made by keeping near the roof, the walls sloping at an angle of 30
degrees from the vertical, opening at one point into a small chamber
with a false floor of jammed rocks, then immediately closing again, and
so continuing for a distance of 60 feet. The narrowness is so great
that one goes ahead only by dint of a continuous struggle against
friction. Up to this, my friend had kept close at my heels, followed by
his man. But here the only way visible was down a still narrower rift
bending off to the left, and the latter found his own diameter greater
than that of the cave. We left him, and pushed obstinately forward,
though we had not seen a sign of any person's former presence for a
long distance. Nearer the cave mouth matches and candle-grease and the
marks of crawling had been plentiful, local adventurers having got in
nearly 100 feet.
[Illustration: ON THE CEIRIOG.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: UPPER CEIRIOG CAVE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
Already we had struck the water in two or three places, but had not
found it in the main passage. Now we crossed a long pool or runnel of
stagnant water, which came in from under the rocks to the south-east,
and climbed into a tight little curving tunnel that led back to it in
a semi-circle. Beyond it, I found myself in a rift chamber, with the
water coming in from under the rocks at one end, and flowing out in
like manner at the other. There seemed to be no egress, till suddenly
I noticed that the niche in which I was sitting was the end of a small
horizontal hole or dry water-pipe, striking off at right angles. But
my companion had found the tunnel too much for him. The sides bristled
with points of rock, and pressed in so close that one could only
wriggle through by fractions of an inch, stretched at full length on
the left side. Now he made a stout attempt to get through underneath,
in the water tunnel. I heard the sound of wallowing, and then my
friend's head and shoulders came splashing in at the bottom of the
cave, his body dragging after through water and mud. But again he stuck
fast, and announced that he would give the thing up.
It was not wise to go on far alone, for fear of being left by any
accident without a light; but in order to make a reconnaissance
for future work I pushed through the water-pipe, and to my delight
found myself in another horizontal tunnel running parallel to the
main chamber. Crawling ahead, first over a clay-lined floor, and
then over splinters of Limestone mixed with stalagmites, I emerged
presently into an open passage, 25 or 30 feet high, with the stream
peacefully reposing in one long pool at the bottom. It appeared to go
on indefinitely, and I might have gone farther, but for the present
determined to leave off the exploration at this point. The parallel
tunnel seemed to be going straight back towards the cave mouth, and
it looked as though it might form a short cut home. As a matter of
fact, this was a right branch striking off from the point where our
man had stuck fast. By crawling in his direction and shouting, I made
him hear, and at last saw his light through a chink only three inches
wide. Fallen blocks of Limestone choked the tunnel at his end, where
it leaves the main passage near the roof, and in its present state
this branch of the cave was practically invisible. We shifted several
big stones, however, and in a few minutes my friend joined me, pleased
enough to find a way out that saved the discomforts of his recent
journey. He had had the misfortune to array himself in white flannels,
and now the state of his garments was so deplorable that he straightway
hid himself in the river, like the pseudo Marquis of Carabas, until
more presentable clothing could be fetched.
[Illustration: LOWER CEIRIOG CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
A veteran cave-hunter from Liverpool gladly joined me in a second
visit to the Ceiriog Cavern. Our host could not be with us, but sent
a village youth as his substitute. This young man was very keen
and plucky, and, as things turned out, saved the situation, for my
speleological friend, to his intense chagrin, failed to get through the
narrow entrance to the parallel tunnel, and the two of us had to finish
the job by ourselves. Climbing along the walls of the water-rift,
we soon found it best to wade straight through the stream bed, and
finally, when the space grew more and more restricted, to crawl through
the water. Toward the end of the rift a small tunnel broke away to the
left, and the water disturbed by our advance flowed into it and away
down a small swallet. Wriggling through, heedless of a wetting, we
came into a small chamber with four exits, each of which we explored,
marking off each with a cross or arrow to prevent our losing the route
back. Every branch led eventually to other points of divergence, and
ultimately to small tunnels or pipes, through which the water flows
in rainy weather into the head of the cavern. Having conscientiously
examined every one, without finding the mythical passage to Oswestry,
we returned to the tunnel of the swallet. One of the bifurcations, it
was interesting to discover, led back unexpectedly into the water-rift.
