seen, rejects, with reason, the agency of rivers as inadequate to the forma- CHAP. 1. tion of valleys, is nevertheless, "inclined to believe that the caverns have Caverns. been formed by the agency of water, percolating through natural fissures, and in the lapse of ages excavating the softer or more broken parts of the rock;"* but there are phenomena, universally belonging to caverns, which, while they prove that all such internal cavities have owed their existence to similar causes, seem themselves to have originated in other powers besides "the prodigious force with which these subterranean streams rush through the openings of some of these caverns, after continued rains.”+— Mr. Pilkington attributes their formation chiefly to the clefts or fractures in the limestone measures, which, he says, 66 generally turn in angles or curves, and sometimes swell into large caverns." This curvature or swelling is common to all the caverns in this county; and, in our present imperfect state of knowledge, we are reluctantly left to attribute the combinations of circular forms, which constitute the general characteristics of caverns, to certain contortions of fracture, and to the attrition made by whirlpools in confined currents of running water. Mr. Mawe, in his Mineralogy of Derbyshire states, that "the entrance and roofs generally assume an arched appearance; and though the tops of the caverns are frequently irregular, they almost always form the segment of a circle; the sides generally rise nearly perpendicular, while the bottoms are more flat." And further on, he adds, "a prodigious variety of round or spherical holes occurs in the roofs, some two, three, four, and six feet in diameter, and as deep; they preserve a very correct round form: and often smaller ones appear in them, as if formed by art." It is always in the lower beds of that stratum called the upper-transition-limestone, that caverns are discovered. This stratum is described by Mr. White Watson, under the appellation of compact-limestone; and he adds, "that its colour is a blackish grey, and that it contains minute entrochi, interspersed with particles of sulphuret of iron." The upper beds of this stratum are much broken by the convexity of the under ones, and the fissures with which it consequently abounds, are frequently filled with spars and minerals. or Cavern. A cleft in this stratum of limestone at Castleton, has been the origin of that most remarkable of the Derbyshire caverns, called Peak's Hole, or the Peak Hole, Devil's cave; while the action of water, and the concealed chemistry of nature, have imparted to it much of its internal form, and have furnished it with its terrific and splendid objects. A deep contracted ravine leads from the valley of Castleton to its entrance. On each side of this gloomy chasm rise stupendous masses of rock: that on the left sustains on the very ledge of its summit an ancient castle, while at its feet appears the stream that gushes from the cavern on the right; a stream" which (says Mr. H. Moore) after heavy rain, is seen to boil up from underneath the rock, at the entrance of the cave, dashing over the fragments of limestone that lie in its channel."§ The mouth of this cavern is vast and magnificent. It consists of a broad, * Bakewell's Introduction to Geology, Chap. VII. † Idem. Pilkington's Derbyshire, Vol. I. page 62. § Moore's picturesque Excursion. CHAP. 1. Peak Hole, or Cavern. * unsupported arch, one hundred and twenty feet wide, and fourteen feet high. This arch is flattened, but yet tolerably regular; and the receding depth, where the light of day becomes gradually obscured until it dies away in the internal darkness, is differently calculated, but by Mr. Pilkington is estimated to have an extension of about a hundred yards.* Within this porch, there is a twine-manufactory: many persons are there employed; and men, women and children, are seen busily moving about in this dismal expanse.+ Proceeding onwards beyond the rude habitations and humble machinery of these curious groups, the roof descends, and, at the base of an isolated rock, in the depth of darkness, the visitors are conducted to the interior entrance of the cavern. Torches or candles are here supplied, and the guide unlocks the gate, which, unlike the portal of Dante's subterranean abode, has no inscription forbidding the visitants the indulgence of hope, but, on the contrary, is never entered without much expectation, which is, happily, never disappointed. Within the gate the passage becomes low and confined. The visitors are obliged to stoop for many yards, and a spacious vault, called the Bell-house, at length receives them. The sides of this vault appear to close down upon the stream of water, which spreads out beneath them into the form of a small lake. This pool or lake is denominated