After exploring the Great Cavern our party of four devoted some time to an examination of these openings, so far as could be done without excavating. There are three important caverns in close proximity to the Great Cavern, or Gough's. The best known is Cox's, a small but exceedingly beautiful stalactite cavern (see frontispiece). No one interested in caves would think of visiting Cheddar without seeing the Great Cavern, nor would any such person dream of missing Cox's. Each is the complement of the other as a piece of underground scenery. The spacious vaults and vast stalagmite falls of the one fill one with a sense of power and majesty; the other is a gem of fantastic architecture, embellished with the most lawless and fairy-like designs of the subterranean artificer, and unique in one respect--the wealth and diversity of the mineral deposits that have dyed its multiform incrustations with luminous tints. No sane man, however, would attempt to describe Cox's Cavern in detail, and a photograph can give only colourless glimpses of its kaleidoscopic beauties. The cavern seems, at first sight, to be a solitary freak of nature, having no connection with the general system of caves and streams. But since the visit just referred to, several new passages have been opened, among them the interesting water-tunnel with its ebb and flow corresponding to the movements of the Cheddar Water outside, which, as already described, flows at a higher level. Of three other good-sized fissures or ancient channels radiating from the same large chamber, two after a while dwindle away almost to nothing, but the third has indications of a channel striking downwards, which it might be worth while to clear of rubbish. All these passages were choked with clay until quite recently. [Illustration: IN COX'S CAVERN AT CHEDDAR. _Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._] [Illustration: GREAT RIFT CAVERN, CHEDDAR GORGE. _Photo by Bamforth, Holmfirth._]