knoll of Peak's Hill and the bulkier Middle Hill, we followed a stream
that comes down from Rushup Edge, perforates the Limestone base of
Peak's Hill, and comes out on the other side at a small cave. In three
furlongs this stream is swallowed under a cliff some 20 feet high, the
ingress at present being through a series of holes, where the water
makes an intermittent roaring, almost like the throb of a hydraulic
ram, as if a siphon were momentarily discharging. Older rifts are
seen in the same line of cliffs, and can be penetrated for 30 feet,
but are now deserted by the water save at flood-time. Farther on is
a deep depression in the hillside, big enough to engulf a house. It
is supposed locally to have been produced by the falling in of a cave
roof, but it is more probably an independent swallet, one of a series,
nearly all funnel-shaped and long out of working order, that lie along
a higher level in the Limestone than those that occupy the line of
demarcation from the shales. The biggest of them is Bull Pit, which
we come to later. Next to the last pair of large openings into which
streams are running, and which may be called the Peak's Hill Swallets,
since their waters rise out of Peak's Hill, we come to a large
irregular series of trough-shaped hollows converging on another swallet
at this same geological border-line. The openings here are all little
ones. But the next swallet has a cave above it, into which we entered.
It does not go far, but it has two ascending branches that can be
traced to two small depressions in the Limestone where tiny affluents
have percolated and cut for themselves little tunnels in the rock.
The next swallet beyond this has but a small opening, although the
hollow cut out by its rivulets through the shales is hundreds of square
yards in area. An abrupt cliff walls in the hollow on the Limestone
side, only a few paces from which are naked patches of Yoredale rocks,
clearly defining the boundary of the two series.
We now came to one of the most interesting openings that we have met
with. It lies about 200 yards north of Bull Pit. As often happens,
immediately above the swallet, in the Limestone, is a deep chasm almost
perforating the escarpment. At the base of the escarpment is a rounded
archway with a turbulent stream running in. After securing a photograph
we enter, and make our way down stream easily for a little distance;
then the cave twists and narrows, and at a distance of 40 feet or so
we are disappointed to find the channel too confined for us to force
our way farther. Outside we had observed that the basin-shaped area
had been flooded not long ago, and inside the vegetable débris that
was plastered over the walls and roof showed that the swallet must
have been completely choked during the recent wet weather. But the
peculiarity of this swallet was that the solid mass of rock through
which the stream had carved its way was not ordinary Limestone, but
beautifully veined and crystalline like marble, and its surface smooth
and polished. It had very much the same appearance as the marmorised
Limestone found in the neighbourhood of intrusive lavas, such as those
near Tideswell. By the action of the water it had been sculptured into
fantastic shapes; in one place a corner had been cut through and a
small pillar left, joined to the rock at top and bottom. We scrambled
with some difficulty into the chasm behind the swallet. At the bottom,
on the same side as the existing swallet, was the broad and lofty arch
of a cave, which went only a few yards in, otherwise it would have
broken through the escarpment. Right above the keystone of the arch was
a weathered group of stalactites hanging from a ledge, and under them
the broken stalagmite floor of a tiny grotto. It is a rare thing to
find such deposits in the open air, and doubtless it indicates that the
chasm was formed by the destruction of a larger cave. A thick deposit
of earthy mud covered the floor, and at one side a big hole penetrated
this to a depth of six feet, the work of a stream that had perhaps not
run for ages. This deposit, though dry, was so soft that I nearly sank
through into the hole. We found four birds' nests in this cave mouth,
with eggs and young in them, and were disappointed not to come across
the egg of a cuckoo that flew out the moment before we entered. In the
wiry grass not far away from the top of the cavity we discovered a
lark's nest with two eggs in it.
Bull Pit lies in the wood just above this opening, nearer the road.
It is a great open abyss, walled on three sides by crags of Limestone
nearly a hundred feet high, and with trees growing all round the
edges. This, no doubt, is a very ancient swallet that has not been
in operation for ages--belongs, perhaps, to the same period as Elden
Hole, which opens 200 or 300 feet higher, a mile away, on Elden Hill. A
little way on, near Perryfoot, we come in sight of another very ancient
cavity, on the side of Gautries Hill. It is a gaping pit about 70 feet
deep, with a noble arch inside, spanning the entrance to a broad cave.
