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 spot is well worth visiting, if only to see this remarkable
illustration of several consecutive chapters in the history of a
cavern. The destructive work of the Limestone quarry, having been
checked at this particular point, exposes the whole thing as in a
diagram; and the actual evidences are there just as they were produced
by the forces acting in successive epochs--the mouth of the original
cave, formed perhaps in pre-Triassic times; the masses of drift
thrust in by the glaciers; and the new cave floor, with its growth of
stalagmites. Since the caves lie at a height of several hundred feet
above sea-level, it is fairly certain that the moving glaciers exerted
an upward as well as a horizontal force, shoving the plastic masses
of clay and débris into the ascending passages, and caulking up, no
doubt, a good many tributary galleries that are now unknown. The caves
look north, and the material pushed into them must have come from
seaward; there is, furthermore, no rock in the adjoining districts
that could have yielded this kind of pebbles: so that it appears the
stream of glaciers which flowed across from Lancashire and Cheshire,
impinging against the contrary flow of ice from Snowdonia, must be
held responsible for the presence of these dense deposits. All along
the meadow-lands between the Limestone hills and the sea a series of
risings or big springs are noticeable from the railway, forming large
pools. These are the outlets of the drainage that has been absorbed by
the Limestone strata, through which the water has found its way until,
meeting with an impermeable layer of rock, or reaching the plane of
saturation at sea-level, it has been forced to the surface.
[Illustration: IN THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
_Photo by E. A. Baker._]
The St. George's Caves are situated on and about a wooded hill of
Limestone near the village, which adjoins the low-lying lands of Morfa
Rhuddlan, the scene of a murderous battle in the year 795. The Celt,
with his strong historical imagination, such a factor in national
solidarity, still remembers, though confusedly perhaps, some incidents
of that calamitous fight. The old woman who pointed out the situation
of the caves drew our attention to the ditch and rampart which run
round the hillcrest, where it is not protected by cliffs. There, she
said, the routed Welsh tribes had entrenched themselves and fought
desperately on until every man was put to the sword. The wood on the
hilltop is full of graves, she told us, and weapons often come to light
there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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