The explorers who have done so much work in Derbyshire and Somersetshire have also carried out extended explorations in some of the more remote caves of Yorkshire. Recently a party carried out farther investigations than any previous explorers in Stump Cross Cavern, on the moors between Wharfedale and Nidderdale. This cavern, which is named after the ancient boundary mark of Knaresborough Forest, and is situated near the summit of the moors, 1326 feet above sea-level, 4½ miles from Pateley Bridge and 11½ from Skipton, was discovered in 1843 by miners searching for lead, as was the case with several of the Derbyshire caverns. The Greenhow lead mines are not far off, and the ground in many parts hereabouts is riddled with old workings. No place could look more unlikely for caves than the flat field on the top of the hill, where a few steps lead down to a doorway into the ground, close to the rough road to Grassington and Appletreewick.

The party of five, besides myself, Messrs. B. and F. Wightman, J. W. Puttrell, J. Croft, and H. Bamforth (all members of the Kyndwr Club), drove up from Bolton Abbey Station by way of Burnsall, and through various delays did not reach the cave mouth till nine o'clock on Saturday evening. With our photographic and other apparatus we descended at once to a level gallery 50 feet or so below the surface, whence several passages branch off, and there we made a halt. To give a clear general idea of the structure of this cavern is not easy. It consists of a number of galleries running in different directions at different levels, with a few intercommunications, and many continuations that have gradually become choked with clay and stalagmite and have for ages been impassable. Descending the steep stairway in a northerly direction one soon reaches the first of the natural passages, which bears to the west. A gallery goes off to the right, west-south-west, and bifurcates, but is uninteresting, the earth and clay that show its proximity to the surface rendering it very dirty. In the opposite direction, east-north-east, the corridor where we had placed the luggage and made our general rendezvous continues to a distance of 120 feet, and then dwindles away into a low stalactite grotto. Being so inaccessible and so little known, the various chambers have never yet been christened, except with the vague and general names of Upper Caverns and Lower Caverns, which have little meaning owing to the intricate conformation of the series. From our rendezvous two important tunnels, called the Lower Caverns, go off in a westerly direction from the bottom of a natural shaft 20 feet deep. These were left for the present whilst we went into the Middle Caverns, which strike off to the north from the same spot, and after many turns and twists approach the surface in the ravine of Dry Gill, south-east from the entrance to the caves. Many chambers and passages open out from this series, the largest and most beautiful being called, very inappropriately, the Top Cavern. As it leads eventually to a charming piece of cave scenery that we agreed to call the "Bowling Alley," it might well be named after this.

IN STUMP CROSS CAVERN.

Photo by E. A. Baker.

THE PILLAR, STUMP CROSS CAVERN.

Photo by E. A. Baker.

I will now, as clearly as I can, follow the steps of the party in their exploration of these Middle Caverns, and proceed afterwards with them into the other series. Descending gradually, and passing many nooks and corners where exquisite recesses are wreathed about by the ivory-white incrustations on wall, roof, and floor, we stayed to drink a ceremonious glass from the icy waters of Jacob's Well, a crystal pool curtained in with masses of stalactite, and then passed on to one of the chief show places seen by the public, bearing the modest name of the Chapel. Its great attraction is the series of massive pillars of translucent white that seem to uphold the arching roof. In few of the caverns that I have explored is there anything to compare with the stateliness of this pure colonnade, the cylindrical shafts of which are a good deal longer than a man's height, and modelled fantastically by the irregular deposit of the calc spar. One column in this part of the cave measured three feet in circumference. A peculiar beauty was the transparency of the material, a pure glassy white through which the light of a candle shone clearly, whilst a light inside converted the hanging folds and clusters of stalactites into a beautiful species of lantern. On the walls were folds and ridges of snowy stalagmite, and from the roof hung stalactites of all shapes and sizes, myriads of threadlike growths hanging in a lacy fringe. Onwards the arcading and the array of pillars extended into a roomy vault, the end of which struck upwards, as already explained, south-eastwards, toward Dry Gill. Though a perceptible draught comes through from the open air, and the heaps of clay-coated blocks show that a swallet is not far off above, no way can be forced through without excavation. Augmented by the arrival of two or three local friends, the party descended, after lunch, into the Lower Caverns. Unlike the other passages, with their continual windings and perplexing branches, these two series of large vaults, narrow tunnels, and almost impracticable crevices maintain a westerly direction throughout, and the few branches strike off decisively to the right or to the left. Two of us, being delayed by some trifling accident, missed the others at the bottom of the short vertical descent, and, unaware that there were two series of passages, crept on along the first that opened. This had the appearance of an old stream-bed, the ground being littered in places with blocks of Limestone, in others clayey, and in some parts smoothed down by the rush of a torrent. High in places, it often dwindled to a very low passage, through which we crept and wriggled after the manner of the serpent, ofttimes exerting no little strength to push beneath the projections overhead. Here a shaft of glassy stalagmite, uniting floor and roof, tried to bar the way, and there it was impossible to advance without scraping against the vitreous threads that hung like hairs from the dripping rocks. We shouted to the others who we thought were ahead of us, but got no reply, and after twenty minutes of this painful progression began to think of returning. Noticing a hollow in the right wall, I asked my comrade to wait while I examined it. Inside was a blind passage and the round orifice of a small tunnel, into which I thrust my head and shoulders and then crawled forward. It was not an inviting hole, being wet and an exceedingly tight fit, and I was on the point of returning when a voice was heard faintly in the distance. Listening intently and creeping on again, I heard the voice more distinctly, and shouted. The voice replied from below. I quickly realised that we two had missed the others, who were following a lower series of passages somewhere beneath us. Unable to turn round, and too far advanced to return up this slippery tunnel, I saw there was nothing for it but to push on, head downwards. In a yard or two, to my unspeakable relief, the hole grew big enough to turn round in, just before I got to the end of it, and saw Messrs. Croft and Puttrell, 12 feet below me, holding out their hands and inviting me to drop. The leap was a little sensational, but I had my turn of enjoyment in witnessing the grace with which my comrade from above, who was now courteously invited to follow me through the water-pipe, took the jump on to the clay floor of the lower tunnel.

We returned later to the other westerly passage, at the top of the water-pipe. Examining every opening carefully, we noticed many similar communications between the two series, evidently proving that the upper was a very ancient stream course that had been tapped successively until the lower tunnel superseded it as a waterway. Pushing ahead, we soon realised that we had arrived at the richest part of the whole cavern, though also the most inaccessible. The roof came down bristling with spikes and shafts of the purest calcite; the floor was one mass of crystallisation, ridged all over with the rippling lines that form as the crust grows under water. This exquisite scene was continued for hundreds of feet, various and indescribable as a dream, whilst our march onward over the sharp crystals of the floor and through the portcullis that closed every chamber was as painful as a nightmare. Loveliest of all was a long tunnel that once held many pools of water, half-encrusted over with a film of carbonate. Only one of these lucid mirrors remained, but the dried-up basins were as beautiful now as ever, with the bottom and sides covered by a coraline growth delicate in colour as in form. At the end was a small dome-like chamber, where we extended ourselves for a hard-earned rest before facing the toils and tribulations of the journey back.

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.