Chapter III: Part 3

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.

_Photo by Claude Blee._]

_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.

_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]

_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.

_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]

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.

_From Sketch by H. E. Balch._]

_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.

_Photo by M. Martel._]

_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.

_Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]

_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.

_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