There were numberless chinks and fissures, and holes in the roof,
leading into this network of passages, all very interesting as a
concise example of the whole history of the formation of a cave; but
the farthest point reached was, by measurement, only a little more than
500 feet from the entrance. Only in places were there stalactites, and
those small ones. There were stalagmite curtains on the walls at one or
two spots, and patches of very white amorphous tufa. Curious filaments
of cave-weed, white and brown, without a vestige of leaves, abounded
throughout the cavern. Not far above the cave mouth I came across the
exit of the water, a beautiful spring, pouring down into the Ceiriog, a
few yards away.
On the top of the hill, in a disused Limestone quarry, there were
traditions of a cave opening that had been covered by a landslip for
some thirty years. A man was set to work digging it out, and a small
fissure was disclosed, the old channel of a tributary leading into
the middle of a cave running north-north-east and south-south-west.
The total length was 172 feet. The water apparently entered at the
top of the left passage and ran away into a low bedding cave to the
right. The floor is wet clay at present, but there are traces of large
stalagmites, including one handsome "beehive"; and the roof is covered
with beautiful white and amber stalactites. Our further attempts to
uncover openings into the Limestone only brought us down to the solid
rock, and we found nothing to confirm the rumour that a cave exists
which carried a stream down to the Ceiriog, 800 feet below.
THE EXPLORATION OF STUMP CROSS CAVERN
The explorers who have done so much work in Derbyshire and
Somersetshire have also carried out extended explorations in some
of the more remote caves of Yorkshire. Recently a party carried out
farther investigations than any previous explorers in Stump Cross
Cavern, on the moors between Wharfedale and Nidderdale. This cavern,
which is named after the ancient boundary mark of Knaresborough
Forest, and is situated near the summit of the moors, 1326 feet above
sea-level, 4-1/2 miles from Pateley Bridge and 11-1/2 from Skipton,
was discovered in 1843 by miners searching for lead, as was the case
with several of the Derbyshire caverns. The Greenhow lead mines are
not far off, and the ground in many parts hereabouts is riddled with
old workings. No place could look more unlikely for caves than the
flat field on the top of the hill, where a few steps lead down to a
doorway into the ground, close to the rough road to Grassington and
Appletreewick.
The party of five, besides myself, Messrs. B. and F. Wightman, J.
W. Puttrell, J. Croft, and H. Bamforth (all members of the Kyndwr
Club), drove up from Bolton Abbey Station by way of Burnsall, and
through various delays did not reach the cave mouth till nine o'clock
on Saturday evening. With our photographic and other apparatus we
descended at once to a level gallery 50 feet or so below the surface,
whence several passages branch off, and there we made a halt. To
give a clear general idea of the structure of this cavern is not
easy. It consists of a number of galleries running in different
directions at different levels, with a few intercommunications, and
many continuations that have gradually become choked with clay and
stalagmite and have for ages been impassable. Descending the steep
stairway in a northerly direction one soon reaches the first of the
natural passages, which bears to the west. A gallery goes off to the
right, west-south-west, and bifurcates, but is uninteresting, the earth
and clay that show its proximity to the surface rendering it very
dirty. In the opposite direction, east-north-east, the corridor where
we had placed the luggage and made our general rendezvous continues to
a distance of 120 feet, and then dwindles away into a low stalactite
grotto. Being so inaccessible and so little known, the various chambers
have never yet been christened, except with the vague and general
names of Upper Caverns and Lower Caverns, which have little meaning
owing to the intricate conformation of the series. From our rendezvous
two important tunnels, called the Lower Caverns, go off in a westerly
direction from the bottom of a natural shaft 20 feet deep. These were
left for the present whilst we went into the Middle Caverns, which
strike off to the north from the same spot, and after many turns and
twists approach the surface in the ravine of Dry Gill, south-east
from the entrance to the caves. Many chambers and passages open out
from this series, the largest and most beautiful being called, very
inappropriately, the Top Cavern. As it leads eventually to a charming
piece of cave scenery that we agreed to call the "Bowling Alley," it
might well be named after this.
