The netherworld of Mendip : $b explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhereBaker, Ernest A. (Ernest Albert)
Science
The netherworld of Mendip : $b explorations in the great caverns of Somerset, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and elsewhere
Baker, Ernest A. (Ernest Albert)
Caves; Mendip Hills (England)
The next cave also is of minor interest to the speleologist, although
it contains many curious sights. It is called "Gough's Old Cavern,"
and its entrance is close to the mouth of the Great Cavern. It is an
ascending cleft, apparently not linked at present with the other caves,
although it was once probably a sloping aven draining into the big
series of caverns that have been gradually cut back by the falling in
of the defile. Whoever likes such things may find here plenty of those
freaks and alleged similitudes that puzzle and delight the ordinary
sightseer. On a stalagmite excrescence nicknamed the "Ribs of Beef" we
had the luck to see a far more interesting phenomenon. The calcite mass
was clustered over with a number of motionless black objects, which
we found to be roosting bats, hanging head downwards by their claws.
They were not disturbed in the least by our presence, and one that
was lifted off gently just showed his teeth and claws, and clung on
again as fast as ever when replaced on the rock to resume his patient
sleep. A photograph of this curious sight was obtained by means of the
flashlight. At the head of the cave are several incrusted grottoes,
where the process of deposition is still going on, roof and walls
streaming with moisture. This part is not unlike the show places in the
Bagshawe Cavern in the Peak of Derbyshire.
In many respects the Roman Cave is much more interesting. Its mouth is
situated about 150 feet up the cliffs, almost immediately over the cave
just described. Quantities of Roman pottery, coins, bones, and other
remains, have been discovered there, showing it to be one of the places
that sheltered fugitives after the evacuation of Britain by the Roman
legions. The entrance is a broad anticlinal arch, and the main passage,
high-roofed and ascending gradually, runs east for perhaps a furlong.
Then the floor, which has been covered with earth and stones, becomes
rugged and rock-strewn, and suddenly we creep through a lowly portal
into a high and gloomy chamber, the shadowy corners of whose roof
our lights are too feeble to explore. To all appearances this was the
end of the cavern; but we had been told that the passage takes a turn
here and goes on nearly a quarter of a mile farther. We scanned every
part of the walls as far up as we could see, but no accessible opening
disclosed itself. In a recess on one side a number of fallen rocks
were piled up and wedged between the converging walls. To examine the
cavity from a vantage spot, we climbed with a good deal of difficulty
to the top of these, and there, to our astonishment, a wide passage
sloped up at right angles to the one we had entered by. A curious slit
in the wall opened into a perpendicular fissure that was situated right
in the roof of the latter, and through the hole we caught a glimpse of
our friends following us up. Three men now pushed on up the new passage
and entered a chamber whose sole exit was a small and uninviting hole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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