only two of us went beyond
this point. The rest secured the rope, whilst we climbed down the
steep hole into a large cavern through which the stream runs from the
swallet hole in the ravine outside on its way to Rickford Rising, where
it issues in considerable volume. The stream has a somewhat puzzling
course after leaving the cavern, for it runs underground athwart
Burrington Combe and through the solid hill opposite, Burrington Ham.
This stream, as Professor Boyd Dawkins pointed out, was doubtless the
originating cause of Goatchurch Cavern, running in at the present
mouth, which is now dry. The ravine outside has since been hollowed
out to a further depth of 120 feet, and the stream finds its way in at
a lower level. The Professor also describes a very pretty experiment.
Having taken the temperature of the stream before it enters the cave,
he tested it again after it had run some distance underground, finding
that it was here several degrees cooler. It is obvious that a colder
stream must have joined it at some unknown point midway.
The nethermost series of chambers and passages are not very different
from those above, their shape rugged and irregular, and their floor
heaped up with fragments of all sizes. We reached no lower point than
that attained by previous explorers--that is, 220 feet below the
entrance, as measured by aneroid. Squeezing with difficulty through
the deepest fissure, I found myself in a small cave, whence, turning
round, I only perceived one exit. It looked and felt so small that I
despaired of pushing through and turned to go back, when it suddenly
occurred to me that this was the hole I had come in by, and there was
no other way out. Such little incidents often happen in cave work,
but most often in such a complicated network of tunnels and fissures
as the Goatchurch Cavern, where we were quite convinced that an
important passage ran due east until the compass assured us that the
direction was west. Clambering up a steep bank of stiff clay out of the
lowest cave, we reached a vaulted grotto with a cascade of stalagmite
flowing down one side. On the edge of this a sloping passage disclosed
itself, lined with stalagmite, and we ascended it in the expectation
of finding something new. It brought us by an easy scramble back to
the upper cave, whence we had descended on the rope; and with little
more deviation from the main passages we made our way back to the cave
mouth, where a well-earned lunch was waiting.
But little time was wasted in examining the silted-up entrance to
Aveline's Hole and another cave mouth, and the next halt was made at
Plumley's Den. Tying two Alpine ropes together, a pair of us descended
this ancient pothole as far as the artificial pile of débris that
blocks it up. One man was hit rather severely by a dislodged stone--a
serious danger in caves of this sort--and in returning he dropped and
smashed his acetylene lamp. The hole is effectually plugged, a tree and
a quantity of stone having been flung in after Plumley's fatal mishap;
and until Mr. Gibson carries out his proposal to remove the stones that
block it, the 200 feet which are said, on doubtful authority, to lie
beyond can never be explored. Mr. Gibson also proposes to bore a new
entrance from the Combe into the lower series of caves at Goatchurch.
Above Plumley's Den a magnificent rib of Limestone, like those at
Matlock, springs nearly to the hilltop; and over the way a picturesque
pile of crag comes out to meet it, and is known as the "Rock of Ages,"
from the tradition that Toplady, the divine, taking shelter under it
from a storm, composed his famous hymn there.
Still piloted by our kind host, we walked across Burrington Ham and saw
the brook which we had heard babbling amid the silence of Goatchurch
Cavern flowing out, a strong body of water, at Rickford Rising, after
a subterranean course of about two miles from its sources high up on
Black Down.
Rickford Rising is in the Secondary beds, but a short mile up the
beautiful Combe at whose outlet it lies, a Limestone ridge comes down
to the road. Hard by the extremity is a hole in the rocky ground, now
almost entirely choked with stones, but not so many years ago an open
pit. It is known as the "Squire's Well." Here, in times of continuous
rain, a body of water issues forth, often flooding the road. It seems
to be connected with the water-channels that feed Rickford Rising, to
which it acts as a safety valve. To open it would not be a very serious
affair, and might discover something interesting.
At the back of Mendip Lodge, on the hill immediately west of Burrington
Combe, the hilltop is cut up by innumerable ravines ending in
swallets, the water of which comes to light again in a large stream
in the Yeo valley near Upper Langford, about a mile away. Several of
these swallets look as if they would repay the trouble of a little
excavation; and the size of the stream at the point of issue indicates
the existence of large cavities in the line of its subterranean course.
E. A. B.
THE CORAL CAVE AT COMPTON BISHOP
A cave just discovered near Compton Bishop, on the skirts of Mendip,
furnishes valuable evidence in corroboration of the theory that the
Limestone caverns of this region were formed at a period enormously
anterior to that generally accepted. It is situated a little way up the
slope of Wavering Down, only a short distance above the upper limit
of the red marl laid down in the Triassic age, unconformably on the
denuded edges of the Carboniferous Limestone.
We had been engaged in some exploring work in the Cheddar caves, the
results of which were of a negative kind, but none the less important,
as modifying the lines of costly excavation. Accompanied by the Messrs.
Gough, the proprietors of the great cave at Cheddar, we proceeded late
in the day to Axbridge, where Mr. Balch joined the party. Our goal was
a certain cavern, explored about a century ago, and described by the
antiquary Phelps, but now little known. This purpose was, however,
not carried out that day, for in making inquiries about the cave as
we passed through the village of Cross, we got wind of a cavern that
had never yet been explored, and was therefore treasure-trove to such
ardent cave workers. Two years ago, in blasting for stone to line a
drinking-place for cattle, a farmer had blown a hole into the top of
a subterranean cavity. Two 30-rung ladders were lashed together, so
we learned, and a bold countryman, secured by a cart-rope, descended
into the mysterious hollow, alighting on a slope of shifting stones
and earth, whence he could see a second chasm, black as Tophet and of
unknown profundity, yawning beneath him. No one would venture on this
further descent; a rock was rolled against the opening to prevent sheep
or incautious persons from tumbling in, and there for the time being
was an end of the matter.
Our first task was to withdraw this formidable plug. It was a sound,
unfissured block of Mountain Limestone, weighing perhaps half a ton. We
thought that six men with a rope ought to move it easily; but we could
not make it budge. A spade and a crowbar were fetched, with which we
laboured diligently for an hour; but the only effect was to drop the
stone deeper into the hole. A sledgehammer was now obtained from the
nearest smithy, and one after another we attacked the foe with might
and main. At length it yielded. Pieces flaked off, and at last it
split; the fragments tumbled into the chasm, and the rock, diminished
to half its former size, was rolled away. The job had taken two hours
and a half, and it was now dark.
Mr. Balch and I cast lots for the honour of the first descent: it fell
to me. An Alpine Club rope was tied on as life-line, whilst a 70-foot
cotton rope was to be used for lowering and lifting. Slung in a bight
of the latter, I was carefully let down over the cliff-like face below
the entrance. The cavity formed part of a huge choked swallet, which
extended up into the hill above the point where we had been working,
and ran away obliquely underneath, so that I was coming down from a
hole perforating one corner of the roof. Over against the hole was
the steep slope of earth and scree already mentioned, steep almost
as a wall, and the scree so loose that it seemed to be in a state
of suspended animation. As soon as one came into contact with the
treacherous stuff, an avalanche of stones was launched, and I sought
in vain for a spot where it would be safe to unrope and await the next
man. The cliff down which I had been lowered was undercut by a wide
archway, through which I looked into a black, forbidding pit gaping at
the bottom. With nowhere to rest, and with the risk of falling stones,
it was obviously wiser to finish the descent before another man started.
Tying the loose rope round me (for it was necessary to swing out under
the arch), I was let down slowly, and began to slip over a smooth,
greasy rock-face into the unknown cavity. At 60 feet from the ground
I alighted at the top of a slope of stones, and was able to remove
the ropes and scramble to the bottom. Lighting some magnesium wire,
I found myself in a bell-shaped chamber about 65 feet high, opening
above by the precipitous archway into the upper cavity, and on the
other side into an ascending vault running north-west. All around
were the indelible marks of water action in the remote past. On the
upper side the rocks were carved and pitted as by the swirling of a
violent torrent. But there was now no sign of running water, only the
drip, drip from the moist roof; and the outlet of the ancient stream
at the bottom of the cavern was blocked up by a deep accumulation of
débris. Among the countless fragments strewn all over the floor I found
a large stone covered with a mass of dog-tooth crystals, clear as
diamonds and large as walnuts. But at the very bottom of the place was
something even more lovely, myriads upon myriads of exquisite spicules
of carbonate, some little more than specks of red, orange, and amber,
but thousands like wee tendrils of coral three-eighths of an inch
in length. They were the growth, through age after age, of a splash
deposit from the roof or from the stream that had disappeared. Such a
formation is not rare in water caverns; but in such beauty of shape and
hue it is rare indeed, for these tender little crystal flowers took
all manner of forms, blossoming ofttimes into wreaths and clusters
like a miniature coral. One of the most exquisite and most puzzling
features was that the dots and spicules were often arranged in set
patterns, symmetrical and even geometrical, in tiny circles, squares,
and triangles, by the rhythmic action of the waters that had left this
beautiful record of their passage. We named the cave the Coral Cavern.
As the descent had not been direct, and there might be difficulty in
recovering the ropes if once let go, it seemed most prudent that no
one should follow me down for the present. Climbing the slopes of
rocks and scree that led up through a lofty vault to the north-west,
I reached a height of considerably more than 100 feet above the floor
of the Coral Cavern, the present floor of which is 90 feet below the
point of entrance. The open way then came to an end abruptly, in a tiny
grotto, at a distance of 240 feet from that point. But hard by there
were funnel-like cavities penetrating the roof, and hinting at the
proximity of a Secondary swallet hole on the hillside close overhead.
Evidently, when the cave was in working order, in times of indefinable
remoteness, a big stream had run down this steep vaulted passage, and
united with the main stream at the bottom, both then pursuing their way
into the fissures of the rock, and ultimately finding an exit into the
open air at some point now buried under Triassic deposits. Enormous
slabs of Limestone, smooth, and fitting close over each other like
boiler-plates, formed the sloping floor of this tunnel on one side.
These too were a conspicuous testimony to powerful water action.
At present the red marl of the Trias comes nearly up to the artificial
entrance of the cavity. It is obvious that when the cave was occupied
by a stream, its waters must have found a vent some distance below the
upper limit of the marl; whence it necessarily follows that the marl
has been laid down here since that period. Much evidence has been
gathered in the course of our cave work in the Mendips to show that
many of the caverns are older than the vast accumulations of Dolomitic
Conglomerate and other deposits of Triassic age, but nowhere is the
proof put so clearly and concisely as by the new cave at Compton Bishop.
My stay underground was cut short by the fear that the others would
grow impatient. I was hauled up without mishap, save that at one point
the cotton rope stuck fast in a cleft, and I had to pull myself up hand
over hand on the life-line. Two men then went down, with the result we
had dreaded--the rope could not be got back to the last man without
extreme difficulty. Only after tying on stone after stone, and making
many a cast in vain, did we ultimately restore communication. He came
up; the guardian block was pushed back into its place; and at a late
hour we struck down the hillside home.
A day or two later we set out once more to find Phelps's Cavern. It
opens on the very crest of the ridge leading up to Crook Hill, or, as
it is more commonly known to-day, Crook's Peak, a sharp Limestone spur,
running south-east from the western extremity of Wavering Down. At the
foot of the hill, near the road, we came across a small cave, called
the Fox's Hole, which we searched thoroughly for any continuation
upwards or downwards, but in vain. After a great deal of jamming and
squeezing, we got in to a distance of 50 feet, where a low chamber
has holes between wall and floor that had acted as a water-sink to
some ancient system of cavities. But the floor was heaped with stones,
and in spite of our efforts to clear these out, we did not discover a
single hole big enough to enter. This small cave is, doubtless, but the
tail end of the cavern that once existed here; and, indeed, the large
cavern at the hilltop must be little more than a fragment of what it
was. Crook's Peak seems to be the mere skeleton of a hill. To account
for the presence of such a cavern at the summit, one must postulate
a large drainage area in days gone by, and a general configuration
entirely opposite to the present. The higher part of the hill is but a
Limestone shell enclosing these ancient, and now waterless, caverns.
The big cavern is known as Denny's Hole. Descending the sloping side
of an open pit, we found ourselves under an arch of mighty span, the
crown of which was formed by the rock-wall on the other side. Under
this arch the floor sloped precipitously into the jaws of the cavern;
then the roof came close down, and the farther passages wound onwards
as low tunnels, descending steeply into the entrails of the hill. It
is easy enough to get to a considerable depth and distance in the
largest of these, but the journey is not specially interesting, for the
place has been looted by adventurous rustics, and serious exploration
is at present brought to a standstill by the enormous quantities of
loose stones filling every cavity in the floor. Coming back to the
cave mouth, we were struck by the grandeur of the vestibule, which has
every appearance of being the remains of a great subterranean chamber,
the pit-like entrance, through which we look up to the sky and the
sunshine, being the remnant of a cave-tunnel, once perhaps of very
considerable length.
Phelps had alluded to another chamber, of some beauty, to be attained,
at the expense of divers wrenches and abrasions, by a certain tortuous
passage leading out of the vestibule. After diligent search we found a
hole in the floor at one corner, but it seemed to be only a foot or two
deep. Kicking about for some time, with body half in and half out of
the hole, I managed to shift some loose stones, and felt space below.
But the space proved, on experiment, at least as excellent a place of
torment as Phelps's description had been able to do justice to. The
passage doubled back upon itself at once, and twisted here and there
like a corkscrew. Only by obstinate wriggling were we able to worm a
way down to the low cavity at the bottom. Two blind passages started
therefrom, and in one wall was a long, horizontal slit, with some big
place beyond, as we judged from the sound of the stones we threw in.