[Illustration: IN STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: THE PILLAR, STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
I will now, as clearly as I can, follow the steps of the party in
their exploration of these Middle Caverns, and proceed afterwards with
them into the other series. Descending gradually, and passing many
nooks and corners where exquisite recesses are wreathed about by the
ivory-white incrustations on wall, roof, and floor, we stayed to drink
a ceremonious glass from the icy waters of Jacob's Well, a crystal
pool curtained in with masses of stalactite, and then passed on to one
of the chief show places seen by the public, bearing the modest name
of the Chapel. Its great attraction is the series of massive pillars
of translucent white that seem to uphold the arching roof. In few of
the caverns that I have explored is there anything to compare with the
stateliness of this pure colonnade, the cylindrical shafts of which
are a good deal longer than a man's height, and modelled fantastically
by the irregular deposit of the calc spar. One column in this part of
the cave measured three feet in circumference. A peculiar beauty was
the transparency of the material, a pure glassy white through which
the light of a candle shone clearly, whilst a light inside converted
the hanging folds and clusters of stalactites into a beautiful species
of lantern. On the walls were folds and ridges of snowy stalagmite,
and from the roof hung stalactites of all shapes and sizes, myriads
of threadlike growths hanging in a lacy fringe. Onwards the arcading
and the array of pillars extended into a roomy vault, the end of which
struck upwards, as already explained, south-eastwards, toward Dry
Gill. Though a perceptible draught comes through from the open air,
and the heaps of clay-coated blocks show that a swallet is not far
off above, no way can be forced through without excavation. Augmented
by the arrival of two or three local friends, the party descended,
after lunch, into the Lower Caverns. Unlike the other passages, with
their continual windings and perplexing branches, these two series
of large vaults, narrow tunnels, and almost impracticable crevices
maintain a westerly direction throughout, and the few branches strike
off decisively to the right or to the left. Two of us, being delayed
by some trifling accident, missed the others at the bottom of the
short vertical descent, and, unaware that there were two series of
passages, crept on along the first that opened. This had the appearance
of an old stream-bed, the ground being littered in places with blocks
of Limestone, in others clayey, and in some parts smoothed down by
the rush of a torrent. High in places, it often dwindled to a very
low passage, through which we crept and wriggled after the manner of
the serpent, ofttimes exerting no little strength to push beneath
the projections overhead. Here a shaft of glassy stalagmite, uniting
floor and roof, tried to bar the way, and there it was impossible to
advance without scraping against the vitreous threads that hung like
hairs from the dripping rocks. We shouted to the others who we thought
were ahead of us, but got no reply, and after twenty minutes of this
painful progression began to think of returning. Noticing a hollow
in the right wall, I asked my comrade to wait while I examined it.
Inside was a blind passage and the round orifice of a small tunnel,
into which I thrust my head and shoulders and then crawled forward.
It was not an inviting hole, being wet and an exceedingly tight fit,
and I was on the point of returning when a voice was heard faintly in
the distance. Listening intently and creeping on again, I heard the
voice more distinctly, and shouted. The voice replied from below. I
quickly realised that we two had missed the others, who were following
a lower series of passages somewhere beneath us. Unable to turn round,
and too far advanced to return up this slippery tunnel, I saw there
was nothing for it but to push on, head downwards. In a yard or two,
to my unspeakable relief, the hole grew big enough to turn round in,
just before I got to the end of it, and saw Messrs. Croft and Puttrell,
12 feet below me, holding out their hands and inviting me to drop.
