Burrington Combe is a smaller Limestone defile on the north side of Mendip—that is to say, the opposite side to that of Cheddar. It is smaller, and because of its proximity to Cheddar it has to suffer disadvantageous comparisons. Anywhere else the grandeur of Burrington Combe, the magnificence of its crags, with dark, heather-clad Black Down lowering behind them, and the beauty of the copses that lurk in its corners and clamber up its precipices, would excite the admiration of guide-books and attract crowds of tourists. Like the Cheddar defile, Burrington Combe was doubtless formed by the gradual destruction of a series of caverns, and there remains of that series a number of caves or openings of blocked-up caves on either side of the ravine. Of these the most important and the only one well known to speleologists is Goatchurch Cavern, which was explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins in 1864. The next in importance is Aveline's Hole, discovered in 1796, but not explored till 1820, when about fifty human skeletons were found lying side by side with their weapons, a stalagmitic crust sealing bones and implements to the floor. This cavern has since had its mouth silted up by drainage from the road, so that troublesome excavation will have to be undertaken before it can be entered again. It would well repay a thorough exploration, for it is reported that a natural pit, covered by a slab, has never yet been descended, and leads probably into important cavities. Foxe's Hole is interesting for its curious bosses of tufaceous stalactite. A nearly vertical cave, Plumley's Den, has been stopped up with a plug of timber and stones at the depth of 80 feet, in consequence of a fatal accident to a man who tried to descend it in 1875. At a level probably a few feet below that of the caves whose destruction was the origin of the Combe, a good road with a grassy margin now ascends towards the top of Mendip, where it joins the old Roman road that runs from "Severn Sea" to Old Sarum, along the crown of the ridge.

Our waggonette when we left the Bath Arms at Cheddar was piled up with ropes, cameras, gas cylinders, condensers for the searchlight, and an incredible amount of needful and superfluous things, for we were quite unable to say what would be wanted. Climbing to the miniature mountain pass across Mendip at Shipham was hard work for the horse, and we walked up the hill. Dr. Sheldon and Mr. Bamforth were my companions. Our clothes, still richly daubed with the clay and mire of the Cheddar caverns, made our appearance both business-like and picturesque. The north side of the Mendips is very different from the bleak and craggy slopes on the south. From the broad bare top of the hills down to the valley stretches, almost continuously, a deep mass of trees that looks in the distance like a wall of dusky verdure. We drove between orchards where great bushes of mistletoe grew on nearly every tree, till we were within a few hundred yards of Burrington village; then, turning towards Mendip, we drove through more orchards, till suddenly the rocky entrance of the Combe appeared and we heard the clink of pick and crowbar in the Limestone quarry not far from Plumley's Den. Half-way up the gorge makes a sudden bend towards the east, a little below which point a shallower ravine comes in on the other side. About 120 feet above the bed of this dry ravine is the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern. We coaxed the horse over the stony turf and up the ravine till the roughness of the ground and the thickness of the bramble bushes stopped him. At this point we were met by the lord of the manor, Mr. James Gibson of Langford, who is the owner of the Burrington caves. His men assisted us to get our apparatus up to the cave mouth, and afterwards convoyed us and the luggage throughout the less difficult parts of the cavern.

A few years ago the entrance to Goatchurch Cavern was an insignificant hole, through which adventurous boys used to crawl as far as the first considerable chamber, where Professor Boyd Dawkins found a few remains of extinct animals. Owing to the depredations which were made by neighbouring villagers in search of specimens of calcite, Mr. Gibson recently had the entrance enlarged and closed with a padlocked gate, the public being admitted only on certain days of the week or by appointment. It is a pity this step was not taken before many of the finer stalactites had been carried away. In this long chamber, the floor of which is covered with sheets and bosses of dripstone, we entered some of the funnel-shaped openings in the roof by means of a ladder, but soon perceived that no discoveries were to be made that way. At the end of the chamber a precipitous hole goes down to the left, and fixed ropes are used for getting into the lower galleries. We found ourselves at once entering on a maze of passages, where the presence of our guides saved valuable time. So intricate and bewildering are these ramifications that Mr. Balch tells me that he discovered a passage some years ago that led him eventually to a much deeper part of the cavern than had ever been reached before, but every attempt to rediscover the passage since has failed. In spite of our efforts to examine every branch of the various passages, we also missed this important link. It would seem that the solid mass of the hill has been shivered here into vast, roughly cubical fragments, between which lie the irregular passages and narrow chambers of the cavern. Many tempting galleries lead the explorer on and on till they dwindle to a mere rabbit hole, or till he finds himself wedged in the cleft between two enormous surfaces of rock. Disorderly accumulations of boulders and splinters cover the floor; there is hardly a level spot anywhere, and it is desirable to explore every yard carefully with a taper or a lantern to avoid the consequences of a rash step. We crawled on hands and knees and wormed along through insignificant holes, making our way into spots that had probably not been inspected before; but we always came back to the main channel, where our guides were waiting, having made no noteworthy find.

