There is a romance about cave exploring that is almost unrivalled. The conditions of the sport are so weird and exciting, so strangely different from everything we are accustomed to. To be so near to, and yet so far from, the scenes of our everyday life; to be launched on a voyage of discovery on an English river, or to be the first to gaze on some miracle of fantastic crystallisation only a few miles away from a large town--these are among the attractions of the sport, at least in its present stage. There is nothing in this country to compare with the prodigious caves of Kentucky or the terrific subterranean defiles of Adelsberg. One might as well look for the magnificence of the Alps among our English mountains. Yet the caves and gulfs of Derbyshire and Yorkshire have a grandeur of structure and diversity of character, and the Somerset caves a brilliance of crystalline deposits, that are fully as admirable and impressive. E. A. B. EXPLORING WOOKEY HOLE "Where Albion's western hills slope to the sea, There is a cave, and o'er its dismal mouth, Whence come to quick, mysterious ears hoarse sounds Of giant revelry, the ivy grew And shut the old sepulchral darkness in; And by its side a well, whence ever full And ever overflowing, silent, deep, And cold as death, the waters creep Adown the broken rocks in search of day. Above it frowns a fretted, stony brow, And only from the setting sun e'er came Within that place the joyfulness of light." W. W. SMITH, _Angels and Men_: a Poem.