The leap was a little sensational, but I had my turn of enjoyment in
witnessing the grace with which my comrade from above, who was now
courteously invited to follow me through the water-pipe, took the jump
on to the clay floor of the lower tunnel.
We returned later to the other westerly passage, at the top of the
water-pipe. Examining every opening carefully, we noticed many similar
communications between the two series, evidently proving that the upper
was a very ancient stream course that had been tapped successively
until the lower tunnel superseded it as a waterway. Pushing ahead, we
soon realised that we had arrived at the richest part of the whole
cavern, though also the most inaccessible. The roof came down bristling
with spikes and shafts of the purest calcite; the floor was one mass
of crystallisation, ridged all over with the rippling lines that form
as the crust grows under water. This exquisite scene was continued
for hundreds of feet, various and indescribable as a dream, whilst
our march onward over the sharp crystals of the floor and through the
portcullis that closed every chamber was as painful as a nightmare.
Loveliest of all was a long tunnel that once held many pools of water,
half-encrusted over with a film of carbonate. Only one of these lucid
mirrors remained, but the dried-up basins were as beautiful now as
ever, with the bottom and sides covered by a coraline growth delicate
in colour as in form. At the end was a small dome-like chamber, where
we extended ourselves for a hard-earned rest before facing the toils
and tribulations of the journey back.
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL: STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
We thought this expedition to the lower series had exhausted the
principal beauties of Stump Cross Cavern, but we were wrong. On our way
to rejoin the other men in the Middle Cavern we were much impressed by
two large curtains of stalactite, one of them folded and wrinkled,
and the other hanging straight down without a curve, but both striped
with deep bands of crimson, orange, and golden yellow when a piece
of magnesium was burnt behind them. These were equal in extent and
brilliance to anything I have ever seen, even in Cox's Cavern at
Cheddar. A round tunnel, ribbed and groined with glistening dripstone,
and a broad low arch set with pillars and string-like stalactites
stretched from top to bottom, led into the long, wide chamber that we
dubbed the "Bowling Alley," on account of the stumps and pedestals of
stalagmite that stud the floor between the pillars. Beyond it a short
passage leads into a grotto to the right, and a very difficult one
continues some distance to the left.
It was now past three in the morning. Tired and battered to the point
of exhaustion, but delighted with an exploration that far exceeded
in interest all we had looked for, we returned to the cave mouth. An
unpleasant-looking bull which had with great suspicion watched us
make our nocturnal entry into the regions below had, greatly to our
relief, got tired of waiting, and the coast was clear. Out of the
everlasting silence and the shadows, lit so rarely by the glare of the
magnesium and the beams of the limelight, we returned again, with the
surprise that never fails, to the light of the heavens. Dusk was on
the far-extending moors and hills, daylight was creeping on over the
sky, a pair of larks saluted us with a hilarious song. Our driver was
soon awake at the little inn, two furlongs away, and in the freshness
of the morning we crawled down the break-neck road to Appletreewick,
Bolton Woods and the Wharfe growing in light before us; and then at an
exhilarating pace rolled up the dale to the Red Lion at Burnsall.