In various cautious attitudes we inserted ourselves into the slit. The
drop inside, though fearful to anticipate, was a matter of only a few
feet.
The cave we found ourselves in was a sort of double chamber, with
vestiges of a partition across the middle; the whole was some 40 feet
in length. At one end was a pool of water, stagnant at present, or
nearly so. Close by, a low fissure sloped downwards to a vertical hole
or pot that sounded deep; but we could not get near it for the spikes
of stalactite that guarded it on all sides. This chamber, which we
thought must communicate with the series reached by the main passage
from the vestibule, seems to have been hardly ever visited. We heard
a story of a lady's pet dog that had been lost here for a week, and
was not found, although a tempting reward was offered, until a farmer,
who told us the story, explored the corkscrew tunnel leading to this
cave. He found the poor beast shivering on the edge of the slit we
had come in by, afraid to jump. Even the farmer, who thought he knew
all the ramifications of this perplexing cavern, did not seem to have
reached this chamber, the natural ornaments of which showed no trace of
specimen-hunting.
Returning to daylight, we examined a cave vent in the ground hard by,
where a vapour was steaming up into the chilly air. The penetrable
portion was just big enough to accommodate the six feet two of our
tallest man. With some time left on our hands, we decided now to walk
on to Loxton, the next village, where another cave was situated on
a Limestone hilltop. There were only two miles to walk, so we did
not think it worth while to doff our cave panoply. Great was the
speculation that our unexampled appearance excited in the people we
met. We could not be tramps--in fact, we hardly looked respectable
enough; and yet our rucksacks, ropes, and cameras gave us an air of
distinction that was puzzling in the extreme. Faces crowded to the
windows at every house we passed, and at Loxton we had to run the
gauntlet of satiric observation. As we asked our way to the quarry at
Loxton, the general conclusion was that we were in quest of a job there.
This cave must have been a very interesting one long ago, but now it
is like those at Compton Bishop, only a remnant; and besides what has
been destroyed by natural denudation, a great deal has been damaged by
the gradual approaches of a Limestone quarry on the side of the hill.
This has exposed the outlets of several passages. A labyrinth of low
galleries remains, with a few larger hollows here and there; but of
whatever beauty they once possessed they have long been denuded by
the devastating village boy, who has found the intricacies of Loxton
Cavern a perfect paradise. It does not follow that the cave would
necessarily not pay for a thorough exploration. If some of the lower
reaches were carefully examined, entrances would very likely be found
into still nether caverns, of which these dry channels were at one time
the feeders. But the work would be peculiarly difficult on account of
the smallness of the open spaces, and the result uncertain. Yet the
Limestone of the Mendips is so thick--the thickest in England--and the
parts that have been explored are so honeycombed with cavities and
passages, that every gateway into this strange underworld promises
more or less reward. It is somewhere in the neighbourhood of Loxton
and Banwell that the famous "Gulf" was discovered in the days of the
old lead miners. In driving an extensive level through a hill, at a
point 80 fathoms below the summit, they came upon a gigantic rift. A
man was let down on a long rope--so tradition reports--and when he had
descended to the full extent of it he was unable to see either walls
or bottom of the tremendous abyss. We are probably on the track of
this monster cavity, an exploration of which will entail labour and
fortitude. That and the exploration of the swallet at Hillgrove, when
it is opened, are the two most fascinating problems awaiting us in the
immediate future.
E. A. B.
LAMB'S LAIR
A few years ago the Great Western opened what they called the Wrington
Vale Light Railway up the valley of the Yeo, which borders Mendip
on the north. A few miles beyond its present terminus lie the two
Harptrees, in the heart of a sequestered countryside of great pastoral
beauty. Here, where nowadays all the pursuits are agricultural, a great
deal of mining was carried on in years gone by, the relics of which are
still visible in the surface workings, grown over with grass. In the
upland ravines of Lamb's Bottom, near the top of the Mendip plateau,
these are very numerous, and seem to be the work of both lead miners
and searchers for black oxide of manganese. Early in the eighteenth
century a cavern of prodigious size and beauty was discovered in this
locality; but, by one of those curious accidents which are by no
means infrequent in the history of caves, it was lost, and its site
remained unknown for a hundred and twenty years. Its fame, however,
was cherished by the country folk, and the tradition of its fabulous
wonders induced a lord of the manor, a quarter of a century ago, to
offer a heavy monetary reward, which led to its rediscovery in the
year 1880. This new exploration made some noise at the time, and a
fair number of people ventured on a descent. The difficulties were
smoothed down considerably. Ladders were fixed in the shaft, which was
strengthened by timber supports, and in difficult parts of the lower
galleries; solid beds of arragonite were cut through, and a heavy
structure of timber, carrying a windlass, was built out on the verge
of an abyss, to make accessible the floor of the Great Chamber. Lamb's
Lair is even alluded to, though incorrectly, in the fourth edition of
Murray's Guide--that for 1882--and, for a while, great was the renown
of its unparalleled beauties. Then, as usually happens with cave
scenery when there is any difficulty or any peril involved, the novelty
and the popularity of Lamb's Lair waned; and now for a long period the
cave has been derelict, the timber erections have become rotten and
dangerous, and the only visit during many years previous to the one I
am about to describe nearly resulted in a catastrophe.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: PLAN AND SECTION OF THE GREAT CAVERN OF LAMB'S LAIR.]
Our party of four had been engaged in some arduous work near Wells, and
a descent into Lamb's Lair meant a long drive across Mendip, nearly to
East Harptree. We were dropped by our waggonette, with a great pile of
apparatus, at a gate into a field. The field was part of the Lamb's
Bottom ravine, and we had some difficulty in locating the entrance to
our cavern among the innumerable workings and natural depressions that
cut up the surface. At length we caught sight of the end of a ladder
sticking out from a hole that was buried in brushwood, and straightway
we found ourselves on the brink of the 60-foot shaft. The uppermost
ladder was broken six feet from the top, and so was the second; neither
was fit to be trusted. We supported the broken part of the top ladder
with a forked branch, and I took up my station on a ledge 15 feet
down, to steady the things as they were lowered. Each man was roped
for the descent, for the crazy ladders, the decayed woodwork, and the
loose stones in the shaft all threatened disaster. At last all our
paraphernalia was safe at the bottom, and now a muddy progress began
through a narrow, dripping cleft into a low tunnel, that brought us,
after many windings, to the top of a fourth ladder. This one was not
so high, but it was quite as shaky as the others, and a member of the
party got a nasty blow on the shoulder from a beam connected with it,
that gave way whilst we were passing the luggage from hand to hand.
Descending still through an irregular passage, we suddenly entered a
roomy vault with stalactites on the roof. Here the glories of Lamb's
Lair begin. In a few moments we shall be at the threshold of the
incomparable Beehive Chamber, and thence, to a point far beyond what
we can attain to-day, the poetry and witchery of cave scenery are
at their finest. Stumbling over the irregularities of the crystal
floor, we see dimly, by the light of our candles, great luminous arcs
bending over our heads; and then, catching sight of a regularly shaped
hemisphere rising out of the darkness and dwarfing the cave with its
enormous proportions, we realise that this is the Beehive Chamber. When
the limelight is brought in, and its fierce beams play upon the wild
arcades and groining of this fantastic vault, we are astounded by the
wealth and brilliance and extraordinary variety of the incrustations:
not a rib, not a corner of bare rock remains visible; every inch of
floor and walls and roof has been thickly coated with the calcareous
enamel. The Beehive itself, 12 feet high and enormous in girth, is not
more astonishing for its size than for the regularity of its shape. It
is probably the largest boss of stalagmite in England. The sides are
streaked with white and yellow bands, which enhance the weird symmetry
and polish of its appearance; and, on the summit, wide enough for a man
to walk about, we noticed that a number of stalactites, fallen from the
vault above, had become embedded in its mass, and were slowly being
crusted over with the ceaseless deposits. All over the chamber there
is a continuous patter of water-drops, carrying on the work of the
ages, and laying film after film of lustre on the imageries of this
hidden shrine, which man has visited so rarely. To right and left of
the Beehive the uneven floor descends into deep recesses--which we see
as we draw nigh to be rocky porches adorned with the most magnificent
incrustations--leading into two passages. These two porches, the arch
by which we have entered, and the wild vaulting that rises to an apex
over our heads amid a profusion of glistening stalactites, are the
dominant features of this piece of fairy architecture. But who can
count or describe the gleaming volutes and scrolls that wind over the
walls in brilliant confusion, the clustered corbels whence random ribs
spring towards the roof, the lace-like fringe of delicate stalactites
that hangs from every ridge, or the gnome-like fingers and ghoulish
faces, staring and pointing downwards, that one seems to discern amid
the disordered sculpture of roof and walls?
A broken bottle of paraffin and some pieces of cotton-waste, evidently
the relics of the last party who had used them to light up the Beehive
Chamber years ago, were lying in a corner just as they were left. In
one of the galleries I noticed the marks of fingers and the impress of
the clothes of a man who had crawled along the clay floor--as fresh as
if he had been there an hour ago. This changelessness of everything
fills one with a certain awe; but what impresses one as still more
wonderful is that all this consummate beauty and grandeur should lie
concealed and unknown in the midst of modern England, only a few miles
away from important cities, but unvisited by a soul for long periods
of years, while the country people seem hardly aware of the cave's
existence. Were the cave easily accessible, one can hardly question
that crowds of sightseers would be attracted, and much of the charm
would be dispelled, even if its treasures were not ransacked. For the
present these are perfectly safe.
[Illustration: THE "BEEHIVE" CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: STALACTITE WALL, LAMB'S LAIR.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
From the Beehive Chamber a passage winds downward under one of the
glorious porches already described, and on and on between walls of
calcspar and arragonite, toward the chief wonder of Lamb's Lair, the
Great Chamber. The original passage was low and difficult, and early
explorers cut a deeper way through solid beds of arragonite, whose
miraculous whiteness glistens on every side as we advance. So enormous
is the thickness of this compact and fine-grained variety of the
calcium carbonate, with its delicate lines of crystallisation showing
transparently where it is shattered, that fully three and a half feet
are shown in section, a wall of snowy brilliance; and one cannot judge
how much more is hidden. The tunnel widens into an arch of reddish
rock, covered with sparry reliefs; then suddenly we find ourselves
stepping on a plank, and out of the darkness ahead starts up the gaunt
shape of a windlass. We have reached the spot where the gallery breaks
into the upper part of the Great Chamber; under our feet is a black
void, and further progress is forbidden. The gallery ends on a sloping
bevel, 10 feet wide, that dips steeply into the chasm. On this bevel,
which overhangs by many feet the receding wall of the Great Chamber, a
timber platform was erected a quarter of a century ago. It is a sort of
cantilever, with the windlass resting on the long arms. We moved here
with utmost caution, hardly venturing to place a foot on the time-worn
structure without holding on to the rocks at the side. On the last
occasion that the cavern was visited, some years ago, a fatal accident
was averted almost by a miracle. The rope broke while Mr. Balch was
descending; he fell about 60 feet, on to the broken rocks beneath,
checking his fall by catching at a tangle of line that was hanging
near. His hands were cut to the bone, and he lay at the bottom stunned
for a quarter of an hour, and has hardly ceased to feel the effects
of the shaking. Naturally, he now felt little inclination to venture
another descent, especially as he told us that the rickety state of the
platform has filled him with grave doubts as to its safety if weight
were put on it.
At present, beyond the stark shape of the windlass, darkness reigned.
We flung blocks of arragonite out into the void. There was an interval
of silence, then a crash on the hard floor, and the missile burst
into fragments. When the ray of our 2000-candle-power searchlight
flashed across the abyss, we found ourselves looking into a chamber
whose weird majesty held us spellbound. Its height is 110 feet, and
the walls curve gradually over in an irregular dome. Hardly a square
foot of this mighty wall-space is blank. Stripes and reticulations
and pendulous lacework run all over it in enchanting disorder. Here a
snow-white flood of calcite drops from an unseen cleft, there a cascade
of many colours ripples down from roof to floor. There are great sheets
of opaline enamel, curtains drooping in massy folds, silken fabrics
wrinkled over the face of the rock, all giving one the sense of motion
suddenly arrested, and of light and colour captured from the rainbow
and sleeping here in the darkness, waiting year after year for our lamp
to awaken it to life and beauty.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO GREAT CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
[Illustration: LARGEST CHAMBER IN SOMERSET, LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE.
_From Sketch by H. E. Balch._]
The cylinder of oxygen and the ether saturator were pushed out as far
as we dared, and the camera was set up on the edge of the platform,
to secure at least a glimpse of this hall of wonders. We were told
what lay beyond. Another gallery, begemmed as richly as the one behind
us, leads on and on, until a high chamber is reached, into which
water pours over a sheet of snowy stalagmite, 60 feet high. We could
not descend into the Great Chamber, but we intended to light it up.
A tinful of Bengal fire was put into an iron saucer, hanging from
a string by iron wires; and this with a light attached was lowered
through the hole in the platform, whereon we lay extended at full
length looking over into the gulf. There was a fizz, and then the
fierce radiance swept from side to side of the huge vault, staining the
sheets and curtains and cascades of white a splendid crimson. The walls
sparkled blood-red as if set with rubies, and the blue-black sheets of
calcite marked by oxide of manganese were empurpled by the glow. We
fled before the pungent clouds of smoke that rose into our gallery,
back to the Beehive Chamber, leaving that glorious hall once more to
solitude and silence.
