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.
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.
ENTRANCE TO LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE.
Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.
PLAN AND SECTION OF THE GREAT CAVERN OF LAMB'S LAIR.
(Click on map to see a larger version. Not available on all devices.)
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.
THE "BEEHIVE" CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR.
Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.
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.
ENTRANCE TO GREAT CHAMBER, LAMB'S LAIR.
Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.
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.
STALACTITES IN ENTRANCE GALLERY, LAMB'S LAIR.
Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth.
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.
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.
THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
Photo by E. A. Baker.
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.