At present the cave mouth is silted up with sand and clay. All these
rocky openings are the lurking-places of beautiful ferns and mosses;
the feathery fronds of the Limestone polypody, the late primroses,
various saxifrages, and the delicate foliage of herb robert making a
brave show. The wilder birds take refuge there. A crow flew out of the
hole on Gautries Hill, and one day on approaching Elden Hole I was
startled by a dense cloud of jackdaws, more than a hundred, suddenly
rushing out. Farther down, from 50 to 100 feet lower, a host of
starlings had built their nests on the walls of the chasm. Disturbed,
they came flying up in twos and threes, beating the air in painful
efforts to wing their way straight up and out of the hole.
At Perryfoot a stream is engulfed which M. Martel considers to be
the source of Peak's Hole Water, and to be identical with the stream
that flows through the inmost passages of Peak Cavern. It now runs
into a cleft that is too small to be explored. But at a comparatively
recent date it was swallowed in a number of large fissures in a
crescent-shaped wall of Limestone 100 yards away. Most of these
openings are impracticable, but at the extreme east I had already
reconnoitred a promising cleft which we now proceeded to examine
thoroughly. This complicated swallet, with the passages behind it,
is known locally as "Manifold." Going east for 35 feet, the fissure
divides, one passage striking up towards the surface and the other
turning south. We soon had to crawl, the passage being very low,
narrow, and lined with objectionable stones. After 30 feet more we
came to a wider place, with a sort of chimney on one side. Here was
the sole mark of humanity that we found in this cave, a stake that had
apparently been used to climb into the chimney. Nothing was gained
by climbing it, so we squeezed our way along the main passage. Now
the tunnel grew into a high but narrow canyon where we could stand
upright, then it dwindled to a tunnel again, generally descending, but
occasionally rising in what was once a siphon. We passed one or two
branches, at the most important of which the principal tunnel curved
to the left and descended a little more steeply over some small ledges
and basins brimming with water. We began to feel sanguine about the
wished-for cavern, but presently the diameter of the tunnel grew so
small that we could not advance another yard. My companion was some
distance behind with his candle out, and I would not make a move until
he had got it relighted, the consequences of both candles going out at
once being unpleasant and possibly dangerous. For a long way we could
not turn round, and had to crawl feet foremost. Just after repassing
the junction my companion shouted that we were going wrong. He did
not recognise the passage. I remained at the junction whilst he went
farther and ascertained that it was the right channel after all. Then
I examined the branch. It ascended 20 feet and then divided, the left
branch, which was earthy, plainly striking up to the surface, the right
branch going back towards the swallet. Undoubtedly there must be quite
a labyrinth of dry water channels to correspond with the numerous
series of openings in the cliff, but the one we explored seemed to be
the largest and most practicable. Very tired and hot, not to mention
the dirt, we made our way back to the exit, glad to feel that our day's
work was done.
The one thing that had impressed us most during our explorations was
that all these swallets and water channels are cut through solid rock.
Only when the rocks are shattered or disintegrated, as in the cases
alluded to in Somerset, would there be any possibility of enlarging a
swallet artificially. And though we had penetrated to a distance of
400 feet at Manifold we had not found the passages growing more roomy
nor enlarged by the accession of tributaries. So far, the prospect
of opening up the large fissures and chambers that must surely exist
deeper in the rock seems unfavourable, unless the main channel of
Giant's Hole can be unblocked.
E. A. B.
EXPLORING NEW CAVES IN DERBYSHIRE
The new and exciting game of cave-exploring has been pursued so
strenuously during the last four years that one would almost think
the possibilities of fresh discoveries had been exhausted. When a
little while ago, therefore, rumours came in of a big cavern in
Lathkill Dale, so big that people were said to have been lost in its
recesses, they were received not a little incredulously. But after
the usual allowances had been made for exaggeration and myth, and
the alleged casualties reduced to the misfortunes of a sheep-dog who
spent fourteen days in the cavern, probably rock-bound on a ledge, it
still appeared that there was something worth exploring. Accordingly
two friends, Messrs. W. H. and G. D. Williams, who were residing near
Matlock, kindly undertook to find the cave or caves, and see what was
to be done; and a native of Middleton was commissioned to make further
inquiries. First, a letter arrived with the disappointing intelligence
that there was no cave on the Lathkill, nothing but old mine workings:
but hard on its heels came a wire to say that a cave had been located
and was being explored tentatively. Then further messages arrived with
mention of another opening, but which was the reputed great cavern was
a question to be settled only by a regular exploration.