The only other part we explored was the winding tunnel that begins
under the second porch in the Beehive Chamber. It goes far away down,
and is knee-deep in mire for a considerable distance. At last, when it
seems as if the Great Chamber itself cannot be far away, the passage
ends in a choke. We had been in the cavern about five hours, when,
after much hard work, we got our apparatus back to the foot of the
shaft. Climbing ahead up the rickety ladders, the broken rungs of which
were caked with mud and clay, and keeping hold of the life-line all
the while, I found our driver waiting for us at the top, for we were
an hour late. Several dangerous stones were shifted in pulling up the
luggage, and one man below not only received a nasty blow, but narrowly
escaped destruction by another stone that he just succeeded in warding
off his face.
We have since regretted that we did not test the platform and windlass
by a rough-and-ready method, and then descend by a long Alpine rope.
The sharp ledges underneath might, however, have rendered this
dangerous. We had not seen everything, but we had seen enough to
recompense us abundantly for the toil, the slight risk, and the dirt.
Murray says that Lamb's Lair is the finest cave in Somerset; I would
confidently venture further, and say that for transcendent beauty it
has not its equal in England.[4]
E. A. B.
[4] Mr. James McMurtrie, then manager of Earl Waldegrave's estates,
was responsible for the exploration of this cavern after its
rediscovery in 1880. He had it surveyed and plans made; he had the
windlass erected, but went down himself before it was fixed. Very
great credit is due to him for this valuable work, which it is hoped
will not be rendered less valuable by allowing the artificial shaft
as well as the windlass to be permanently destroyed through neglect
and decay. The plan and section contained here were the result of
independent measurements, which fully confirmed the results of his
previous survey.
[Illustration: STALACTITES IN ENTRANCE GALLERY, LAMB'S LAIR.
_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]
A CAVE IN THE QUANTOCKS
At Bridgewater, where we had arrived one winter morning at sunrise,
after a melancholious journey in unwarmed carriages across the flooded
moors beyond Glastonbury, not a person had heard tell of a cave in the
Quantocks. But the information we relied on, though a century old, was
definite enough to warrant the hire of a trap to convey us and our
apparatus to a certain lonely cross-road, seven miles away, in a corner
of the broad parish of Bloomfield. Climbing steadily through Enmore,
we found the cross-road on a hilltop 800 feet above the sea, hard by
a homely tavern, where we got cider for ourselves and feed for the
horse. To our west was the Beacon on Cotherstone Hill, and two miles
farther the Fire Signal Pits on Will's Neck (1261 feet), the highest
of the Quantock Hills. But of the red-deer country that lay around us
we saw little, and less as the day wore on, for a cold sea-mist came
rolling up from the Bristol Channel, and would have given us trouble
in finding our cave, had not a guide appeared providentially. It was a
tattered and weather-beaten countryman, who emerged from the tap-room
and announced that he was the only person who knew anything about
the cave. He dilated in glowing terms on its beauties--"It be very
ornamental, sur, very ornamental." Fox by name and fox by nature, so he
described himself--for he was both garrulous and egotistical--he was
fond of burrowing into holes. That he was a poacher to boot, we had no
reason to disbelieve after a few minutes' conversation. He led us by
a veritable fox's path over fields and hedges, through a mist-drenched
spinney, down to a dingle, where beetle-browed rocks overhung the
entrance to the cave. A rusty iron gate barred the way, and was
padlocked. Reynard proposed to make a journey of several miles, at our
expense, to procure the key; but a broken link in the chain saved us
time and cider.
There is not much Limestone on the Quantocks, and caves are a rarity.
At this spot an outlier of Carboniferous Limestone lies in close
contact with beds of Greywacke Slate--a very unusual conjunction,
which prepared us for something new and strange in the way of
crystallisations. Descending a few yards beyond the entrance, the main
passage rises a little, and then drops gradually towards a stagnant
pool, beyond which it is impossible to get. The length of this portion
is only 140 feet, and the direction from north-east to south-west.
Certain narrow passages, however, bore into the Limestone on the north,
and extend their ramifications much farther. Only one of these seems
to have been known before our visit. In the main passage, near the
pool, is seen the special wonder of Holwell Cave, a brilliant display
of arragonite crystals all over the roof. Arragonite usually occurs
in massive deposits of satin spar, distinguished by a perfection of
whiteness when newly split, a whiteness that grows dingy very soon if
you try to keep specimens. Here it occurs in quite another form--the
coralloid, known as flos ferri; thousands of filaments or spicules
ramifying from centres, and looking as soft as cobweb, though as
brittle as blown glass. This delicate product is often tinged with a
pink stain like that of fluor-spar. Andrew Crosse, the electrician,
who was carrying on his researches in the neighbourhood when Holwell
Cavern was found about 1800, thought that the crystal might have been
distorted by slow degrees into these fanciful shapes "through the
invisible action of electric energy," an agent to which most mysterious
natural processes have been attributed some time or another; but the
fibrous arragonite, scientists tell us, is by no means abnormal. It all
lies on the Greywacke part of the roof; the adjoining Limestone has
no arragonite, but is incrusted with the usual sheets and bosses of
calcite, mutilated somewhat by visitors who have taken away mementos.
"Ain't it ornamental, sur?" said our conductor; but his exclamations
were still more enthusiastic when the magnesium ribbon lit up the
millions of arragonite crystals that covered the roof with a glistering
efflorescence. Then the flashlight blazed out, as our camera got into
action, and the old man was speechless with amazement. He had known the
cave, boy and man, all his life, but never before had he, or anyone
else for that matter, gazed upon all its beauties. Several photographs
were secured--among them the portrait of a sleeping bat clinging to the
groining of calcite--and then the cave grew too smoky for further work.
So we went off to explore.
First we climbed into an opening high up in the north wall. It seemed
to run parallel with the main passage, and soon we beheld daylight in
front. Ere we reached the open air, however, we came to a steep drop,
and found that the branch had simply brought us back to the vestibule
of the cavern. Another opening, near the entrance, running due north,
proved more interesting, leading eventually to a bell chamber, floored,
walled, and roofed with polished carbonate. Someone had reached this
point twenty years ago, so dates and initials testified; but there were
virgin passages branching off to left and right for us to investigate,
as far as bodies of speleological slimness were admissible.
A squeeze through a crevice in the east wall led into a parallel
tunnel, depressingly low and painfully narrow, which seemed to run on
indefinitely to the north. The soft clay floor showed it was at times
the path of a heavy stream. Northward, it shrank to a mere drain-pipe;
southward it led by one joint and culvert to another, all at right
angles, into other straight channels, all going in the same general
direction. My companion stuck fast a little way beyond the first
tunnel; I pushed on like a weevil into the maze of perforations, but
met the same fate at last, not giving in, however, until I had been
held as in a vice at one point for a good five minutes, with boot
jammed, candle out, and no room to get my hand to the pocket where the
waterproof matches were safely stowed away.
It was still possible to see a long way ahead, by candlelight and
magnesium; and we made out that north of the known cave lies a whole
network of dry waterways, the principal channels running due north,
roughly parallel to the Limestone escarpment in which the cave mouth
opens, and all connected together by rectangular branches. One channel
brought us within view of daylight; but the crevice was too small for
anything but a rabbit, and we had to return by the same arduous and
abrading passages we had come by. As old Fox would have said, the
things we saw were "very handsome," but we could not tempt him to enter
this uncomfortable region.
E. A. B.
CAVE EXPLORING AT ABERGELE
Travellers on the North-Western to Holyhead or Snowdonia are familiar
with several cave mouths that form a prominent feature in the Limestone
cliffs above Lord Dundonald's castle, near the station of Llandulas.
The most conspicuous is a vast antre near the cliff-top; and legend
has it that this opens into passages running for great distances,
and eventually descending beneath the sea. (Welsh cave-myths are not
less extravagant than those of Derbyshire and Somerset, where stories
of dogs, geese, and other animals that have made long pilgrimages
underground and come into daylight again divested of feathers or hair,
are still piously cherished by the credulous.) The name attached to
this group of caves, Tanyrogo--"under the cave"--is derived from
the Celtic ogo or ogof, a cavern, and is almost identical with the
original name of Wookey Hole in Somerset. A party of explorers from
Liverpool and Colwyn Bay have recently carried out some researches in
the Tanyrogo caves, and in those at St. George, on the other side of
Abergele; and while verifying their disbelief in the supposed extent of
the subterranean galleries, have ascertained many interesting facts as
to the formation and the geological history of both series.
A grassy terrace runs along the cliff face to the gaping portal of
the Ogo, the biggest of the Tanyrogo caves, which looks seaward and
commands a magnificent view over the coast and the Irish sea. The
prehistoric men who doubtless lived here once showed not only good
taste in the choice of a site for their residence, but a judicious eye
for military possibilities; the place is all but impregnable, save by
starvation, the only access being by this narrow ledge, which a handful
of men could defend against an army. Spanned by a noble arch is a
colossal vestibule, rock-floored and dry. But this imposing entrance
is a deception--there is nothing beyond to compare with its shape and
magnitude. We swerved to the left, and at once found ourselves treading
a floor of wet clay, which began to ascend, and soon steepened into
a high bank leading up towards the roof. Creeping under an arch, we
found ourselves in a transverse fissure that may have run as far as the
legends pleased, but grew too narrow in a few feet for any human being
to penetrate farther. A few rudimentary stalactites and a crust of pure
white calcite adorned one small grotto; the rest was bare rock walls
and rugged arches, springing here and there high into the darkness,
in fissures that must reach very nearly to the summit of the cliff. A
branch passage dwindled away still more quickly, and so did a minor
opening that looks like a side door to the main entrance.
The rock structure of the cave arches is displayed in very beautiful
ways in this cavern, but the most interesting feature is the remnant
of an old cave floor. The cavern was evidently formed in pre-Glacial
times, and the vast quantities of clay that plug it up almost entirely
now must have been carried in by the ice. After the glaciers had
receded, the normal agencies began their work again; a stalagmite floor
was formed by the drip of water from the roof, depositing a layer of
calcite; this in the course of time was broken down again, and now
leaves a kind of high-water mark all round the walls of the cavity.
[Illustration: THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: INSIDE THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
The line of the fissure creating the upward chasms inside the cave
can be traced in the external configuration of the cliff; in sundry
vertical openings in the face, and in the clean-cut walls, where
sheer masses have fallen away, broken at the joints. Similar joints
and fissures played a part in the formation of a lower tier of caves,
which we explored next. The first was only a yard or two wide, but very
lofty, and its floor was composed of a level bed of sand and clay.
This gradually rose as we walked into the darkness, until the cave
ended more abruptly even than the last. We noticed pebbles of Bunter
sandstone in the floor, and the next cave produced many more examples
of the same stone, which must have been brought from a long distance,
the nearest strata corresponding to it being in Wirral. At the back of
this next cave a bank of cave earth and boulder clay was piled right
up to the roof, so steeply that it was not too easy a climb to the
summit. Arrived there, we found no possible egress; but a horizontal
tunnel, a sort of squint or hagioscope probably more than forty feet
long, gave us a peep through the rocky cliff out to the sunlight. We
set out forthwith to discover the outside orifice of this curious hole,
and found it came out on a ledge in the face of the cliff, hard by an
open platform which had a very queer look about it. On examination
this proved to be the floor of an old cave that had been destroyed by
the quarrymen. Half-embedded in thick clay were a number of stalagmite
pedestals, and a floor of stalagmite underneath several feet in depth,
surmounting a thick bed of boulder clay stuck full of Bunter pebbles.
It was obvious that the quarrymen, coming across this mass of useless
material, had not troubled to attack the solid layer of stalagmite
above it. The remains of stalactites and stalagmite curtains still
adhered to the neighbouring cliff.
The spot is well worth visiting, if only to see this remarkable
illustration of several consecutive chapters in the history of a
cavern. The destructive work of the Limestone quarry, having been
checked at this particular point, exposes the whole thing as in a
diagram; and the actual evidences are there just as they were produced
by the forces acting in successive epochs--the mouth of the original
cave, formed perhaps in pre-Triassic times; the masses of drift
thrust in by the glaciers; and the new cave floor, with its growth of
stalagmites. Since the caves lie at a height of several hundred feet
above sea-level, it is fairly certain that the moving glaciers exerted
an upward as well as a horizontal force, shoving the plastic masses
of clay and débris into the ascending passages, and caulking up, no
doubt, a good many tributary galleries that are now unknown. The caves
look north, and the material pushed into them must have come from
seaward; there is, furthermore, no rock in the adjoining districts
that could have yielded this kind of pebbles: so that it appears the
stream of glaciers which flowed across from Lancashire and Cheshire,
impinging against the contrary flow of ice from Snowdonia, must be
held responsible for the presence of these dense deposits. All along
the meadow-lands between the Limestone hills and the sea a series of
risings or big springs are noticeable from the railway, forming large
pools. These are the outlets of the drainage that has been absorbed by
the Limestone strata, through which the water has found its way until,
meeting with an impermeable layer of rock, or reaching the plane of
saturation at sea-level, it has been forced to the surface.
[Illustration: IN THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
The St. George's Caves are situated on and about a wooded hill of
Limestone near the village, which adjoins the low-lying lands of Morfa
Rhuddlan, the scene of a murderous battle in the year 795. The Celt,
with his strong historical imagination, such a factor in national
solidarity, still remembers, though confusedly perhaps, some incidents
of that calamitous fight. The old woman who pointed out the situation
of the caves drew our attention to the ditch and rampart which run
round the hillcrest, where it is not protected by cliffs. There, she
said, the routed Welsh tribes had entrenched themselves and fought
desperately on until every man was put to the sword. The wood on the
hilltop is full of graves, she told us, and weapons often come to light
there.
