Our party of four had been engaged in some arduous work near Wells, and a descent into Lamb's Lair meant a long drive across Mendip, nearly to East Harptree. We were dropped by our waggonette, with a great pile of apparatus, at a gate into a field. The field was part of the Lamb's Bottom ravine, and we had some difficulty in locating the entrance to our cavern among the innumerable workings and natural depressions that cut up the surface. At length we caught sight of the end of a ladder sticking out from a hole that was buried in brushwood, and straightway we found ourselves on the brink of the 60-foot shaft. The uppermost ladder was broken six feet from the top, and so was the second; neither was fit to be trusted. We supported the broken part of the top ladder with a forked branch, and I took up my station on a ledge 15 feet down, to steady the things as they were lowered. Each man was roped for the descent, for the crazy ladders, the decayed woodwork, and the loose stones in the shaft all threatened disaster. At last all our paraphernalia was safe at the bottom, and now a muddy progress began through a narrow, dripping cleft into a low tunnel, that brought us, after many windings, to the top of a fourth ladder. This one was not so high, but it was quite as shaky as the others, and a member of the party got a nasty blow on the shoulder from a beam connected with it, that gave way whilst we were passing the luggage from hand to hand. Descending still through an irregular passage, we suddenly entered a roomy vault with stalactites on the roof. Here the glories of Lamb's Lair begin. In a few moments we shall be at the threshold of the incomparable Beehive Chamber, and thence, to a point far beyond what we can attain to-day, the poetry and witchery of cave scenery are at their finest. Stumbling over the irregularities of the crystal floor, we see dimly, by the light of our candles, great luminous arcs bending over our heads; and then, catching sight of a regularly shaped hemisphere rising out of the darkness and dwarfing the cave with its enormous proportions, we realise that this is the Beehive Chamber. When the limelight is brought in, and its fierce beams play upon the wild arcades and groining of this fantastic vault, we are astounded by the wealth and brilliance and extraordinary variety of the incrustations: not a rib, not a corner of bare rock remains visible; every inch of floor and walls and roof has been thickly coated with the calcareous enamel. The Beehive itself, 12 feet high and enormous in girth, is not more astonishing for its size than for the regularity of its shape. It is probably the largest boss of stalagmite in England. The sides are streaked with white and yellow bands, which enhance the weird symmetry and polish of its appearance; and, on the summit, wide enough for a man to walk about, we noticed that a number of stalactites, fallen from the vault above, had become embedded in its mass, and were slowly being