An interesting little tributary ravine and cavern, far up the gorge, provides a perfect example of the cave theory of the formation of the gorge itself. About two miles from the village, on the southern slopes of the ravine, is an extensive fir wood. High up on the opposite side this little ravine is visible, and it may be reached with ease. Here sides that gently slope give way to precipitous walls, between which you walk. Moss-grown stones give place to new-fallen stones, and then you have before you the little ravine roofed in; you pass beneath, and find yourself in the darkness of the cavern itself, which can be followed for some distance. Here, at any rate, there can be no doubt as to the process that has been at work.
H. E. B.
[ANTIQUITY OF THE CAVES OF MENDIP]
When we consider the question of the age of our caverns, we are met at the outset by a mass of evidence forcing upon us the certainty that they must be credited with a very high antiquity indeed. Here measurement by years and centuries fails, and the imagination must be called in to aid us to compute the epochs that have successively elapsed since the first cave, to take one example, began to be formed at Wookey Hole. These evidences are of three kinds: historical, palæontological, and geological. In the first place, there has been obviously little change in the general configuration of our caverns since earliest historical times. The dens and caves of the earth have afforded a retreat to the persecuted of all generations, and a ready-made home when all else has failed. Here, too, with the rocky walls behind him and his protecting fires at the entrance, early man could defy the savage beasts that roamed the land in those far-off days.
At Wookey Hole it was only necessary to scratch the very surface of the accumulated débris within the mouth of the great cave to turn up fragments of Romano-British pottery and a human jaw and rib-bones. These interesting relics are in the possession of myself and Mr. Troup. From the very nature of the place, it is obvious that the tendency has been to accumulate more and more débris upon the mass of cave earth which contains these remains. Slightly deeper, yet still only in the loose earth of the cavern mouth, we found pottery of still earlier date, unwheeled and cruder. The fact is borne in upon us, that certainly for two thousand years this entrance has remained much as it is now. Perhaps a loose rock here and there has been dislodged from the overhanging cliff outside, and, crashing to the stream bed below, has there been broken up and carried away by the river. But no one can doubt that the general outline is the same now as then. And farther within the cavern an interesting sidelight is thrown on the slowness with which things change in the underworld. At the descent into the first great chamber a chalk inscription roughly made reads "E A 1769." That inscription has been there unchanged, to my knowledge, for the last twenty years, and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. If a chalk mark remains unerased for a century and more, how long have those solid walls stood, and how long will they endure?
As I have gazed upon that inscription, the thought has come, that such a place as this would be an ideal site for national monuments. When our abbeys and cathedrals are crumbled away, these great subterranean halls will remain practically unchanged. And in the caves of Cheddar like evidences meet the eye. In the loose material in the Roman cave there, Roman and Romano-British remains have been found in abundance; and here again we are forced to the conclusion that no change has taken place since those remains were deposited.
But when we consider the evidences furnished by the remains of the extinct mammalia, mingled with those of primitive man, much more is it impressed upon the mind that we are dealing with relics of enormous antiquity. The great assemblage of bones of the extinct animals which occurs at Banwell Cave, and the numberless finds from the caves of Cheddar, are indications of this; but those of the Hyæna Den of Wookey Hole, and the conditions of their deposit there, afford us much more reliable testimony. Here are two principal cavities on the eastern side of the ravine, representing two of the five river levels which the stream of the Axe has hollowed for itself in the Dolomitic Conglomerate. These are branch or side chambers which have not been totally destroyed in the process of erosion that formed the ravine at the expense of the cavern. In the uppermost cavity, known as the Badger Hole (it was the haunt of badgers until a few years ago), no traces of the extinct mammalia are to be found, nor have I found definite traces of prehistoric man. At seven feet below the surface, however, there is a bed of river sand of precisely the same kind as that in the upper chambers of the great cavern. In the Hyæna Den below, on the other hand, so thoroughly and systematically explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins, was found one of the most perfect assemblages of the remains of extinct animals ever discovered. Many years after his labours were completed I searched there again, and was rewarded with a by no means poor collection of bones and teeth: Mammoth and Woolly Rhinoceros, Irish Elk and Reindeer, Red Deer, Bison, Cave Lion and Bear, Hyæna and Wolf, Wild Goat, Wild Horse, and Wild Boar have all been found. One of my earliest trophies was a fairly complete skull of a young Bear; and I have representatives of all the others. From a small hole in the side of the valley hard by, which I thought looked promising, we have obtained a large number of Rhinoceros teeth, together with those of several of the other kinds present in the Den. The examination of these cavities and their contents demonstrates the fact that they were the actual dens of some of these animals. The abundant marks of gnawing show that the Hyænas made their home there. Over the vertical cliff many a worn-out beast was hunted to its death by the Hyænas and Wolves, and its shattered carcass dragged to this hole.