the first water: its depth is not more than two or three feet, and its extent is about fourteen. The opening in the incumbent rock is just sufficient to admit a small boat, in which the passengers lie as they would in a bed, while the guide walks in the water and thrusts the boat across the stream. In awaiting this embarkation the mind has an opportunity for classic and poetic indulgences. The gleam from the torches, and the reflection of moving and glittering images from the water, set before the imagination troops of shadowy beings, that seem suddenly to start from their abysses upon the intruders. After a short voyage across this lake, between the superincumbent rock and the water, an ample cavernous expanse is entered. This is called the saloon, and is said to be two hundred feet wide, and, in some parts, one hundred and twenty feet in height. No ray of light can enter this cavern except what may proceed from the candles of the visitors, and these faint glimmerings only serve to render the extreme darkness of the place the more impressive. On the farther side of this cavity the cavern stream spreads out again into what is termed the second water, which can be generally passed without the aid of the guide. The visitors then find themselves within an inclosure of broken and projecting rocks, through which water perpetually percolates in a drizzling shower. This rocky inclosure is called Roger Rain's House, and it expands gradually into a vast and * Pilkington's Derbyshire, Vol. I. page 63. The author of the following lines seems to have wilfully mistaken the character of this manufactory, and to have substituted hempen ropes for hempen twine. "a crew o'th' Fates' pale labourers, who awful cavity, which bears the name of the Chancel. Here is sometimes CHAP. 1. placed, in order to surprise the visitors, a choir of the High Peak singers, Peak Hole, consisting generally of men, women, and children, under the direction of or Cavern. the parish clerk of Castleton. The sharp and nasal tones of these choristers are not always in unison with each other, but they are far from being out of tune with what may be supposed the ideas of visitors in "these lower regions, where darkness holds an everlasting reign." Many visitors will at that moment have in their recollection, the passage in Virgil's sixth Book of the Æneid. " "Continuò auditæ voces, vagitus et ingens, * Hos juxta, falso damnati crimine mortis." Here infants' spirits, that in birth expire These singers, however, disappoint, very happily, our Virgilian impressions. They do not cry or groan continually. Mr. Moore correctly observes, that, "after a stave or two, these vocal performers produce a number of lighted candles, when we behold them on a rocky gallery at a great height. These lights show the rude arches and vastness of this subterranean cathedral with fine effect; yet much Tartarian obscurity remains, wherein the imagination wanders with awe."+ Music, in such a situation, however rude and discordant, is capable of producing an awful effect; and we cannot but fully agree with Mr. Warner, who observes, that these unexpected strains " issuing from a quarter where no object can be seen, in a place where all is still as death, and every thing around calculated to awaken attention, and powerfully impress the imagination with solemn ideas, can seldom be heard without that mingled emotion of fear and pleasure, astonishment and delight, which is one of the most interesting feelings of the mind."+ The path from the Chancel descends through an extent of about one hundred and fifty feet, to the Half-way-House, where a deep rumbling of the water is heard, and the visitors, stooping continually beneath the impending rocks, are obliged twice to cross the stream. The Devil's Hall, Gloucester Hall, and the Great Tom of Lincoln, are cavernous chambers of considerable interest, particularly the last, which has a large cavity in its roof, resembling the form of a bell. This, when strongly illuminated, exhibits such harmonising proportions in the projecting rocks, the stream beneath, and the spiracles in the roof, that the whole strikes the mind as the bold yet regular design of a daring yet skillful architect. A little beyond this spot the roof of the cavern closes down upon the * Moore's Picturesque Excursion. + Idem. Warner's Northern Tour. CHAP. 1. Peak Hole, or Cavern. Poole's Hole verge of the water, and further progress is precluded. Attempts have been made to open a passage to other caverns, but without success. The ingulfment of the stream which flows through these subterranean chambers, is about four miles from the Manchester road, at a place called Perry-foot.