A day was fixed for the campaign, and my section of the party drove
up early in the morning from Bakewell Station on the Midland. Our
friends were waiting at the head of Ricklow Dale, a mile below the
little village of Thornyash, and we proceeded without delay down that
streamless canyon, first over smooth greensward between the grim
Limestone walls, then hopping from point to point of huge, close-packed
fragments, until we reached the uppermost cave mouth. It has a very
imposing entrance, solid piers supporting a massive lintel, about 20
feet wide. It opens in the west cliff of Ricklow Dale, at a height
of 690 feet above sea-level, and is evidently the source at times of
a large stream. Ricklow Dale is really the upper part of Lathkill
Dale, above the junction with Cales Dale, and the head streams of the
Lathkill originally flowed down it from the neighbourhood of Monyash.
But at a later period, seemingly, the stream betook itself to an
underground course, until it emerged into the open from this cave.
At the present time the cave is swept by water only when the deeper
cavities of the rock overflow. This happened, for instance, a few weeks
ago, when the cave discharged a considerable stream, and was for the
time being quite impenetrable to man. As the Messrs. Williams had been
into this cavern a day or two before, we left it for the present, in
order to try some unexplored openings farther down the dale.
On the same side of the dale they had detected the entrance to
something, whether cave or mine they knew not, covered in by stones and
earth. With pick and crowbar an entrance was soon exposed, not much
larger than a badger's hole, and we crept through. At once it became
evident that the hole was not a natural one; it was no "self-cave,"
as the country people say, but an ordinary level or a sough draining
a lead mine. A pool of water filled the tunnel from side to side,
stretching away into the distance; and as we preferred, if wading were
necessary, to postpone it as long as we could, we left this alone for
the present, and went on with our quest at two other spots in the
entrance to Cales Dale. Needless to say, we had missed no opportunity
of cross-examining the inhabitants of the district, but the results
had been absurdly inaccurate and conflicting. Already a crowd of
rustic onlookers had gathered round, but the only individual among
them who knew anything about the region inside was the afore-mentioned
sheep-dog, who could tell us nothing. He, too, was the only one who
showed any inclination to join our underground party. In the upper
Cales Dale Cavern, as we named it, he actually went ahead of us, and
put our candles in jeopardy with the spirited wagging of his tail.
This cave is doubtless a very ancient channel of the Cales Dale Water,
which now runs through hidden crevices till it meets the Lathkill;
the span of its antiquity may be gauged by the fact that Cales Dale
has been cut 200 feet deeper, and the cave left high and dry, since
it was a regular stream-course. I say dry in a comparative sense, for
we quickly found ourselves confronted by a short passage of extreme
dampness. The main channel runs west for 150 feet, and then divides,
both branches dwindling rapidly to mere water-pipes. But near the
entrance a branch strikes off to the right. Although the roof came
down on our backs as we crawled, we managed to keep just above the
surface of a shallow pool that lay in the middle: but a second pool was
almost entirely mopped up by our journey to and fro. The passage ended
in a chamber where two can stand upright. Every bit of this little
nook is covered with a creamy-white and brownish coating of amorphous
carbonate. It is like a small empty shrine, with heavy curtains flowing
over its walls, their folds and ridges flecked with innumerable scaly
projections, like some delicate frilling. The rest of the cave is
devoid of charm, though there are interesting masses of white tufa on
the walls, as soft as putty.
