Elden Hole is situated on the side of a gentle hill about a mile to the
north-west of the village of Peak Forest. It is a deep chasm in the
ground, surrounded by a wall, of uncemented stones, to prevent
accidents. This fissure or cleft in the rock has been the subject of
many exaggerated descriptions and superstitious reports, having been
represented not only as unfathomable, but as teeming, at a certain
depth, with so impure an air, that it could not be respired without
immediate destruction. Mr. Lloyd, however, who descended it about
seventy years ago, has proved the absurdity of these relations, in a
paper, of which the following is a brief abstract, published in the
Philosophical Transactions.
For the first sixty feet, he observes, he descended somewhat obliquely,
the passage then becoming difficult from projecting crags. At the
further depth of thirty feet, the inflection of his rope varied at least
eighteen feet from the perpendicular. The breadth of the chink was here
about nine feet, and the length eighteen; the sides being irregular,
moss-grown, and wet. Within forty-two feet of the bottom, the rock
opened on the east, and he swung till he reached the floor of a cave,
one hundred and eighty-six feet only from the mouth, the light from
which was sufficiently strong to permit the reading of any book. The
interior of the chasm he describes as consisting of two parts, which
communicate with each other by a small arched passage, the one
resembling an oven, the other the dome of a glass-house. On the south
side of the latter, was a small opening, about twelve feet in length,
and four feet in hight, lined throughout with a kind of sparkling
stalactite, of a fine deep yellow color, with petrifying drops hanging
from the roof. Tracing the entrance he found a noble column, above
ninety feet high, of the same kind of incrustation. As he proceeded to
the north, he came to a large stone which was covered with the same
substance; and beneath it he found a hole six feet in depth, uniformly
lined with it. From the edge of this hole sprung up a rocky ascent,
sloping, like a buttress, against the side of the cavern, and consisting
of vast, solid, round masses of the same substance and color. Having
climbed this ascent to the hight of about sixty feet, he obtained some
fine pieces of stalactite, which hung from the craggy sides of the
cavern. Descending with some difficulty and danger, he proceeded in the
same direction, and soon came to another pile of incrustations of a
brown color, above which he found a small cavern, opening into the side
of the vault, which he now entered. Here he saw vast masses of
stalactite, hanging like icicles from every part of the roof: several of
these were four and five feet long, and thick as a man’s body. The sides
of the largest cavern were chiefly lined with incrustations of three
kinds, the first of which was a deep yellow stalactite; the second, a
thin coating which resembled a pale stone-color varnish, and reflected
the light of the candle with great splendor; and the third, a rough
efflorescence, the shoot of which resembled a rose flower.
Some more recent visitors have thus stated the result of their
observations and inquiries relative to Elden Hole. They describe the
mouth of this chasm as opening horizontally, in a direction from north
to south; its shape being nearly that of an irregular ellipse, about
ninety feet in length, and twenty-seven in breadth at the widest part.
The northern end is fringed with small trees; and moss and underwood
grow out of the crevices on each side, to the depth of forty or fifty
feet. As the fissure recedes from the surface, it gradually contracts;
and at the depth of about seventy feet inclines considerably to the
west, so as to prevent its course from being further traced.
Notwithstanding the obstacles of the bushes and projecting masses of
stone, it was sounded, and its depth found not to exceed two hundred and
two feet, an estimate which corresponds with the assertion of three
miners, who had descended in search of the bodies of individuals who
were missing, and were supposed to have been robbed, murdered, and
thrown into this frightful abyss.