Hardly anywhere else in Britain is the mind borne down with such a sense of incalculable antiquity as at Wookey Hole. Nowhere, certainly, is there anything like such a continuous record from ages inconceivably remote. To touch first of all upon periods that are historical and measurable, we have the name Wookey, which appears to be the one bestowed by the ancient Britons; for it is a recognisable corruption--especially as the people of the district sound it, "Ookey"--of the Celtic Ogo, a cavern, the same word, Ogof, as the modern Welsh still apply to several caves in the Principality. Clemens Alexandrinus, in the second century A.D., has a reference to the cavern, and there are periodical allusions in Latin and English writers from that time to the present. In the Middle Ages its fame as one of the wonders of England was great. William of Worcester has a quaint description; he says, "Its entrance is narrow, and the ymage of a man stands beside it called the Porter, of whom leave to enter the Hall of Wokey is to be obtained." What became of this janitor is now unknown, unless he be represented by the recumbent monolith still to be seen outside the portal. References to the antiquities of Wookey Hole occur in Leland's _Itinerary_ and in Camden's _Britannia_, and there is incorporated in Percy's _Reliques_ a ballad, by an eighteenth-century virtuoso, Dr. Harrington of Bath, entitled "The Witch of Wokey," recounting an old legend of the neighbourhood. "In aunciente dayes, tradition showes, A base and wicked elfe arose The Witch of Wokey hight." So it begins, and goes on to relate, in the sham antique style of the day, how a malevolent old woman was for her misdeeds changed to stone by a "lerned clerk of Glaston." The Witch, a black, aquiline profile in stone and stalagmite, is with her culinary utensils the chief attraction to sightseers in the first great chamber, or, as it is sometimes called, the Witch's Kitchen. [Illustration: PROFILE OF THE "WITCH OF WOOKEY," WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN. _Photo by H. E. Balch._] [Illustration: AMONG THE POOLS, WOOKEY HOLE CAVERN. _Photo by H. E. Balch._]