At the bottom of the dale, almost exactly under and parallel to this
upper cave, is a larger one, which we called the Lower Cales Dale
Cavern. It is entirely concealed by bushes and nettles, and we had
to remove a mass of blocks and detritus before we laid bare the two
entrances. Even then, room could not be made for the broad-shouldered
member of the party to get in. At the end of 15 feet of very tight
wriggling there was more head room. We were in a straight tunnel,
arched as evenly as a culvert, the floor covered with the gravelly
deposits of a stream. Evidently it is a channel still used frequently
by the Cales Dale Water. It ran due west for 300 feet, with room in
most places for us to crawl on hands and knees: then it bent one
point to the north. Here the stream had thrown up a low dam, behind
which it had bored a series of holes on the south side, through which
most of it gets away. Soon a wall of rock, shaped like the steps of
a weir, confronted us, at the top of which we found ourselves in a
wide, irregular chamber, the height of whose roof varied from 6 feet
to 18 feet. We called it the Pot Hole Cavern, because of the number
of water-worn cavities in the roof. The biggest of these cavities
appearing to give entrance to an upper gallery, I climbed into it with
the aid of a comrade's shoulder. It contained a pretty grotto, lined
with incrustations, but led to nothing. Deep horizontal fissures yawned
on every side of the Pot Hole Chamber, and vertical joints split the
interposing strata. All the exits, however, came to an end speedily
except two, one extending a point east of south, the other a point east
of north. I explored the northern branch before my friends arrived. It
had several short ramifications, in some of which there were trails of
rabbits, and other evidences of a communication with the surface, such
as pieces of sodden wood and deposits of soil; but it gave ingress for
barely 50 feet. The other branch seemed more important, and as we were
tired out and hungry, we left it until we had returned to the dale for
rest and lunch, a waste of time, unfortunately, for it ran only for 100
feet farther.
[Illustration: RICKLOW CAVE IN FLOOD.
_Photo by G. D. Williams._]
We crept over a pavement of fractured blocks, into a broad, low passage
that seemed to have been hewn by giants out of the solid Limestone.
All around were the marks of a powerful, swirling current, that had
split and torn the rocks asunder, and bored its way through their
joints; yet not a grain of sand or a speck of mud was visible on their
cleaned and polished surface. Fissures and passages twisted away at the
side, but returned in a few yards to the main corridor. In the roof
were discernible the clean-cut hollows whence slabs of Limestone had
fallen that still cumbered the floor. The large chamber that we reached
finally was bestrewn and heaped up with such masses, and all the ways
of egress save one were entirely blocked up. This very soon came to an
abrupt termination in a bell-shaped cavity, floored with a crust of
stalagmite. But there were narrow fissures, a few inches only in width,
running away in many directions; a strong draught made the candles
gutter; and the occasional presence of great volumes of water was made
evident by the damage done to some of the incrustations. There was no
sign or sound of flowing water now; the silence was as profound and
impressive as the darkness. Yet this rock-strewn chamber was once the
birthplace of a river. Hither, from countless fissures, the streamlets
gathered together and poured through the hidden places of the hill, now
in a rippling brook, and now in a torrent, crashing and rending. At
present the Cales Dale stream finds its way to the Lathkill river by
still more secret channels. But at no infrequent times, even yet, the
torrent thunders over the waterfall in the Pot Hole Cavern, the swallet
is inundated, and a flood pours on through the long tunnel, and so into
the open stream-course in the dale, now dried up and covered with
vegetation. Proofs of this were legible all around us.
Returning up the dale, we closed the mouth of the artificial level, and
went back to the Ricklow Cavern. Although the portal is so majestic,
the passage becomes anything but commodious at the end of a few paces.
Once more we had to crawl over hard, water-worn rock, deeply fissured
and thrown out of the horizontal; our galled knees and elbows could
scarcely be induced to go at all, and the pace was miserably slow.
Then the roof came down so close in a horizontal fissure of huge
extent, that there was nothing for it but to wriggle. My friends had
ascertained that 280 feet of this work leads into a lofty chamber. It
is one of those long, vertical fissures, not wide but enormously high,
that are common in the Castleton caves. There were indications of
galleries overhead, but we were too much exhausted to attempt climbing
without a ladder. Only one exit was practicable, which led in 20 feet
into just such another hollow, but still wider and uglier of aspect.
