We are called a nation of sportsmen; yet the first criticism we level against any new sport, not our own, is the question, usually unanswerable and always irrelevant, What is the use of it? One may then, with a certain show of propriety, point out that cave exploring is a sport not entirely lacking in utilitarian or scientific objects. It belongs, in fact, to that large class which originated as something else than mere pastime. Mountaineering and hunting are typical representatives of that class. The earliest mountaineers were geographers. Cave exploring was first of all taken up as a branch of archæological and palæontological research, and then as a general inquiry into the physical nature of caves. But a science that has discovery as its principal object, and hardships and adventure as its natural concomitants, is bound to attract as many sportsmen as scientists. The geographical might be called the sporting sciences. And so there are now many ardent cave explorers who would blush to be called speleologists, their sole motive being the enjoyment of the game, and scientific results purely a by-product. Thus the science of caves has given birth to a sport that subserves its aims in the same irregular way as rock-climbing and peak-bagging subserve the aims of geography, geology, meteorology, and other sciences. Speleology itself is, comparatively, a new science. Cave hunting, the search for human and animal remains, has been an important bypath of scientific investigation since the days of Dean Buckland and the discoveries recorded in _Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_, 1823. Professor Boyd Dawkins has in recent decades done still more valuable work for palæontology. Speleology is a word of both wider and narrower meaning; in the widest sense covering all kinds of knowledge about caves, their geography, geology, hydrology, their fauna, their palæontology. But most speleologists confine their attention to the physical characteristics of caves. This side of the inquiry has practical utilities. At Vaucluse, for instance, near Avignon, M. Bouvier in 1878 explored the channels of a gigantic siphon that carries the waters of an inaccessible reservoir into the Fontaine de Vaucluse, a famous "rising." His object was partly scientific, and partly to determine the nature of this permanent source, so as to utilise its waters to regulate the level of the Sorgue, to extend the irrigation system of the neighbourhood, and to secure water-power for manufacturing purposes. The Katavothra of Pod-Stenami were enlarged by an enterprising engineer, and protected by iron gratings, after their subterranean exits had been explored, and so utilised to regulate the drainage of the marshy plains of Laibach, and to prevent periodical inundations. In our own country, underground exploration has brought to light valuable water-supplies, and enabled us to safeguard the public interests by pointing out sources of pollution. Caves are most abundant