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.