A great master-joint or fissure runs across the hill towards the
battlefield, and in it lie the caves, or rather the cave, for so far
as we could make out they are all parts of one stream-channel. At the
top of a cliff that is now being worked for lime is a small orifice, a
mere fox's hole, blocked up against Master Reynard or the badgers that
often find a home in these small caves. A hundred feet beneath it is a
larger opening, which is said to give entrance into several good-sized
chambers; but that also has been carefully built up with fragments of
Limestone by the quarrymen. We were driven accordingly to seek the
outlet of the cave, and this we found by following the smooth, straight
escarpment, produced by the fault, in a wood close to the mainroad.
A large stream once issued from the cave mouth, but has since become
engulfed in some internal swallet, and emerges a few yards lower down,
welling out from a funnel of crystal water some 15 feet deep. The cave
itself discharges a stream only in flood-time. There, too, we were
stopped from penetrating far by the beds of clay that gradually rose
to the cave roof; but in this instance the deposits had been made by
the stream, and were not the results of glacial action pushing upwards.
In fact, this is a cave with quite a modern history, one still in
working order, and used as a waterway at the proper times and seasons
by the stream that made it. The Tanyrogo Caves, on the other hand,
have ceased for untold ages to be actual water-channels, having been
deprived long ago by denudation above and behind them of the greater
part of their drainage area. And since that remote epoch they have gone
through the series of vicissitudes so plainly recorded in their present
physiognomy.
[Illustration: A PRE-GLACIAL CAVE, LLANDULAS.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
CAVE DISCOVERIES ON THE WELSH BORDER
The other day, a Liverpool friend, who has a bungalow in the Ceiriog
Valley, close to Offa's Dyke, told me he had found a cave there, which
had never been explored, but was reputed to go six miles underground,
to the neighbourhood of Oswestry. He invited me to come down and
explore it, and I readily agreed, on the condition that he was to seize
the opportunity to make his début as a cave explorer. On the side of
the valley where the cave lies the hill falls steeply to the Ceiriog,
and the densely-wooded cliff of Limestone that bathes its foot in the
river is like a bit of Dovedale. Not so the other side of the valley,
where different strata crop out, and the hills, with all their trees,
rise more gently to the brow overlooking Llangollen.
The cave mouth is about 20 feet above the river, in a cliff facing due
north, in which the Limestone is tilted at an angle of 45 degrees.
It is recessed within a lofty arch, but the entrance itself is low,
compelling us to creep for the first few yards. After two or three
bends, the roof as well as the floor rises, and the passage opens into
a chamber whose floor is heaped up to a height of 10 feet with fallen
débris, thickly plastered with mud. At first the cave runs due south,
but the main axis of this chamber, which is lofty and measures about
20 feet by 20, runs east-south-east. The roof rises about 20 feet
higher than the central heap of débris. Water drips occasionally, but
there are no stalactites. At the far end the passage turns south-east,
and, though lofty, is narrow, the walls being parallel, and tilted at
an angle of 20 degrees from the perpendicular. Then a second chamber
widens out, 50 feet long by 6 feet broad, as muddy as the former.
Rising 10 feet, the passage continues to the east-south-east, but
the walls converge for a time, forcing us to crawl, extended on our
sides. Then it opens out again, and we climb over more heaps of débris
littering the floor, and all bedaubed with thick, tenacious clay.
Now the passage becomes loftier but narrower, and progress has to be
made by keeping near the roof, the walls sloping at an angle of 30
degrees from the vertical, opening at one point into a small chamber
with a false floor of jammed rocks, then immediately closing again, and
so continuing for a distance of 60 feet. The narrowness is so great
that one goes ahead only by dint of a continuous struggle against
friction. Up to this, my friend had kept close at my heels, followed by
his man. But here the only way visible was down a still narrower rift
bending off to the left, and the latter found his own diameter greater
than that of the cave. We left him, and pushed obstinately forward,
though we had not seen a sign of any person's former presence for a
long distance. Nearer the cave mouth matches and candle-grease and the
marks of crawling had been plentiful, local adventurers having got in
nearly 100 feet.
[Illustration: ON THE CEIRIOG.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: UPPER CEIRIOG CAVE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
Already we had struck the water in two or three places, but had not
found it in the main passage. Now we crossed a long pool or runnel of
stagnant water, which came in from under the rocks to the south-east,
and climbed into a tight little curving tunnel that led back to it in
a semi-circle. Beyond it, I found myself in a rift chamber, with the
water coming in from under the rocks at one end, and flowing out in
like manner at the other. There seemed to be no egress, till suddenly
I noticed that the niche in which I was sitting was the end of a small
horizontal hole or dry water-pipe, striking off at right angles. But
my companion had found the tunnel too much for him. The sides bristled
with points of rock, and pressed in so close that one could only
wriggle through by fractions of an inch, stretched at full length on
the left side. Now he made a stout attempt to get through underneath,
in the water tunnel. I heard the sound of wallowing, and then my
friend's head and shoulders came splashing in at the bottom of the
cave, his body dragging after through water and mud. But again he stuck
fast, and announced that he would give the thing up.
It was not wise to go on far alone, for fear of being left by any
accident without a light; but in order to make a reconnaissance
for future work I pushed through the water-pipe, and to my delight
found myself in another horizontal tunnel running parallel to the
main chamber. Crawling ahead, first over a clay-lined floor, and
then over splinters of Limestone mixed with stalagmites, I emerged
presently into an open passage, 25 or 30 feet high, with the stream
peacefully reposing in one long pool at the bottom. It appeared to go
on indefinitely, and I might have gone farther, but for the present
determined to leave off the exploration at this point. The parallel
tunnel seemed to be going straight back towards the cave mouth, and
it looked as though it might form a short cut home. As a matter of
fact, this was a right branch striking off from the point where our
man had stuck fast. By crawling in his direction and shouting, I made
him hear, and at last saw his light through a chink only three inches
wide. Fallen blocks of Limestone choked the tunnel at his end, where
it leaves the main passage near the roof, and in its present state
this branch of the cave was practically invisible. We shifted several
big stones, however, and in a few minutes my friend joined me, pleased
enough to find a way out that saved the discomforts of his recent
journey. He had had the misfortune to array himself in white flannels,
and now the state of his garments was so deplorable that he straightway
hid himself in the river, like the pseudo Marquis of Carabas, until
more presentable clothing could be fetched.
[Illustration: LOWER CEIRIOG CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
A veteran cave-hunter from Liverpool gladly joined me in a second
visit to the Ceiriog Cavern. Our host could not be with us, but sent
a village youth as his substitute. This young man was very keen
and plucky, and, as things turned out, saved the situation, for my
speleological friend, to his intense chagrin, failed to get through the
narrow entrance to the parallel tunnel, and the two of us had to finish
the job by ourselves. Climbing along the walls of the water-rift,
we soon found it best to wade straight through the stream bed, and
finally, when the space grew more and more restricted, to crawl through
the water. Toward the end of the rift a small tunnel broke away to the
left, and the water disturbed by our advance flowed into it and away
down a small swallet. Wriggling through, heedless of a wetting, we
came into a small chamber with four exits, each of which we explored,
marking off each with a cross or arrow to prevent our losing the route
back. Every branch led eventually to other points of divergence, and
ultimately to small tunnels or pipes, through which the water flows
in rainy weather into the head of the cavern. Having conscientiously
examined every one, without finding the mythical passage to Oswestry,
we returned to the tunnel of the swallet. One of the bifurcations, it
was interesting to discover, led back unexpectedly into the water-rift.
There were numberless chinks and fissures, and holes in the roof,
leading into this network of passages, all very interesting as a
concise example of the whole history of the formation of a cave; but
the farthest point reached was, by measurement, only a little more than
500 feet from the entrance. Only in places were there stalactites, and
those small ones. There were stalagmite curtains on the walls at one or
two spots, and patches of very white amorphous tufa. Curious filaments
of cave-weed, white and brown, without a vestige of leaves, abounded
throughout the cavern. Not far above the cave mouth I came across the
exit of the water, a beautiful spring, pouring down into the Ceiriog, a
few yards away.
On the top of the hill, in a disused Limestone quarry, there were
traditions of a cave opening that had been covered by a landslip for
some thirty years. A man was set to work digging it out, and a small
fissure was disclosed, the old channel of a tributary leading into
the middle of a cave running north-north-east and south-south-west.
The total length was 172 feet. The water apparently entered at the
top of the left passage and ran away into a low bedding cave to the
right. The floor is wet clay at present, but there are traces of large
stalagmites, including one handsome "beehive"; and the roof is covered
with beautiful white and amber stalactites. Our further attempts to
uncover openings into the Limestone only brought us down to the solid
rock, and we found nothing to confirm the rumour that a cave exists
which carried a stream down to the Ceiriog, 800 feet below.
THE EXPLORATION OF STUMP CROSS CAVERN
The explorers who have done so much work in Derbyshire and
Somersetshire have also carried out extended explorations in some
of the more remote caves of Yorkshire. Recently a party carried out
farther investigations than any previous explorers in Stump Cross
Cavern, on the moors between Wharfedale and Nidderdale. This cavern,
which is named after the ancient boundary mark of Knaresborough
Forest, and is situated near the summit of the moors, 1326 feet above
sea-level, 4-1/2 miles from Pateley Bridge and 11-1/2 from Skipton,
was discovered in 1843 by miners searching for lead, as was the case
with several of the Derbyshire caverns. The Greenhow lead mines are
not far off, and the ground in many parts hereabouts is riddled with
old workings. No place could look more unlikely for caves than the
flat field on the top of the hill, where a few steps lead down to a
doorway into the ground, close to the rough road to Grassington and
Appletreewick.
The party of five, besides myself, Messrs. B. and F. Wightman, J.
W. Puttrell, J. Croft, and H. Bamforth (all members of the Kyndwr
Club), drove up from Bolton Abbey Station by way of Burnsall, and
through various delays did not reach the cave mouth till nine o'clock
on Saturday evening. With our photographic and other apparatus we
descended at once to a level gallery 50 feet or so below the surface,
whence several passages branch off, and there we made a halt. To
give a clear general idea of the structure of this cavern is not
easy. It consists of a number of galleries running in different
directions at different levels, with a few intercommunications, and
many continuations that have gradually become choked with clay and
stalagmite and have for ages been impassable. Descending the steep
stairway in a northerly direction one soon reaches the first of the
natural passages, which bears to the west. A gallery goes off to the
right, west-south-west, and bifurcates, but is uninteresting, the earth
and clay that show its proximity to the surface rendering it very
dirty. In the opposite direction, east-north-east, the corridor where
we had placed the luggage and made our general rendezvous continues to
a distance of 120 feet, and then dwindles away into a low stalactite
grotto. Being so inaccessible and so little known, the various chambers
have never yet been christened, except with the vague and general
names of Upper Caverns and Lower Caverns, which have little meaning
owing to the intricate conformation of the series. From our rendezvous
two important tunnels, called the Lower Caverns, go off in a westerly
direction from the bottom of a natural shaft 20 feet deep. These were
left for the present whilst we went into the Middle Caverns, which
strike off to the north from the same spot, and after many turns and
twists approach the surface in the ravine of Dry Gill, south-east
from the entrance to the caves. Many chambers and passages open out
from this series, the largest and most beautiful being called, very
inappropriately, the Top Cavern. As it leads eventually to a charming
piece of cave scenery that we agreed to call the "Bowling Alley," it
might well be named after this.
[Illustration: IN STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: THE PILLAR, STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
I will now, as clearly as I can, follow the steps of the party in
their exploration of these Middle Caverns, and proceed afterwards with
them into the other series. Descending gradually, and passing many
nooks and corners where exquisite recesses are wreathed about by the
ivory-white incrustations on wall, roof, and floor, we stayed to drink
a ceremonious glass from the icy waters of Jacob's Well, a crystal
pool curtained in with masses of stalactite, and then passed on to one
of the chief show places seen by the public, bearing the modest name
of the Chapel. Its great attraction is the series of massive pillars
of translucent white that seem to uphold the arching roof. In few of
the caverns that I have explored is there anything to compare with the
stateliness of this pure colonnade, the cylindrical shafts of which
are a good deal longer than a man's height, and modelled fantastically
by the irregular deposit of the calc spar. One column in this part of
the cave measured three feet in circumference. A peculiar beauty was
the transparency of the material, a pure glassy white through which
the light of a candle shone clearly, whilst a light inside converted
the hanging folds and clusters of stalactites into a beautiful species
of lantern. On the walls were folds and ridges of snowy stalagmite,
and from the roof hung stalactites of all shapes and sizes, myriads
of threadlike growths hanging in a lacy fringe. Onwards the arcading
and the array of pillars extended into a roomy vault, the end of which
struck upwards, as already explained, south-eastwards, toward Dry
Gill. Though a perceptible draught comes through from the open air,
and the heaps of clay-coated blocks show that a swallet is not far
off above, no way can be forced through without excavation. Augmented
by the arrival of two or three local friends, the party descended,
after lunch, into the Lower Caverns. Unlike the other passages, with
their continual windings and perplexing branches, these two series
of large vaults, narrow tunnels, and almost impracticable crevices
maintain a westerly direction throughout, and the few branches strike
off decisively to the right or to the left. Two of us, being delayed
by some trifling accident, missed the others at the bottom of the
short vertical descent, and, unaware that there were two series of
passages, crept on along the first that opened. This had the appearance
of an old stream-bed, the ground being littered in places with blocks
of Limestone, in others clayey, and in some parts smoothed down by
the rush of a torrent. High in places, it often dwindled to a very
low passage, through which we crept and wriggled after the manner of
the serpent, ofttimes exerting no little strength to push beneath
the projections overhead. Here a shaft of glassy stalagmite, uniting
floor and roof, tried to bar the way, and there it was impossible to
advance without scraping against the vitreous threads that hung like
hairs from the dripping rocks. We shouted to the others who we thought
were ahead of us, but got no reply, and after twenty minutes of this
painful progression began to think of returning. Noticing a hollow
in the right wall, I asked my comrade to wait while I examined it.