Filling the cavity to a height of 30 feet was a mountain of shattered
rocks, flung together pell-mell and wedged loosely. When we climbed
it, the light of our candles showed that the structure was hollow, and
hardly more durable in appearance than a house of cards. Some of the
rocks were held by points and corners, swinging on their long axes; a
touch sent others clattering down, as we crept with the utmost caution
up the adjoining wall. It was as if the interior of the hill had been
rent apart by an earthquake, and the headlong stream of rocks caught
suddenly and held by the closing in of the fracture. We clambered to
the summit of this hollow mass of ruin, and lit some magnesium wire.
The formless walls went up into a dark void above us, their ledges
fringed with glistening spikes and tendrils of transparent stalactite,
revealed by the glare. There had been visitors here before. Scratched
on the walls, but partially coated over by a crystalline enamel, were
the initials "H. B.--R. A.," and the date 1817; other scrawls were
indecipherable. No doubt this was the cave whose legendary renown had
reached our ears. Getting down our shattered staircase was a more
formidable job than the ascent. One stone, as big as a table, rocked
like a see-saw when we set foot on it.
Stalactites were not numerous in these caves, which are not only very
humid, but continually swept by water. Animal remains were plentiful,
all recent, bones being carried in by beasts of prey and deposited
by floods. As this process must have been going on for ages, the two
Cales Dale caverns would probably yield good results to palæontological
research.
A comic incident cheered my fatigued comrades when we regained the
open air. In the morning I had brought my family up from Bakewell
Station for a day in the country, a work of supererogation that now
placed me in a curious predicament. The waggonette had gone off to
pick them up for the early train, and, to my distress, I found the
driver had relieved us of all the luggage, including the rücksack
which held my clothes, not to mention boots, pipe, and railway ticket.
The alternative stared me in the face of proceeding to town in slimy
overalls or in attire of dangerous slightness. But the broad-shouldered
friend came to the rescue with his cave jacket, a garment that fell
about me like a baggy greatcoat, hiding the worst deformities, and with
battered hobnailers at one extremity, and a cap that had more stiff
clay than cloth in it at the other, I made the best of my way home
under the cover of darkness.
A VISIT TO MITCHELSTOWN CAVE
Mitchelstown Cave, the largest ever discovered in the British Isles,
is not situated at the town of that name, in county Cork, but 10 miles
away, in Tipperary, on the road to Cahir. Its entrance is in a small
Limestone hill in the broad vale of the Blackwater, midway between the
Knockmealdown Mountains and the Sandstone ridges and tables of the
Galtees. The cave was laid open in the course of quarrying operations
in 1833, from which time to the present the work of exploration has
gone on progressively, if at long intervals, and may, perhaps, continue
until the extent of the passages known is considerably enlarged. It
seems now to be entirely forgotten that the spot has been famous from
time immemorial for a wonderful stalactite cavern. In October 1777,
Arthur Young was taken into a cave, known as Skeheenarinky, after the
townland, but the old Irish name of which was Oonakareaglisha. "The
opening," he says, "is a cleft of rock in a Limestone hill, so narrow
as to be difficult to get into it. I descended by a ladder of about
twenty steps, and then found myself in a vault of 100 feet long and
50 or 60 high: a small hole, on the left, leads from this a winding
course of, I believe, not less than half an Irish mile." He goes on to
describe the beautiful scenery of the cave, which, he says, is much
superior to the Peak Cavern in Derbyshire, "and Lord Kingsborough, who
has viewed the Grot d'Aucel in Burgundy, says that it is not to be
compared with it."[5] The odd thing is that the very existence of this
cavern seems to have been forgotten since the discovery of its much
finer neighbour. Yet the trees and brushwood guarding its mouth are in
full view of the well-frequented entrance to the other cave; and Dr.
Lyster Jameson, who was with Monsieur Martel on his visit in 1895, told
me some years ago that an opening had been pointed out to him into a
lower series of caves, which I have little hesitation in identifying
with Young's cavern and the cave mouth I allude to.
[5] Arthur Young's _Tour in Ireland_; ed. by A. W. Hutton. 2 vols.
Bell, 1892. See pages 464-465, vol. i.
[Illustration: A GREAT PILLAR: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
[Illustration: A FAIRY LANTERN: MITCHELSTOWN CAVERN.
_Photo by E. A. Baker_.]