THE CHAPEL: STUMP CROSS CAVERN.
Photo by E. A. Baker.
We thought this expedition to the lower series had exhausted the principal beauties of Stump Cross Cavern, but we were wrong. On our way to rejoin the other men in the Middle Cavern we were much impressed by two large curtains of stalactite, one of them folded and wrinkled, and the other hanging straight down without a curve, but both striped with deep bands of crimson, orange, and golden yellow when a piece of magnesium was burnt behind them. These were equal in extent and brilliance to anything I have ever seen, even in Cox's Cavern at Cheddar. A round tunnel, ribbed and groined with glistening dripstone, and a broad low arch set with pillars and string-like stalactites stretched from top to bottom, led into the long, wide chamber that we dubbed the "Bowling Alley," on account of the stumps and pedestals of stalagmite that stud the floor between the pillars. Beyond it a short passage leads into a grotto to the right, and a very difficult one continues some distance to the left.
It was now past three in the morning. Tired and battered to the point of exhaustion, but delighted with an exploration that far exceeded in interest all we had looked for, we returned to the cave mouth. An unpleasant-looking bull which had with great suspicion watched us make our nocturnal entry into the regions below had, greatly to our relief, got tired of waiting, and the coast was clear. Out of the everlasting silence and the shadows, lit so rarely by the glare of the magnesium and the beams of the limelight, we returned again, with the surprise that never fails, to the light of the heavens. Dusk was on the far-extending moors and hills, daylight was creeping on over the sky, a pair of larks saluted us with a hilarious song. Our driver was soon awake at the little inn, two furlongs away, and in the freshness of the morning we crawled down the break-neck road to Appletreewick, Bolton Woods and the Wharfe growing in light before us; and then at an exhilarating pace rolled up the dale to the Red Lion at Burnsall.