Inside was a blind passage and the round orifice of a small tunnel,
into which I thrust my head and shoulders and then crawled forward.
It was not an inviting hole, being wet and an exceedingly tight fit,
and I was on the point of returning when a voice was heard faintly in
the distance. Listening intently and creeping on again, I heard the
voice more distinctly, and shouted. The voice replied from below. I
quickly realised that we two had missed the others, who were following
a lower series of passages somewhere beneath us. Unable to turn round,
and too far advanced to return up this slippery tunnel, I saw there
was nothing for it but to push on, head downwards. In a yard or two,
to my unspeakable relief, the hole grew big enough to turn round in,
just before I got to the end of it, and saw Messrs. Croft and Puttrell,
12 feet below me, holding out their hands and inviting me to drop.
The leap was a little sensational, but I had my turn of enjoyment in
witnessing the grace with which my comrade from above, who was now
courteously invited to follow me through the water-pipe, took the jump
on to the clay floor of the lower tunnel.
We returned later to the other westerly passage, at the top of the
water-pipe. Examining every opening carefully, we noticed many similar
communications between the two series, evidently proving that the upper
was a very ancient stream course that had been tapped successively
until the lower tunnel superseded it as a waterway. Pushing ahead, we
soon realised that we had arrived at the richest part of the whole
cavern, though also the most inaccessible. The roof came down bristling
with spikes and shafts of the purest calcite; the floor was one mass
of crystallisation, ridged all over with the rippling lines that form
as the crust grows under water. This exquisite scene was continued
for hundreds of feet, various and indescribable as a dream, whilst
our march onward over the sharp crystals of the floor and through the
portcullis that closed every chamber was as painful as a nightmare.
Loveliest of all was a long tunnel that once held many pools of water,
half-encrusted over with a film of carbonate. Only one of these lucid
mirrors remained, but the dried-up basins were as beautiful now as
ever, with the bottom and sides covered by a coraline growth delicate
in colour as in form. At the end was a small dome-like chamber, where
we extended ourselves for a hard-earned rest before facing the toils
and tribulations of the journey back.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL: STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
We thought this expedition to the lower series had exhausted the
principal beauties of Stump Cross Cavern, but we were wrong. On our way
to rejoin the other men in the Middle Cavern we were much impressed by
two large curtains of stalactite, one of them folded and wrinkled,
and the other hanging straight down without a curve, but both striped
with deep bands of crimson, orange, and golden yellow when a piece
of magnesium was burnt behind them. These were equal in extent and
brilliance to anything I have ever seen, even in Cox's Cavern at
Cheddar. A round tunnel, ribbed and groined with glistening dripstone,
and a broad low arch set with pillars and string-like stalactites
stretched from top to bottom, led into the long, wide chamber that we
dubbed the "Bowling Alley," on account of the stumps and pedestals of
stalagmite that stud the floor between the pillars. Beyond it a short
passage leads into a grotto to the right, and a very difficult one
continues some distance to the left.
It was now past three in the morning. Tired and battered to the point
of exhaustion, but delighted with an exploration that far exceeded
in interest all we had looked for, we returned to the cave mouth. An
unpleasant-looking bull which had with great suspicion watched us
make our nocturnal entry into the regions below had, greatly to our
relief, got tired of waiting, and the coast was clear. Out of the
everlasting silence and the shadows, lit so rarely by the glare of the
magnesium and the beams of the limelight, we returned again, with the
surprise that never fails, to the light of the heavens. Dusk was on
the far-extending moors and hills, daylight was creeping on over the
sky, a pair of larks saluted us with a hilarious song. Our driver was
soon awake at the little inn, two furlongs away, and in the freshness
of the morning we crawled down the break-neck road to Appletreewick,
Bolton Woods and the Wharfe growing in light before us; and then at an
exhilarating pace rolled up the dale to the Red Lion at Burnsall.
SWALLET-HUNTING IN DERBYSHIRE
"GIANT'S HOLE" AND "MANIFOLD"
Between Sparrowpit and the head of the Winnats the old road from
Chapel-en-le-Frith to Castleton skirts what is, geologically, one of
the most important localities in Derbyshire. It runs along the side
of a shallow upland valley, about 1200 feet above tide-level and two
miles long, which is bounded on two sides by the curve of Rushup Edge
and on the other two by Elden Hill, Windy Knoll, and other Limestone
acclivities. One of the great faults of the Pennine chain traverses
this valley longitudinally, the Yoredale strata having been thrown
down to the level of the Limestone, so that the middle of the valley
is the boundary between the Yoredale rocks, shale grits, and milestone
grit on the north, and the Limestone plateau of Mid-Derbyshire on the
south. The valley is completely encircled by higher ground; there
is no egress for streams on the surface. Accordingly other modes
of drainage are to be looked for, and they will be discovered in a
numerous series of swallets situated along the line of the fault, the
water that runs over the impervious shales perforating the Limestone
as soon as it comes in contact with it. This shallow valley, in fact,
is the gathering ground for the waters that pour into the abyss of
the Speedwell Cavern, traverse Peak Cavern, and make their way to the
open air at Russet Well and other springs at Castleton. That such is
the case has long been proved by observations of the temperature and
colour of the waters, and by tracing chaff and other things thrown into
the upland streams. But there exist hardly enough data to establish the
theory of the French speleologist, M. Martel, that Peak's Hole Water
comes from Perryfoot, and the water of Russet Well from Coalpit Mine,
near Sparrowpit. All that is definitely known is that these waters run
through the massive Limestone for distances varying from two to three
miles and reappear in Castleton, 600 feet beneath. Whether they unite
into one or two large streams, which form considerable chambers and
caverns in the inaccessible region beyond the farthest known parts of
Speedwell and Peak Caverns, is an interesting question, that tempts one
to answer boldly in the affirmative, since the action of underground
streams in Somerset and Yorkshire seems to justify the assumption, if
we take into account the extent of the vertical joints eaten away by
the water in its descent of 600 feet, and the effects of periodical
floods. In Somerset, in a situation exactly similar, two caves of 600
feet fall and 2000 feet horizontal measurement have recently been
discovered by opening similar swallet-holes. Is there any hope of
finding such hypothetical cavern or caverns here by exploring, and if
necessary opening artificially, any of the swallets between Perryfoot
and Giant's Hole? The investigations recently carried out by a friend
and myself do not make us hopeful that if there are such caverns they
will ever be made accessible.
We began our work at Giant's Hole, which opens in the bottom of a
little gorge between Peak's Hill and Middle Hill. The brooklet that
runs in at the cave mouth was very low, and we passed almost dryshod
over the rough stones that cover the stream-bed for some 60 feet.
Giant's Hole has an arched entrance about seven feet high, and the
first part of the cave retains the same form. Then the walls contract,
and the cave takes the shape of a deep and narrow canyon, cut through
solid rock, with the stream coursing along at the bottom over little
falls and waterslides and through pools that are not easy to pass
without a wetting. One hundred and fifty feet from the entrance to the
cave is a lofty rift, near the top of which an upper gallery turns
west, the general direction of the main passage being southerly.
Passing this, we followed the stream downhill for another fifty or
sixty yards, and were then brought to a standstill by a partial choke.
At this point a quantity of stones and gravel comes within two feet of
the roof, and the water is dammed back in a pool a foot deep, so that
there is barely a foot of clear space between water and roof.
Returning to the steep climb to the upper gallery, we scaled the wet
and slippery rocks, and found ourselves on a shelf over the canyon.
The shelf gave ingress to the gallery, which rose gently in a westerly
direction, with frequent twists and turns, and then turned north. In
150 feet it divided. We scrambled on; but all the branches evidently
approached the surface of the ground, becoming earthy, and we soon
found it impossible to get any farther. This upper level, which for
our purposes was of less interest than the lower, is incrusted with
deposits throughout its length of 80 or 90 yards. There are stalagmite
curtains and sheets of tufa on the walls, the older rocks on the floor
are cemented together with a crust of polished stalagmite, and some
of the boulders are covered with shining enamel. We found it best to
use an Alpine rope in getting back to the lower level, the ledges
underneath not being easy to find by candlelight. Outside the sun was
shining brightly, and the light that streamed in at the cave mouth,
through the ferns and flowers and grasses that encircled it, was
stained a fairy-like green.
Continuing our way through the gorge between the sharp Limestone
knoll of Peak's Hill and the bulkier Middle Hill, we followed a stream
that comes down from Rushup Edge, perforates the Limestone base of
Peak's Hill, and comes out on the other side at a small cave. In three
furlongs this stream is swallowed under a cliff some 20 feet high, the
ingress at present being through a series of holes, where the water
makes an intermittent roaring, almost like the throb of a hydraulic
ram, as if a siphon were momentarily discharging. Older rifts are
seen in the same line of cliffs, and can be penetrated for 30 feet,
but are now deserted by the water save at flood-time. Farther on is
a deep depression in the hillside, big enough to engulf a house. It
is supposed locally to have been produced by the falling in of a cave
roof, but it is more probably an independent swallet, one of a series,
nearly all funnel-shaped and long out of working order, that lie along
a higher level in the Limestone than those that occupy the line of
demarcation from the shales. The biggest of them is Bull Pit, which
we come to later. Next to the last pair of large openings into which
streams are running, and which may be called the Peak's Hill Swallets,
since their waters rise out of Peak's Hill, we come to a large
irregular series of trough-shaped hollows converging on another swallet
at this same geological border-line. The openings here are all little
ones. But the next swallet has a cave above it, into which we entered.
It does not go far, but it has two ascending branches that can be
traced to two small depressions in the Limestone where tiny affluents
have percolated and cut for themselves little tunnels in the rock.
The next swallet beyond this has but a small opening, although the
hollow cut out by its rivulets through the shales is hundreds of square
yards in area. An abrupt cliff walls in the hollow on the Limestone
side, only a few paces from which are naked patches of Yoredale rocks,
clearly defining the boundary of the two series.
We now came to one of the most interesting openings that we have met
with. It lies about 200 yards north of Bull Pit. As often happens,
immediately above the swallet, in the Limestone, is a deep chasm almost
perforating the escarpment. At the base of the escarpment is a rounded
archway with a turbulent stream running in. After securing a photograph
we enter, and make our way down stream easily for a little distance;
then the cave twists and narrows, and at a distance of 40 feet or so
we are disappointed to find the channel too confined for us to force
our way farther. Outside we had observed that the basin-shaped area
had been flooded not long ago, and inside the vegetable débris that
was plastered over the walls and roof showed that the swallet must
have been completely choked during the recent wet weather. But the
peculiarity of this swallet was that the solid mass of rock through
which the stream had carved its way was not ordinary Limestone, but
beautifully veined and crystalline like marble, and its surface smooth
and polished. It had very much the same appearance as the marmorised
Limestone found in the neighbourhood of intrusive lavas, such as those
near Tideswell. By the action of the water it had been sculptured into
fantastic shapes; in one place a corner had been cut through and a
small pillar left, joined to the rock at top and bottom. We scrambled
with some difficulty into the chasm behind the swallet. At the bottom,
on the same side as the existing swallet, was the broad and lofty arch
of a cave, which went only a few yards in, otherwise it would have
broken through the escarpment. Right above the keystone of the arch was
a weathered group of stalactites hanging from a ledge, and under them
the broken stalagmite floor of a tiny grotto. It is a rare thing to
find such deposits in the open air, and doubtless it indicates that the
chasm was formed by the destruction of a larger cave. A thick deposit
of earthy mud covered the floor, and at one side a big hole penetrated
this to a depth of six feet, the work of a stream that had perhaps not
run for ages. This deposit, though dry, was so soft that I nearly sank
through into the hole. We found four birds' nests in this cave mouth,
with eggs and young in them, and were disappointed not to come across
the egg of a cuckoo that flew out the moment before we entered. In the
wiry grass not far away from the top of the cavity we discovered a
lark's nest with two eggs in it.
Bull Pit lies in the wood just above this opening, nearer the road.
It is a great open abyss, walled on three sides by crags of Limestone
nearly a hundred feet high, and with trees growing all round the
edges. This, no doubt, is a very ancient swallet that has not been
in operation for ages--belongs, perhaps, to the same period as Elden
Hole, which opens 200 or 300 feet higher, a mile away, on Elden Hill. A
little way on, near Perryfoot, we come in sight of another very ancient
cavity, on the side of Gautries Hill. It is a gaping pit about 70 feet
deep, with a noble arch inside, spanning the entrance to a broad cave.
At present the cave mouth is silted up with sand and clay. All these
rocky openings are the lurking-places of beautiful ferns and mosses;
the feathery fronds of the Limestone polypody, the late primroses,
various saxifrages, and the delicate foliage of herb robert making a
brave show. The wilder birds take refuge there. A crow flew out of the
hole on Gautries Hill, and one day on approaching Elden Hole I was
startled by a dense cloud of jackdaws, more than a hundred, suddenly
rushing out. Farther down, from 50 to 100 feet lower, a host of
starlings had built their nests on the walls of the chasm. Disturbed,
they came flying up in twos and threes, beating the air in painful
efforts to wing their way straight up and out of the hole.