SWALLET-HUNTING IN DERBYSHIRE
"GIANT'S HOLE" AND "MANIFOLD"
Between Sparrowpit and the head of the Winnats the old road from
Chapel-en-le-Frith to Castleton skirts what is, geologically, one of
the most important localities in Derbyshire. It runs along the side
of a shallow upland valley, about 1200 feet above tide-level and two
miles long, which is bounded on two sides by the curve of Rushup Edge
and on the other two by Elden Hill, Windy Knoll, and other Limestone
acclivities. One of the great faults of the Pennine chain traverses
this valley longitudinally, the Yoredale strata having been thrown
down to the level of the Limestone, so that the middle of the valley
is the boundary between the Yoredale rocks, shale grits, and milestone
grit on the north, and the Limestone plateau of Mid-Derbyshire on the
south. The valley is completely encircled by higher ground; there
is no egress for streams on the surface. Accordingly other modes
of drainage are to be looked for, and they will be discovered in a
numerous series of swallets situated along the line of the fault, the
water that runs over the impervious shales perforating the Limestone
as soon as it comes in contact with it. This shallow valley, in fact,
is the gathering ground for the waters that pour into the abyss of
the Speedwell Cavern, traverse Peak Cavern, and make their way to the
open air at Russet Well and other springs at Castleton. That such is
the case has long been proved by observations of the temperature and
colour of the waters, and by tracing chaff and other things thrown into
the upland streams. But there exist hardly enough data to establish the
theory of the French speleologist, M. Martel, that Peak's Hole Water
comes from Perryfoot, and the water of Russet Well from Coalpit Mine,
near Sparrowpit. All that is definitely known is that these waters run
through the massive Limestone for distances varying from two to three
miles and reappear in Castleton, 600 feet beneath. Whether they unite
into one or two large streams, which form considerable chambers and
caverns in the inaccessible region beyond the farthest known parts of
Speedwell and Peak Caverns, is an interesting question, that tempts one
to answer boldly in the affirmative, since the action of underground
streams in Somerset and Yorkshire seems to justify the assumption, if
we take into account the extent of the vertical joints eaten away by
the water in its descent of 600 feet, and the effects of periodical
floods. In Somerset, in a situation exactly similar, two caves of 600
feet fall and 2000 feet horizontal measurement have recently been
discovered by opening similar swallet-holes. Is there any hope of
finding such hypothetical cavern or caverns here by exploring, and if
necessary opening artificially, any of the swallets between Perryfoot
and Giant's Hole? The investigations recently carried out by a friend
and myself do not make us hopeful that if there are such caverns they
will ever be made accessible.
We began our work at Giant's Hole, which opens in the bottom of a
little gorge between Peak's Hill and Middle Hill. The brooklet that
runs in at the cave mouth was very low, and we passed almost dryshod
over the rough stones that cover the stream-bed for some 60 feet.
Giant's Hole has an arched entrance about seven feet high, and the
first part of the cave retains the same form. Then the walls contract,
and the cave takes the shape of a deep and narrow canyon, cut through
solid rock, with the stream coursing along at the bottom over little
falls and waterslides and through pools that are not easy to pass
without a wetting. One hundred and fifty feet from the entrance to the
cave is a lofty rift, near the top of which an upper gallery turns
west, the general direction of the main passage being southerly.
Passing this, we followed the stream downhill for another fifty or
sixty yards, and were then brought to a standstill by a partial choke.
At this point a quantity of stones and gravel comes within two feet of
the roof, and the water is dammed back in a pool a foot deep, so that
there is barely a foot of clear space between water and roof.
Returning to the steep climb to the upper gallery, we scaled the wet
and slippery rocks, and found ourselves on a shelf over the canyon.
The shelf gave ingress to the gallery, which rose gently in a westerly
direction, with frequent twists and turns, and then turned north. In
150 feet it divided. We scrambled on; but all the branches evidently
approached the surface of the ground, becoming earthy, and we soon
found it impossible to get any farther. This upper level, which for
our purposes was of less interest than the lower, is incrusted with
deposits throughout its length of 80 or 90 yards. There are stalagmite
curtains and sheets of tufa on the walls, the older rocks on the floor
are cemented together with a crust of polished stalagmite, and some
of the boulders are covered with shining enamel. We found it best to
use an Alpine rope in getting back to the lower level, the ledges
underneath not being easy to find by candlelight. Outside the sun was
shining brightly, and the light that streamed in at the cave mouth,
through the ferns and flowers and grasses that encircled it, was
stained a fairy-like green.