* This has been proved by chaff or slips of paper, which being thrown into the water there, frequently find their way to the cavern. Before the visitor quits the cavern, his attention is usually called to the effect of a blast; which is an explosion of gunpowder, wedged into the rock in the inner part of the cave. The sound reverberates, in repeated peals, with a dreadful volume of intonation. The return to the light of day, from the recesses of the cavern, is, by all who have experienced the emotion it produces, pronounced to be delightful. "The gradual illumination of the rocks," says the writer in the Beauties of England and Wales, "which become brighter as they approach the entrance, and the chastened blaze of day, that arrays the distance in morning serenity, is, perhaps, one of the most beautiful scenes that the pencil could be employed to exhibit." The whole extent, from the mouth of the cavern to the farthest part of these subterranean chambers, hitherto penetrated, is about 2300 feet; and, it is worthy of remark, that an intelligent foreigner, in his Journal, has declared himself to have been struck "on approaching Peak's Hole with its strong resemblance to the rock of the Fontaine de Vaucluse." Poole's Hole is a cavern in the mass of limestone that ranges westward of Buxton. An ancient tradition declares it to have derived its name from an outlaw, named Poole, who made it his residence. The entrance is as mean and contracted, as that of the Peak cavern is awful and magnificent. Through a crevice, very low and confined, the curious visitant can proceed only in a stooping posture, to a lofty and spacious chamber, "from the roof and sides of which depend a quantity of stactalite, produced by droppings of water laden with calcareous matter. Part of this substance adheres to the roof, and forms gradually masses called stalactites, or (locally) water-icicles: another portion drops with the water to the ground, and attaching itself to the floor, is there deposited, and becomes the stalagmite, a lumpy mass of the same matter."+ These bodies are daily increasing, and it is curious to observe their diversity of figure, which by the aid of fancy may be thought closely to resemble the works of nature or of "In one place," says Mr. Rhodes, in his Peak Scenery, we were shown a petrified turtle; in another, a flitch of bacon; in a third, old Poole's saddle; and still further on there are other calcareous incrustations, called wool packs, a chair, a font, a pillion, and the pillar of Mary Queen of Scots. That these names have been dealt out and appropriated in a very arbitrary manner, may easily be imagined. The whale, or ouzel, which Hamlet points out among the clouds to poor Polonius, was not more unlike in form and feature than these uncouth resemblances are to the objects they are said to represent." The mass called the Flitch of Bacon occurs art. Perry-foot is, according to Farey, only one of the ingulfments in the great limestone fault, the waters of which supply "the immense spring called Rushop or Russet, before the entrance of Peak's Hole Cavern, in Castleton town, and a large torrent of thick water besides, which, after heavy rain, bursts out of this cavern." Farey, Vol. I. † Warner's Northern Tour. about the middle of the cavern, which there contracts its dimensions for a CHAP. 1. short space, and then spreads out both in height and width as far as the Poole's Hole. astonishing mass of stalactite, denominated the Queen of Scots' pillar, from a tradition that the unfortunate Mary visited this cavern while she resided at Buxton, and penetrated thus far into its recesses. The remaining portion of this subterranean cavity contains few objects to compensate the labour and danger of exploring it. Mr. H. Moore was told by his guide, an aged woman, that no persons had been to the termination of the cave for many years. He therefore proceeded without the protection of his reverend directress, or due regard to her Cumæan admonitions. From the pillar he descended over disjointed rocks, and scrambled over the disordered masses of slippery craggs. His intrepidity was rewarded by the discovery of the names of several who had been there before him. Thus, having satisfied his curiosity, he began to return. "Sed revocare gradum, superasque evadere ad auras, He found no passage in the direction which he expected would conduct A perpendicular chasm in the fourth lime-stone stratum, connected be- Eiden Hole, low with extensive lateral cavities, is one of the reputed wonders of the Peak. It is situated on the side of a hill about three miles from Castleton, and is called Elden Hole. So attached to the wonderful are many persons, who travel, not so much to admire and investigate natural objects, as to indulge their love of astonishment, that even in the nineteenth century there are some who very reluctantly relinquish their belief in the very extravagant narratives that have been related concerning this cavern. The C |
