ELDEN HOLE.
Elden Hole is situated on the side of a gentle hill about a mile to the north-west of the village of Peak Forest. It is a deep chasm in the ground, surrounded by a wall, of uncemented stones, to prevent accidents. This fissure or cleft in the rock has been the subject of many exaggerated descriptions and superstitious reports, having been represented not only as unfathomable, but as teeming, at a certain depth, with so impure an air, that it could not be respired without immediate destruction. Mr. Lloyd, however, who descended it about seventy years ago, has proved the absurdity of these relations, in a paper, of which the following is a brief abstract, published in the Philosophical Transactions.
For the first sixty feet, he observes, he descended somewhat obliquely, the passage then becoming difficult from projecting crags. At the further depth of thirty feet, the inflection of his rope varied at least eighteen feet from the perpendicular. The breadth of the chink was here about nine feet, and the length eighteen; the sides being irregular, moss-grown, and wet. Within forty-two feet of the bottom, the rock opened on the east, and he swung till he reached the floor of a cave, one hundred and eighty-six feet only from the mouth, the light from which was sufficiently strong to permit the reading of any book. The interior of the chasm he describes as consisting of two parts, which communicate with each other by a small arched passage, the one resembling an oven, the other the dome of a glass-house. On the south side of the latter, was a small opening, about twelve feet in length, and four feet in hight, lined throughout with a kind of sparkling stalactite, of a fine deep yellow color, with petrifying drops hanging from the roof. Tracing the entrance he found a noble column, above ninety feet high, of the same kind of incrustation. As he proceeded to the north, he came to a large stone which was covered with the same substance; and beneath it he found a hole six feet in depth, uniformly lined with it. From the edge of this hole sprung up a rocky ascent, sloping, like a buttress, against the side of the cavern, and consisting of vast, solid, round masses of the same substance and color. Having climbed this ascent to the hight of about sixty feet, he obtained some fine pieces of stalactite, which hung from the craggy sides of the cavern. Descending with some difficulty and danger, he proceeded in the same direction, and soon came to another pile of incrustations of a brown color, above which he found a small cavern, opening into the side of the vault, which he now entered. Here he saw vast masses of stalactite, hanging like icicles from every part of the roof: several of these were four and five feet long, and thick as a man’s body. The sides of the largest cavern were chiefly lined with incrustations of three kinds, the first of which was a deep yellow stalactite; the second, a thin coating which resembled a pale stone-color varnish, and reflected the light of the candle with great splendor; and the third, a rough efflorescence, the shoot of which resembled a rose flower.
Some more recent visitors have thus stated the result of their observations and inquiries relative to Elden Hole. They describe the mouth of this chasm as opening horizontally, in a direction from north to south; its shape being nearly that of an irregular ellipse, about ninety feet in length, and twenty-seven in breadth at the widest part. The northern end is fringed with small trees; and moss and underwood grow out of the crevices on each side, to the depth of forty or fifty feet. As the fissure recedes from the surface, it gradually contracts; and at the depth of about seventy feet inclines considerably to the west, so as to prevent its course from being further traced. Notwithstanding the obstacles of the bushes and projecting masses of stone, it was sounded, and its depth found not to exceed two hundred and two feet, an estimate which corresponds with the assertion of three miners, who had descended in search of the bodies of individuals who were missing, and were supposed to have been robbed, murdered, and thrown into this frightful abyss.