Returning to daylight, we examined a cave vent in the ground hard by, where a vapour was steaming up into the chilly air. The penetrable portion was just big enough to accommodate the six feet two of our tallest man. With some time left on our hands, we decided now to walk on to Loxton, the next village, where another cave was situated on a Limestone hilltop. There were only two miles to walk, so we did not think it worth while to doff our cave panoply. Great was the speculation that our unexampled appearance excited in the people we met. We could not be tramps—in fact, we hardly looked respectable enough; and yet our rucksacks, ropes, and cameras gave us an air of distinction that was puzzling in the extreme. Faces crowded to the windows at every house we passed, and at Loxton we had to run the gauntlet of satiric observation. As we asked our way to the quarry at Loxton, the general conclusion was that we were in quest of a job there.
This cave must have been a very interesting one long ago, but now it is like those at Compton Bishop, only a remnant; and besides what has been destroyed by natural denudation, a great deal has been damaged by the gradual approaches of a Limestone quarry on the side of the hill. This has exposed the outlets of several passages. A labyrinth of low galleries remains, with a few larger hollows here and there; but of whatever beauty they once possessed they have long been denuded by the devastating village boy, who has found the intricacies of Loxton Cavern a perfect paradise. It does not follow that the cave would necessarily not pay for a thorough exploration. If some of the lower reaches were carefully examined, entrances would very likely be found into still nether caverns, of which these dry channels were at one time the feeders. But the work would be peculiarly difficult on account of the smallness of the open spaces, and the result uncertain. Yet the Limestone of the Mendips is so thick—the thickest in England—and the parts that have been explored are so honeycombed with cavities and passages, that every gateway into this strange underworld promises more or less reward. It is somewhere in the neighbourhood of Loxton and Banwell that the famous "Gulf" was discovered in the days of the old lead miners. In driving an extensive level through a hill, at a point 80 fathoms below the summit, they came upon a gigantic rift. A man was let down on a long rope—so tradition reports—and when he had descended to the full extent of it he was unable to see either walls or bottom of the tremendous abyss. We are probably on the track of this monster cavity, an exploration of which will entail labour and fortitude. That and the exploration of the swallet at Hillgrove, when it is opened, are the two most fascinating problems awaiting us in the immediate future.
E. A. B.
[LAMB'S LAIR]
A few years ago the Great Western opened what they called the Wrington Vale Light Railway up the valley of the Yeo, which borders Mendip on the north. A few miles beyond its present terminus lie the two Harptrees, in the heart of a sequestered countryside of great pastoral beauty. Here, where nowadays all the pursuits are agricultural, a great deal of mining was carried on in years gone by, the relics of which are still visible in the surface workings, grown over with grass. In the upland ravines of Lamb's Bottom, near the top of the Mendip plateau, these are very numerous, and seem to be the work of both lead miners and searchers for black oxide of manganese. Early in the eighteenth century a cavern of prodigious size and beauty was discovered in this locality; but, by one of those curious accidents which are by no means infrequent in the history of caves, it was lost, and its site remained unknown for a hundred and twenty years. Its fame, however, was cherished by the country folk, and the tradition of its fabulous wonders induced a lord of the manor, a quarter of a century ago, to offer a heavy monetary reward, which led to its rediscovery in the year 1880. This new exploration made some noise at the time, and a fair number of people ventured on a descent. The difficulties were smoothed down considerably. Ladders were fixed in the shaft, which was strengthened by timber supports, and in difficult parts of the lower galleries; solid beds of arragonite were cut through, and a heavy structure of timber, carrying a windlass, was built out on the verge of an abyss, to make accessible the floor of the Great Chamber. Lamb's Lair is even alluded to, though incorrectly, in the fourth edition of Murray's Guide—that for 1882—and, for a while, great was the renown of its unparalleled beauties. Then, as usually happens with cave scenery when there is any difficulty or any peril involved, the novelty and the popularity of Lamb's Lair waned; and now for a long period the cave has been derelict, the timber erections have become rotten and dangerous, and the only visit during many years previous to the one I am about to describe nearly resulted in a catastrophe.
ENTRANCE TO LAMB'S LAIR, HARPTREE.