Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11: Historical, Entertaining & Commercial; Alphabetically Arranged. 11 Volume set.Dugdale, Thomas
History
Curiosities of Great Britain: England and Wales Delineated Vol.1-11: Historical, Entertaining & Commercial; Alphabetically Arranged. 11 Volume set.
Dugdale, Thomas
Great Britain -- Gazetteers
about the floor. In this place were found two pieces of candle,
encrusted with lime, supposed to have been left by the miners after
working for ochre, calamine, &c. A rich vein of iron ore, with some
cobalt and manganese, was also discovered, the working of which has long
since commenced, and the produce is conveyed to the smelting works on
the southern coast of Wales. The workmen, in order to facilitate an
easier method of entrance, opened another fissure lower in the rock,
when suddenly another cavern presented itself, the floor of which was
covered with a mass of sand, limestone, teeth, bones, &c. Professor
Buckland, who surveyed this place, states, that a shaft being driven
into this mass, proved it to have been nearly 40 feet deep. The bones
consisted of various specimens of the ox tribe, including the elk.
Skeletons of the wolf, and a gigantic bear, in point of preservation,
like what are to be found in ordinary churchyards--supposed to be of
antediluvian origin, where found here. In the roof of the cave is a
large chimney-like shaft, formerly rising to the surface, but now
blocked up by fragments of limestone, mud, and sand, adhering together
by incrustation, and through which dreadful pitfall, it is presumed,
this immense number of beasts were precipitated at the great inundation.
The rubbish has been partially cleared, and the bones are used to
decorate the sides of the walls. A British earthwork crowns the summit
of the neighbouring eminence, enclosing, within its irregular rampart,
an area of about 20 acres; and, about a quarter of a mile further, is an
entrenchment nearly square, the ground in the centre of which is
elevated in the form of a cross.
_Fairs_, Jan. 18, and July 18, for cattle, sheep, and cheese.
[Sidenote: Formerly a Bishop's Palace.]
[Sidenote: Extraordinary caverns.]
[Sidenote: Antediluvian bones.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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