At Perryfoot a stream is engulfed which M. Martel considers to be
the source of Peak's Hole Water, and to be identical with the stream
that flows through the inmost passages of Peak Cavern. It now runs
into a cleft that is too small to be explored. But at a comparatively
recent date it was swallowed in a number of large fissures in a
crescent-shaped wall of Limestone 100 yards away. Most of these
openings are impracticable, but at the extreme east I had already
reconnoitred a promising cleft which we now proceeded to examine
thoroughly. This complicated swallet, with the passages behind it,
is known locally as "Manifold." Going east for 35 feet, the fissure
divides, one passage striking up towards the surface and the other
turning south. We soon had to crawl, the passage being very low,
narrow, and lined with objectionable stones. After 30 feet more we
came to a wider place, with a sort of chimney on one side. Here was
the sole mark of humanity that we found in this cave, a stake that had
apparently been used to climb into the chimney. Nothing was gained
by climbing it, so we squeezed our way along the main passage. Now
the tunnel grew into a high but narrow canyon where we could stand
upright, then it dwindled to a tunnel again, generally descending, but
occasionally rising in what was once a siphon. We passed one or two
branches, at the most important of which the principal tunnel curved
to the left and descended a little more steeply over some small ledges
and basins brimming with water. We began to feel sanguine about the
wished-for cavern, but presently the diameter of the tunnel grew so
small that we could not advance another yard. My companion was some
distance behind with his candle out, and I would not make a move until
he had got it relighted, the consequences of both candles going out at
once being unpleasant and possibly dangerous. For a long way we could
not turn round, and had to crawl feet foremost. Just after repassing
the junction my companion shouted that we were going wrong. He did
not recognise the passage. I remained at the junction whilst he went
farther and ascertained that it was the right channel after all. Then
I examined the branch. It ascended 20 feet and then divided, the left
branch, which was earthy, plainly striking up to the surface, the right
branch going back towards the swallet. Undoubtedly there must be quite
a labyrinth of dry water channels to correspond with the numerous
series of openings in the cliff, but the one we explored seemed to be
the largest and most practicable. Very tired and hot, not to mention
the dirt, we made our way back to the exit, glad to feel that our day's
work was done.
The one thing that had impressed us most during our explorations was
that all these swallets and water channels are cut through solid rock.
Only when the rocks are shattered or disintegrated, as in the cases
alluded to in Somerset, would there be any possibility of enlarging a
swallet artificially. And though we had penetrated to a distance of
400 feet at Manifold we had not found the passages growing more roomy
nor enlarged by the accession of tributaries. So far, the prospect
of opening up the large fissures and chambers that must surely exist
deeper in the rock seems unfavourable, unless the main channel of
Giant's Hole can be unblocked.
E. A. B.
EXPLORING NEW CAVES IN DERBYSHIRE
The new and exciting game of cave-exploring has been pursued so
strenuously during the last four years that one would almost think
the possibilities of fresh discoveries had been exhausted. When a
little while ago, therefore, rumours came in of a big cavern in
Lathkill Dale, so big that people were said to have been lost in its
recesses, they were received not a little incredulously. But after
the usual allowances had been made for exaggeration and myth, and
the alleged casualties reduced to the misfortunes of a sheep-dog who
spent fourteen days in the cavern, probably rock-bound on a ledge, it
still appeared that there was something worth exploring. Accordingly
two friends, Messrs. W. H. and G. D. Williams, who were residing near
Matlock, kindly undertook to find the cave or caves, and see what was
to be done; and a native of Middleton was commissioned to make further
inquiries. First, a letter arrived with the disappointing intelligence
that there was no cave on the Lathkill, nothing but old mine workings:
but hard on its heels came a wire to say that a cave had been located
and was being explored tentatively. Then further messages arrived with
mention of another opening, but which was the reputed great cavern was
a question to be settled only by a regular exploration.
A day was fixed for the campaign, and my section of the party drove
up early in the morning from Bakewell Station on the Midland. Our
friends were waiting at the head of Ricklow Dale, a mile below the
little village of Thornyash, and we proceeded without delay down that
streamless canyon, first over smooth greensward between the grim
Limestone walls, then hopping from point to point of huge, close-packed
fragments, until we reached the uppermost cave mouth. It has a very
imposing entrance, solid piers supporting a massive lintel, about 20
feet wide. It opens in the west cliff of Ricklow Dale, at a height
of 690 feet above sea-level, and is evidently the source at times of
a large stream. Ricklow Dale is really the upper part of Lathkill
Dale, above the junction with Cales Dale, and the head streams of the
Lathkill originally flowed down it from the neighbourhood of Monyash.
But at a later period, seemingly, the stream betook itself to an
underground course, until it emerged into the open from this cave.
At the present time the cave is swept by water only when the deeper
cavities of the rock overflow. This happened, for instance, a few weeks
ago, when the cave discharged a considerable stream, and was for the
time being quite impenetrable to man. As the Messrs. Williams had been
into this cavern a day or two before, we left it for the present, in
order to try some unexplored openings farther down the dale.
On the same side of the dale they had detected the entrance to
something, whether cave or mine they knew not, covered in by stones and
earth. With pick and crowbar an entrance was soon exposed, not much
larger than a badger's hole, and we crept through. At once it became
evident that the hole was not a natural one; it was no "self-cave,"
as the country people say, but an ordinary level or a sough draining
a lead mine. A pool of water filled the tunnel from side to side,
stretching away into the distance; and as we preferred, if wading were
necessary, to postpone it as long as we could, we left this alone for
the present, and went on with our quest at two other spots in the
entrance to Cales Dale. Needless to say, we had missed no opportunity
of cross-examining the inhabitants of the district, but the results
had been absurdly inaccurate and conflicting. Already a crowd of
rustic onlookers had gathered round, but the only individual among
them who knew anything about the region inside was the afore-mentioned
sheep-dog, who could tell us nothing. He, too, was the only one who
showed any inclination to join our underground party. In the upper
Cales Dale Cavern, as we named it, he actually went ahead of us, and
put our candles in jeopardy with the spirited wagging of his tail.
This cave is doubtless a very ancient channel of the Cales Dale Water,
which now runs through hidden crevices till it meets the Lathkill;
the span of its antiquity may be gauged by the fact that Cales Dale
has been cut 200 feet deeper, and the cave left high and dry, since
it was a regular stream-course. I say dry in a comparative sense, for
we quickly found ourselves confronted by a short passage of extreme
dampness. The main channel runs west for 150 feet, and then divides,
both branches dwindling rapidly to mere water-pipes. But near the
entrance a branch strikes off to the right. Although the roof came
down on our backs as we crawled, we managed to keep just above the
surface of a shallow pool that lay in the middle: but a second pool was
almost entirely mopped up by our journey to and fro. The passage ended
in a chamber where two can stand upright. Every bit of this little
nook is covered with a creamy-white and brownish coating of amorphous
carbonate. It is like a small empty shrine, with heavy curtains flowing
over its walls, their folds and ridges flecked with innumerable scaly
projections, like some delicate frilling. The rest of the cave is
devoid of charm, though there are interesting masses of white tufa on
the walls, as soft as putty.
At the bottom of the dale, almost exactly under and parallel to this
upper cave, is a larger one, which we called the Lower Cales Dale
Cavern. It is entirely concealed by bushes and nettles, and we had
to remove a mass of blocks and detritus before we laid bare the two
entrances. Even then, room could not be made for the broad-shouldered
member of the party to get in. At the end of 15 feet of very tight
wriggling there was more head room. We were in a straight tunnel,
arched as evenly as a culvert, the floor covered with the gravelly
deposits of a stream. Evidently it is a channel still used frequently
by the Cales Dale Water. It ran due west for 300 feet, with room in
most places for us to crawl on hands and knees: then it bent one
point to the north. Here the stream had thrown up a low dam, behind
which it had bored a series of holes on the south side, through which
most of it gets away. Soon a wall of rock, shaped like the steps of
a weir, confronted us, at the top of which we found ourselves in a
wide, irregular chamber, the height of whose roof varied from 6 feet
to 18 feet. We called it the Pot Hole Cavern, because of the number
of water-worn cavities in the roof. The biggest of these cavities
appearing to give entrance to an upper gallery, I climbed into it with
the aid of a comrade's shoulder. It contained a pretty grotto, lined
with incrustations, but led to nothing. Deep horizontal fissures yawned
on every side of the Pot Hole Chamber, and vertical joints split the
interposing strata. All the exits, however, came to an end speedily
except two, one extending a point east of south, the other a point east
of north. I explored the northern branch before my friends arrived. It
had several short ramifications, in some of which there were trails of
rabbits, and other evidences of a communication with the surface, such
as pieces of sodden wood and deposits of soil; but it gave ingress for
barely 50 feet. The other branch seemed more important, and as we were
tired out and hungry, we left it until we had returned to the dale for
rest and lunch, a waste of time, unfortunately, for it ran only for 100
feet farther.
[Illustration: RICKLOW CAVE IN FLOOD.
_Photo by G. D. Williams._]
We crept over a pavement of fractured blocks, into a broad, low passage
that seemed to have been hewn by giants out of the solid Limestone.
All around were the marks of a powerful, swirling current, that had
split and torn the rocks asunder, and bored its way through their
joints; yet not a grain of sand or a speck of mud was visible on their
cleaned and polished surface. Fissures and passages twisted away at the
side, but returned in a few yards to the main corridor. In the roof
were discernible the clean-cut hollows whence slabs of Limestone had
fallen that still cumbered the floor. The large chamber that we reached
finally was bestrewn and heaped up with such masses, and all the ways
of egress save one were entirely blocked up. This very soon came to an
abrupt termination in a bell-shaped cavity, floored with a crust of
stalagmite. But there were narrow fissures, a few inches only in width,
running away in many directions; a strong draught made the candles
gutter; and the occasional presence of great volumes of water was made
evident by the damage done to some of the incrustations. There was no
sign or sound of flowing water now; the silence was as profound and
impressive as the darkness. Yet this rock-strewn chamber was once the
birthplace of a river. Hither, from countless fissures, the streamlets
gathered together and poured through the hidden places of the hill, now
in a rippling brook, and now in a torrent, crashing and rending. At
present the Cales Dale stream finds its way to the Lathkill river by
still more secret channels. But at no infrequent times, even yet, the
torrent thunders over the waterfall in the Pot Hole Cavern, the swallet
is inundated, and a flood pours on through the long tunnel, and so into
the open stream-course in the dale, now dried up and covered with
vegetation. Proofs of this were legible all around us.
Returning up the dale, we closed the mouth of the artificial level, and
went back to the Ricklow Cavern. Although the portal is so majestic,
the passage becomes anything but commodious at the end of a few paces.
Once more we had to crawl over hard, water-worn rock, deeply fissured
and thrown out of the horizontal; our galled knees and elbows could
scarcely be induced to go at all, and the pace was miserably slow.
Then the roof came down so close in a horizontal fissure of huge
extent, that there was nothing for it but to wriggle. My friends had
ascertained that 280 feet of this work leads into a lofty chamber. It
is one of those long, vertical fissures, not wide but enormously high,
that are common in the Castleton caves. There were indications of
galleries overhead, but we were too much exhausted to attempt climbing
without a ladder. Only one exit was practicable, which led in 20 feet
into just such another hollow, but still wider and uglier of aspect.
Filling the cavity to a height of 30 feet was a mountain of shattered
rocks, flung together pell-mell and wedged loosely. When we climbed
it, the light of our candles showed that the structure was hollow, and
hardly more durable in appearance than a house of cards. Some of the
rocks were held by points and corners, swinging on their long axes; a
touch sent others clattering down, as we crept with the utmost caution
up the adjoining wall. It was as if the interior of the hill had been
rent apart by an earthquake, and the headlong stream of rocks caught
suddenly and held by the closing in of the fracture. We clambered to
the summit of this hollow mass of ruin, and lit some magnesium wire.
The formless walls went up into a dark void above us, their ledges
fringed with glistening spikes and tendrils of transparent stalactite,
revealed by the glare. There had been visitors here before. Scratched
on the walls, but partially coated over by a crystalline enamel, were
the initials "H. B.--R. A.," and the date 1817; other scrawls were
indecipherable. No doubt this was the cave whose legendary renown had
reached our ears. Getting down our shattered staircase was a more
formidable job than the ascent. One stone, as big as a table, rocked
like a see-saw when we set foot on it.
Stalactites were not numerous in these caves, which are not only very
humid, but continually swept by water. Animal remains were plentiful,
all recent, bones being carried in by beasts of prey and deposited
by floods. As this process must have been going on for ages, the two
Cales Dale caverns would probably yield good results to palæontological
research.
A comic incident cheered my fatigued comrades when we regained the
open air. In the morning I had brought my family up from Bakewell
Station for a day in the country, a work of supererogation that now
placed me in a curious predicament. The waggonette had gone off to
pick them up for the early train, and, to my distress, I found the
driver had relieved us of all the luggage, including the rücksack
which held my clothes, not to mention boots, pipe, and railway ticket.
The alternative stared me in the face of proceeding to town in slimy
overalls or in attire of dangerous slightness. But the broad-shouldered
friend came to the rescue with his cave jacket, a garment that fell
about me like a baggy greatcoat, hiding the worst deformities, and with
battered hobnailers at one extremity, and a cap that had more stiff
clay than cloth in it at the other, I made the best of my way home
under the cover of darkness.
