a MR. ROOKE PENNINGTON ON A 



In the time of Queen Elizabeth the Earl of Leicester is 

 said to have let a man down into it, who was drawn out 

 speechless, and who shortly afterwards died. A cat, subse- 

 quently lowered a considerable distance, was also brought 

 out dead. A hundred years later. Cotton, the poet of the 

 Peak, tried unsuccessfully to fathom it ; he has recorded 

 his experiment in verse. At length, just a hundred years 

 ago, Mr. Lloyd, E.R.S., went to the bottom himself and 

 returned safely. His account of what he saw is printed in 

 the ' Philosophical Transactions.' But Mr. Lloyd was a man 

 before his time, and the country-side still went on believing 

 in Leicester's speechless man and dead cat rather than in 

 the scientific explorer ; and Elden Hole remains an unfa- 

 thomable abyss to this day in the belief of the peasant and 

 the tourist ; and its glory has departed, not through dimi- 

 nished depth, but because it is near no railway and even 

 adjoins no carriage-road, and the nineteenth- centuiy tra- 

 veller rarely visits beauties or wonders, the way to which 

 can only be travelled on foot. 



On the nth of September 1873 we explored the chasm 

 for ourselves. 



A number of stout beams and planks had been brought 

 up the day before ; and of these a rude platform was con- 

 structed. We found it was impossible to make this platform 

 and place our windlass so as to obtain a descent plumb to 

 the bottom, or rather to the first landing-place in the chasm, 

 inasmuch as the northern end is the only part where such 

 a drop can be obtained, and there the gulf was much too 

 wide to be bridged over. Having made all our arrange- 

 ments, we commenced our descent. My friend, Mr. J. 

 Tym, of Castleton, was the first to go down. He was let 

 down for about 15 or 20 yards before coming into contact 

 with the projecting side of the gulf. For about another 10 

 or 12 yards he slipped over the rock, which, however, was 