Assembling again in a more roomy chamber, about 140 feet below the entrance, we all proceeded along a tunnel that showed evident traces of the action of a stream to another chamber, where the sound of running water came up from a grim-looking chasm. Only two of us went beyond this point. The rest secured the rope, whilst we climbed down the steep hole into a large cavern through which the stream runs from the swallet hole in the ravine outside on its way to Rickford Rising, where it issues in considerable volume. The stream has a somewhat puzzling course after leaving the cavern, for it runs underground athwart Burrington Combe and through the solid hill opposite, Burrington Ham. This stream, as Professor Boyd Dawkins pointed out, was doubtless the originating cause of Goatchurch Cavern, running in at the present mouth, which is now dry. The ravine outside has since been hollowed out to a further depth of 120 feet, and the stream finds its way in at a lower level. The Professor also describes a very pretty experiment. Having taken the temperature of the stream before it enters the cave, he tested it again after it had run some distance underground, finding that it was here several degrees cooler. It is obvious that a colder stream must have joined it at some unknown point midway.

The nethermost series of chambers and passages are not very different from those above, their shape rugged and irregular, and their floor heaped up with fragments of all sizes. We reached no lower point than that attained by previous explorers—that is, 220 feet below the entrance, as measured by aneroid. Squeezing with difficulty through the deepest fissure, I found myself in a small cave, whence, turning round, I only perceived one exit. It looked and felt so small that I despaired of pushing through and turned to go back, when it suddenly occurred to me that this was the hole I had come in by, and there was no other way out. Such little incidents often happen in cave work, but most often in such a complicated network of tunnels and fissures as the Goatchurch Cavern, where we were quite convinced that an important passage ran due east until the compass assured us that the direction was west. Clambering up a steep bank of stiff clay out of the lowest cave, we reached a vaulted grotto with a cascade of stalagmite flowing down one side. On the edge of this a sloping passage disclosed itself, lined with stalagmite, and we ascended it in the expectation of finding something new. It brought us by an easy scramble back to the upper cave, whence we had descended on the rope; and with little more deviation from the main passages we made our way back to the cave mouth, where a well-earned lunch was waiting.

But little time was wasted in examining the silted-up entrance to Aveline's Hole and another cave mouth, and the next halt was made at Plumley's Den. Tying two Alpine ropes together, a pair of us descended this ancient pothole as far as the artificial pile of dÉbris that blocks it up. One man was hit rather severely by a dislodged stone—a serious danger in caves of this sort—and in returning he dropped and smashed his acetylene lamp. The hole is effectually plugged, a tree and a quantity of stone having been flung in after Plumley's fatal mishap; and until Mr. Gibson carries out his proposal to remove the stones that block it, the 200 feet which are said, on doubtful authority, to lie beyond can never be explored. Mr. Gibson also proposes to bore a new entrance from the Combe into the lower series of caves at Goatchurch. Above Plumley's Den a magnificent rib of Limestone, like those at Matlock, springs nearly to the hilltop; and over the way a picturesque pile of crag comes out to meet it, and is known as the "Rock of Ages," from the tradition that Toplady, the divine, taking shelter under it from a storm, composed his famous hymn there.

Still piloted by our kind host, we walked across Burrington Ham and saw the brook which we had heard babbling amid the silence of Goatchurch Cavern flowing out, a strong body of water, at Rickford Rising, after a subterranean course of about two miles from its sources high up on Black Down.

Rickford Rising is in the Secondary beds, but a short mile up the beautiful Combe at whose outlet it lies, a Limestone ridge comes down to the road. Hard by the extremity is a hole in the rocky ground, now almost entirely choked with stones, but not so many years ago an open pit. It is known as the "Squire's Well." Here, in times of continuous rain, a body of water issues forth, often flooding the road. It seems to be connected with the water-channels that feed Rickford Rising, to which it acts as a safety valve. To open it would not be a very serious affair, and might discover something interesting.

At the back of Mendip Lodge, on the hill immediately west of Burrington Combe, the hilltop is cut up by innumerable ravines ending in swallets, the water of which comes to light again in a large stream in the Yeo valley near Upper Langford, about a mile away. Several of these swallets look as if they would repay the trouble of a little excavation; and the size of the stream at the point of issue indicates the existence of large cavities in the line of its subterranean course.

E. A. B.