A VISIT TO MITCHELSTOWN CAVE
Mitchelstown Cave, the largest ever discovered in the British Isles,
is not situated at the town of that name, in county Cork, but 10 miles
away, in Tipperary, on the road to Cahir. Its entrance is in a small
Limestone hill in the broad vale of the Blackwater, midway between the
Knockmealdown Mountains and the Sandstone ridges and tables of the
Galtees. The cave was laid open in the course of quarrying operations
in 1833, from which time to the present the work of exploration has
gone on progressively, if at long intervals, and may, perhaps, continue
until the extent of the passages known is considerably enlarged. It
seems now to be entirely forgotten that the spot has been famous from
time immemorial for a wonderful stalactite cavern. In October 1777,
Arthur Young was taken into a cave, known as Skeheenarinky, after the
townland, but the old Irish name of which was Oonakareaglisha. "The
opening," he says, "is a cleft of rock in a Limestone hill, so narrow
as to be difficult to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about
twenty steps, and then found myself in a vault of 100 feet long and
50 or 60 high: a small hole, on the left, leads from this a winding
course of, I believe, not less than half an Irish mile." He goes on to
describe the beautiful scenery of the cave, which, he says, is much
superior to the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, "and Lord Kingsborough, who
has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be
compared with it."[5] The odd thing is that the very existence of this
cavern seems to have been forgotten since the discovery of its much
finer neighbour. Yet the trees and brushwood guarding its mouth are in
full view of the well-frequented entrance to the other cave; and Dr.
Lyster Jameson, who was with Monsieur Martel on his visit in 1895, told
me some years ago that an opening had been pointed out to him into a
lower series of caves, which I have little hesitation in identifying
with Young's cavern and the cave mouth I allude to.
[5] Arthur Young's _Tour in Ireland_; ed. by A. W. Hutton. 2 vols.
Bell, 1892. See pages 464-465, vol. i.
[Illustration: A GREAT PILLAR: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: A FAIRY LANTERN: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker_.]
Dr. C. A. Hill and I visited the spot in August 1905, intending to
go through all the accessible parts of the huge series now known
collectively as Mitchelstown Cave, and also to examine the series
referred to by Dr. Jameson, who had been unable to undertake their
exploration. Our impression was that little or nothing was known of
the latter series, and it was not until after our return from Ireland
that we were startled and puzzled by turning up an account in _The
Postchaise Companion_ (1805 ed., pp. 301, 302) of a cave in this place
already known and celebrated thirty years before the discovery of the
Mitchelstown Cave. The explanation probably is that the guides find
one cave a more profitable investment than two. To show the second (or
rather the first, since the other is the usurper) would involve twice
as much labour, but would hardly bring in twice the income. Since 1833,
then, the original cavern has been suppressed, so successfully that
even the omniscient Baddeley never suspected that there are two series,
although he had read Young's description and confused it with the
other. Dr. Hill let me down a few feet into the old cave-mouth, just
such a narrow slit as Young depicts; but we found that the rock was cut
away immediately beneath, and without more hauling power, the only way
to get down was to use a long ladder, and this we could not obtain.
The guide told us that the hole led into nothing of any interest, and
that the entrance had been used as a receptacle for deceased dogs
and other excreta. This effectually took away any wish to pursue our
researches in that direction for the present. Still, the old cave ought
not to be lost sight of; and we propose, if no one else undertakes the
work, to explore the lower series on some future visit to Ireland. The
unscientific explorers of a hundred years ago may have left discoveries
to future workers as important as those which remained for so many
years after the early explorations in the neighbouring great cave.
What was done in the latter during the first year after the discovery
may be read in an article by Dr. Apjohn in the _Dublin Penny Journal_
for December 27, 1834, an article reproduced from the _Dublin
Geological Journal_, vol. i. Dr. Apjohn carried out a most elaborate
and painstaking survey to points considerably beyond the second
great cavity, now known as the "House of Lords," but failed to reach
"O'Leary's Cave," the key of the farther ramifications, or to explore
the tunnels connected with "The River." His plan, worked out to scale,
and showing the differences of level with great minuteness, remained
the only map of the cave until M. Martel's survey in 1895. Meanwhile
various adventurers had got to more distant points, particularly to
the long chain of caverns running east to Brogden's, at the end of
which M. Martel's chart stops. The French explorer does not seem to
have broken any fresh ground; but his plan, which appeared in _The
Irish Naturalist_ for April 1896, with an account of his visit, was a
brilliant achievement, especially when the short time at his disposal
is considered, six hours for the whole of the cavern. Parts of this
chart were only hastily sketched in, either from a rapid survey or
from information supplied by the guide, as M. Martel explained to me in
a conversation some time ago, and errors of detail were, under these
conditions, unavoidable. For instance, "O'Leary's Cave" is much larger
than appears on the plan, and the "Chimney" is not situated at the
far end of a passage, but actually opens in the floor of "O'Leary's
Cave." The caves running east, again--O'Callaghan's and Brogden's--are
not such a simple series of straight passages as they seem on the
chart; our guide had considerable difficulty in threading his way
among the various bifurcations. As will transpire later, there is a
mystery connected with the name of "Cust's Cave," the real Cust's being
in a totally different part of the series, and a different chamber
altogether in shape. Unfortunately we did not go prepared to carry out
any survey, believing that all this had been done; so that we can at
the most point out some places where the existing plans are at fault.
We were also unfortunate in not being prepared to take a large number
of photographs, the accounts we had read not leading us to anticipate
the actual grandeur and extent of the scenery. M. Martel compares the
Mitchelstown Cave with such famous continental caverns as those of
Adelsberg, Padirac, Dargilan, and Han-sur-Lesse, and it comes off but
poorly in such a comparison. I have seen his lantern slides of these
caves, and after exploring all the most beautiful caves discovered as
yet in England, I venture to say there is not one English cave that
would not come off badly if set beside any of these. Compared, however,
with other British caverns, that of Mitchelstown can hold its own
easily; though individual chambers may be surpassed, there is nothing
like the same extent of brilliant subterranean scenery anywhere else in
these islands.
The tourist portion of the cavern, a fraction of the whole, but yet
a considerable extent of underground passages, is deservedly much
frequented. The spacious vault, nicknamed the "House of Commons," vies
in dimensions and dignity with those in the Peak of Derbyshire, but
it is far surpassed by the "House of Lords." Seventeen massy columns
of pure white stalactite, surmounting enormous cones of terraced
stalagmite, tower from floor to roof of this impressive dome, some
140 feet in span and 70 feet high. The grandeur of its height is lost
somewhat through the mountain of fallen blocks that rises from the
entrance almost to the apex of the roof. Behind this vast accumulation
a sort of ambulatory runs round under the walls, opening here and there
into side chapels and irregular cavities, all bountifully adorned with
the fairy-like work of the Limestone carbonate. The so-called "Tower of
Babel" is a majestic pillar rising from the summit of a pyramidal mass
of stalagmite, 40 feet in circumference, that being also the measure
of its total height. A crowd of other Limestone freaks, some aptly and
some incongruously nicknamed, and many extremely beautiful, are found
in this chamber.
The cavities and passages that lie to the north-east of the first great
chamber are not often visited. They start from "Sadlier's Cave," which
is not large but bewilderingly picturesque, and contains a superb
pillar, "Lot's Wife," almost of the prodigious size of the "Tower."
The "Kingston Gallery" is a straight rift, nearly 300 feet long, but
only two or three feet wide, with sheets of snowy white sweeping down
the walls, and breaking into whole garlands of scrolls and pennons and
curtains, which in places have been thrown right across the gallery,
dividing it into lofty cells. Manholes, actually, had to be cut through
these diaphanous partitions to create a passage. From the cave at the
end, a lower passage, the Sand Cave, comes back in a parallel direction
to the point of junction, and from the quantities of fine sand on
its bed, was evidently an important stream-course after the Kingston
Gallery was drained of its waters. It has one unique feature, the
succession of parallel rifts, called the "Closets," which are connected
together by rents in their dividing walls. Some of these are extremely
narrow, and by candlelight it is impossible to see any limit to their
height, depth, or length. Similar widenings of the master joints and
degradation of the Limestone separating them, are a special feature of
the Mitchelstown Cave, and the key to its ground-plan, with its maze of
right-angles.
The great eastern vault, the Garret, which is only 19 feet below the
level of the entrance, does not fall, as stated by M. Martel, towards a
series of choked swallets, that originally carried the waters farther
down, but rises towards inlets from the surface. Its fretted roof has
fallen in at the upper end. A little to the south is a nameless series
of charming vestibules, grottoes, and tunnels, meandering towards the
insignificant lakelet called the "River." Here we spent the whole of
our first day. It is possible, we learned, to reach the easternmost
series of caverns by this route, which also takes one into the square
cavity designated as "Cust's Cave" on M. Martel's chart. We chose the
other way, that is, through the passage from the "House of Lords" to
the "Cathedral."
In the tangle of contrary passages into which this leads we lost
ourselves several times, in the absence of the guide, and only
recovered the thread by careful observation with the compass.
Eventually we found the way into "O'Leary's Cave," which struck us as
one of the most impressive chambers in the whole cavern. It is not
only much larger than is shown on the plan, but different in shape.
Apparently it is the most recent of all in formation, although this may
be only an appearance caused by the falling in of the roof. Unlike the
other parts, where every bit of débris is sealed down by a glistening
layer of stalagmite, this great cavity is heaped high with loose
fragments, as free from incrustation as if the ceiling had collapsed
yesterday. So wild and vast is the configuration of "O'Leary's Cave"
that, standing on the lower side and looking across a depression in
the middle to the ascending ground opposite, one fancied oneself, in
the dim candlelight, gazing across a valley to a range of hills in the
distance. We spent some time vainly searching for the horizontal tunnel
supposed to end at the "Chimney," and before the guide joined us were
lucky enough to hit upon a string of chambers that seem never to have
been entered before. These run, so far as we could make out without
actual measurement, right over the O'Callaghan series. In fact there
were openings in the floor which we might have explored but for the
aggressive and tenacious clay bedaubing everything, apparently leading
down to these nether passages. Brilliant draperies swept down to the
bold masses of stalagmite below the walls, and long crystalline wands
hung from the roof in thousands, so that we could not move without
committing havoc in this pendulous forest.
Conducted by the guide, we now descended the "Chimney" into the
tortuous passages leading to the "Scotchman's Cave," which lies under
O'Leary's. It is a small but very beautiful chamber, giving one the
idea that it has been hollowed out in a mountain of Parian marble. Now
we struck into the long series running east through "O'Callaghan's
Cave" to the farthest point yet reached. This was one of the principal
channels by which the ancient waters descended, from openings now
unknown and inaccessible, to the labyrinth of forsaken waterways we
had left behind. Our guide, who astonished us by the rapidity with
which he got over difficult ground, was unable to make very speedy
progress here. The ramifications are extremely hard to unravel, and he
had only been in this part twice before, in 1895 with M. Martel, and
twenty-five years earlier, as a boy, with his father. Eventually, after
many wanderings, we reached "Brogden's Cave," where hitherto all direct
progress had stopped. On the south side (not on the north, as shown
in the chart) is the "Chapel," which M. Martel rightly described as
the most beautiful thing in the whole cavern. It is an arched recess,
canopied with stalagmite of the purest and most delicate lustre.
Whilst my companion rested, I joined the guide, who was hunting for the
passage to a cave where his father had taken him thirty-five years ago.
We discovered the opening at last, and after wriggling and squirming
round innumerable twists and corners, we dropped over a low cliff,
beyond which a short wriggle brought us into a long and lofty cave,
magnificently walled and pillared with snowy calcite. Floor, walls,
and roof were a spotless white, wrought into intricate reliefs and
embroideries by the flow of the freakish stalagmite. The guide stated
that this was "Cust's Cave," and the one beyond, where our progress
stopped, he called the "Demon's Cave." M. Martel's chart shows a
"Cust's Cave" of a totally different shape and size, near the "River";
and, as there is no mention extant of any cave beyond Brogden's, I take
it that this, the real Cust's, was unknown to him. Unfortunately I had
followed the guide without bringing the plan or a compass, unaware
that we were going so far from the known parts of the cavern; and
now, to my disgust, the guide was unable to find the way out. Twice
he descended into a hole at our end of the cave, and emerged with the
intelligence, "It's not there, sir." We ransacked every opening in
wall and floor, but failed to hit on any exit whatever. The guide grew
alarmed, and rushed off to the farther end of the cave, wondering if
we had completely lost our sense of direction. He tried whistling; but
the hundreds of feet of rock between us and our companion were well
able to guard their ancient silence. Tired with these exertions, he
next proposed that we should put out the lights and rest for a while.
Whether his idea was to husband the only provisions we had, I could not
say; but at any rate the situation did look serious, since rescuers
might have taken days to discover our position in this remote corridor,
of whose very existence, probably, our guide was the only man in
Ireland that knew anything. But where there is a way in, there is a way
out, as I very well knew from several similar experiences; and after a
pretty bad half-hour, we did manage to recover the trail, and got back
to our friend, who had been completely mystified by our disappearance,
and was almost as relieved as we by our return. After many hours of
fatiguing work, we were glad to follow our guide back through the
labyrinthine passages, by the most direct route to the open air.
Our chief regret was that we had relied too much on the completeness of
previous surveys, and had not taken materials for correcting the map.
We had secured many photographs of the earlier chambers, but had not
taken the camera into the innermost cavities, where photography would
be most profitable. M. Martel's dictum can still be endorsed that there
is a great field for research in the Mitchelstown Cavern.
INDEX
Abergele, 123.
_Abîmes, Les_, 34, 39.
Adelsberg, 43, 162.
Albanets of Couvin (Belgium), 31.
Alfred (King), 3.
Alps, 43.
Anemolites, 90.
_Angels and Men_ (quotation), 45.
Antiquity of caverns, 18, 21, 25.
Apjohn (Dr.), 161.
Arragonite, 119, 124.
Arthur (King), 2.
Attrition, effect of, 29.
Avalon, Isle of, 2.
Aveline's Hole, 99, 103.
Aven de Vigne Close (Ardèche), 37.
Avignon, 33.
Axbridge, 106.
Axe, the river, 2, 3, 5, 7, 23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 36, 46, 57,
70, 82.
Badger Hole, 13, 23.
Bagshawe Cavern, 42, 93.
Balch (Mr.), 31, 36, 37, 48, 61, 71, 83, 101.
Bamforth (Mr. H.), 71, 83, 85, 100, 138.
Banwell Cave, 22, 28, 113.
Barnes (Mr.), 71.
Bath, 10, 69.
Bats, 54, 93, 125.
Bear, 14, 23, 24.
Beehive, 30.
Beehive Chamber, Lamb's Lair, 117.
Betsy Camel's Hole, 14.
Bishop's Lot Swallet, 8.
Bishop's Palace at Wells, 5.
Bison, 23, 24.
Blackdown, 3, 17, 99, 104.
Blackwater, 159.
Blue John Mine, 38, 88, 90.
Bonheur (Gard), 39.
Bos, 14.
Boule (M.), 31.
Bouvier (M.), 33.
Bowling Alley, 139.
Bramabiau (Gard), 39.
Bristol, 1, 2, 69.
Bristol Channel, 3.
Brogden's Cave, 166.
Brue, 2, 3.
Buckland (Dean), 33.
Bull Pit, 147, 148, 149.
Bunter Sandstone, 129.
Burrington, 17, 28, 42, 62, 97, 99, 102, 104.
Buxton, 29.
Cadbury, 3.
Calamine, 33.
Cales Dale, 154, 155, 156.
Camden's _Britannia_, 46.
Camelot, 3.
Canyon, 64, 65, 72, 73, 81, 150.
Carbonic acid (action of), 4.
Carboniferous or Mountain Limestone, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 26,
28, 29, 53, 106.
Cascades, 6.
Castle of Comfort, 17, 29.
Castleton, 37, 144, 157.
Causse de Gramat (Padirac), 40.
Cave-earth, 21.
_Cave Hunting_, 47.
Cave Man of Cheddar, 85, 86.
Ceiriog Valley, 133.
Cevennes, 37.
Chapel-en-le-Frith, 144.
Charterhouse, 17, 27, 97.
Cheddar, 3, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 22, 28, 29, 30, 31, 82, 96.
Cheddar Water, 5, 82, 92.
Chokes, 9, 34, 63.
Clemens Alexandrinus, 45.
Clevedon, 4.
Coalpit Mine, 145.
Compton Bishop, 28, 106, 113.
Compton Martin, 25.
Copper, 33.
Coral Cave, 28, 105.
Corridors, 9.
Cotherstone Hill, 123.
Cows hounded over cliff, 24.
Cox's Cavern, 83, 92.
Cox's Hole, 10, 11.
Croft (Mr. J.), 138.
Crook's Peak, 110, 111.
Croscombe, 14.
Cross, 106.
Crosse (Andrew), 124.
Cust's Cave, 162, 164, 166.
Dangers of exploration, 41, 43.
Dargilan, 162.
Dawkins (Prof. Boyd), 23, 31, 33, 46, 99, 101, 102.
De Launey (M.), 31.
Deer, 14, 23, 24, 74.
Demon's Cave, 166.
Denny's Hole, 111.
Denudation, 2, 5.
Derbyshire, 1, 29, 42, 43, 44, 91, 138.
Devil's Hole, 47.
Devil's Punchbowl, 29.
Dinder Wood, 15.
Dolomitic Conglomerate, 12, 13, 23, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 48,
53, 110.
Dovedale, 133.
Doveholes, 29.
Downside Monastery, 12.
Drayton, 47.
Dulcote, 2, 14.
East Harptree, 116.
Eastwater, 7, 8, 9, 30, 36, 37, 42, 48, 60, 70.
Ebbor, 3, 7, 13, 17, 29.
Elden Hill, 149.
Elden Hole, 38, 149, 150.
English Channel, 3.
Enmore, 123.
Eocene, 31.
Exeter, 1.
Exploration (dangers of), 41, 43, 72.
Extinct animals, 22, 23, 34, 74.
Fairy Slats, 12.
Fauna of caves, 33, 74.
Fissures, 5, 12, 27, 33, 39, 66, 73, 85, 87, 89, 94.
Flatholm, 4.
Fluor-spar, 33.
Fontaine de Vaucluse, 33.
Foreland, 1.
Foxe's Hole (Burrington), 99.
Fox's Hole (Compton Bishop), 110.
Frome, 1, 7, 27.
Frost (action of), 6.
Galtees, 159.
Gaping Ghyll, 35, 37.
Gautries Hill, 149.
Geological Survey, 25.
Giant's Hole, 144, 145, 151.
Gibson (Mr. James), 101, 104.
Glacial drift, 29, 31.
Glastonbury, 3.
Goatchurch Cavern, 42, 62, 99, 100, 104.
Golden Cap, 3.
Gough (Messrs.), 16, 19, 28, 82, 93, 106.
Grassington, 138.
Gravel, 8.
Great Cavern of Cheddar, 82, 83, 92.
Great Chamber of Lamb's Lair, 116.
Green How, 138.
_Grotten und Höhlen von Adelsberg, Die_, 34.
Gurney Slade, 27.
Gypsum, 33.
Han-sur-Lesse, 162.
Harptree, 18.
Harrington (Dr.) of Bath, 46.
Helln Pot, 37.
Hiley (Mr.), 70.
Hill (Dr.), 160.
Hillgrove, 7, 61, 70, 114.
Holwell, 27, 123, 124.
Hope, Dale of, 37.
Horse, 14.
Hyæna, 23, 24, 46.
Hyæna Den, 13, 22, 23, 24.
Hydrology, 33.
Ingleborough Cave, 35, 37.
Inscriptions, 22, 30.
Irish Elk, 23, 24.
_Irlande et Cavernes Anglaises_, 34.
Jackdaws, 54.
Jacob's Well, 140.
Jameson (Dr.), 160.
Joints, 5, 11, 13, 71.
Katavothra, 33.
Kent's Cavern, 30.
Kentucky, 43.
Keuper, 31.
Knockmealdown Mountains, 159.
Kyndwr Club, 138.
Labyrinths, 8, 9, 62.
Laibach, 33.
Lake village, 3.
Lamb's Lair, 30, 39, 115.
Lathkill Dale, 152, 153, 154.
Lathkill River, 156.
Lead, 33.
Leland, 46.
Lewsdon, 3.
Lias, 27, 28, 29.
Lion, 23, 24.
Llangollen, 133.
Long Hole, 19, 28, 97.
Long Kin Hole, 37.
Long Wood, 97.
Lower Limestone Shales, 2, 4, 5.
Loxton, 112, 113.
Mammoth, 23, 24.
Manifold, 150, 151.
Marble Arch, 42.
Marshall (Mr.), 11, 13.
Martel (Mons.), 17, 19, 30, 34, 37, 39, 57, 145, 160, 161, 164,
165, 167.
Master-joint, 34, 131.
Matlock, 104.
Mazauric (M.), 39.
McMurtrie (Mr. J.), 122.
Mendip plateau, 36.
Middle Hill, 147.
Mitchelstown Cave, 159.
Monyash, 153.
Morfa Rhuddlan, 131.
Morland (Mr. J. O.), 83.
Murray's Guide, 116, 122.
Natural wells, 18.
Neolithic barrows, 3.
Niagara (Gough's Caves), 30.
Nidderdale, 138.
North Hill, 3, 60.
O'Callaghan's Cave, 162, 165.
Offa's Dyke, 133.
Ogo, 45, 127.
Ogof, 45, 127.
Old Red Sandstone, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 11, 26, 53, 60.
O'Leary's Cave, 161, 164.
Ookey, 45.
Oonakareaglisha, 159.
Outfit, 41, 62.
Padirac, 162.
Parrett, 3.
Peace of Wedmore, 3.
Peak, 34, 38, 39, 42, 47, 144, 159.
Peak's Hill, 147.
Peak's Hole, 145.
Peak's Hole (source of water of), 150.
Pen Hill, 2, 4, 60.
Percolating water, 6.
Percy's _Reliques_, 46.
Perryfoot, 145, 150.
Phelps, 106.
Phosphorites, 31.
Pilsdon, 3.
Pleistocene gravel, 28.
Pliocene, 29.
Plumley's Den, 100, 103, 104.
_Polyolbion_, 47.
Pot, 34, 84.
Pothole Cavern, 155, 156.
Potholes, 6, 68, 72.
Pottery, 21, 22, 58, 74.
Priddy, 7, 8, 17, 48, 60, 61, 98.
Primitive man, 13, 22, 24, 34, 47, 128.
Puttrell (Mr. J. W.), 138.
Quantocks, 123.
Quercy, 31.
Radstock, 27.
Radstock Coalfield, 10.
Rain (action of), 6.
Rakes, 33, 38.
Ravine formation, 19.
Ravines, 6, 20, 23.
Raymond, Walter, 98.
Red Deer, 23, 24.
Reindeer, 23.
_Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_, 33.
Revolving stones (action of), 6.
Rhaetic, 27, 31.
Rhinoceros, 24.
Rickford, 28, 102, 104.
Ricklow Cavern, 157.
Ricklow Dale, 153.
Risings (extent of flow), 17.
"Rock of Ages," 104.
Rock shelter, 15.
Roman Cave of Cheddar, 93, 95.
Roman mines, 97.
Romano-British pottery, 21, 22, 58, 74.
Rookham, 2, 28.
Rowberrow Farm, 17.
Rushup Edge, 144, 147.
Russet Well, 144, 145.
"S" bends, 65, 68.
St. Andrew's Well, 5, 28, 31.
St. Dunstan's Well, 10, 11.
St. George's Cave, 127, 130.
"St. Paul's," 86, 88.
St. Swithin's Hole, 7.
"Salle à Manger," 38.
Sand (action of), 6.
Sand Pit Hole, 8.
Schmidl (Dr. Adolph), 34.
Scotchman's Cave, 165.
Secondary Rocks, 5, 12, 18, 27, 28.
Sedgemoor, 3.
Severn, 4.
Shakeholes, 29.
Sheldon (Dr.), 83, 84, 90, 100.
Sheldon (Mr., of Wells), 17.
Shipham, 100.
Silt, 10, 11.
Siphons, 33, 34.
Skeheenarinky, 159.
Slater (Mr.), 71.
Smith (W. W.), 45.
Snowdonia, 130.
Société de Spéléologie, 34.
"Solomon's Temple," 86, 88.
Somerville (A. F.), 14, 15.
Sorgue, 33.
Sparrowpit, 144, 145.
Speedwell Mine, 38, 144.
Speleology, 32.
Spiders, 54.
Springs, 5, 11.
Spur and Wedge, 53, 56.
Squire's Well, 104.
Stalactites, 10, 76, 77, 80, 89, 118, 140, 142.
Stalagmite bridges, 78.
Steepholm, 4.
Stoke Lane, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13.
Stratton-on-the-Fosse, 11.
Stump Cross Cavern, 138.
Subterranean streams, 6, 7, 8, 72.
Subterranean waterfalls, 72.
Swallets, swallow-holes, 1, 5, 7, 8, 12, 26, 27, 34, 60, 61, 84,
148.
Swildon's Hole, 7, 8, 36, 48, 61, 70.
Tanyrogo, 127.
Tennyson, 4.
Thornyash, 153.
Tideswell, 148.
Tindoul de la Vayssière (Aveyron), 40.
Tone, 3.
Torquay, 30.
Tower Rock, 14.
Traps, 34, 65.
Trias, 18, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 106, 109, 110, 130.
Troup (Mr.), 21, 59, 70, 71.
_Two Men o' Mendip_, 98.
Ubley Farm, 98.
Undermining, 4, 6, 25.
Upper Langford, 105.
Van den Broeck, 31.
Vaucluse, 33.
Wastdale, 96.
Wavering Down, 106, 110.
Wedmore, 3.
Well (in Swildon's Hole), 73, 77.
Wells, 2, 5, 7, 8, 17, 26, 28, 29, 36, 83.
Wells Museum, 14.
West Riding, 34.
Weston-super-Mare, 16.
Wharfedale, 138.
Wightman (Mr. F.), 138.
Wild Boar, 23.
Wild Goat, 23.
Wild Horse, 23.
Willcox (Mr.), 30.
William of Worcester, 45.
Williams, (W. H. and G. D.), 152.
Wills Neck, 123.
Wind (action of), 6.
Winnats, 91, 144.
Wirral, 129.
Witch of Wookey, 46.
Wolf, 23, 24.
Wookey, 45.
Wookey Hole, 5, 7, 13, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 30, 31, 36, 37, 42,
43, 45, 52, 60, 70, 82, 127.
Woolly Rhinoceros, 23.
Wrington Vale, 115.
Yoredales, 144.
Yorkshire, 1, 10, 29, 35, 44.
Young's Cavern, 160.
_Printed by_ J. BAKER & SON, _Clifton_
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's
original spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.
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