ON RAINS CAVE, LONGCLIFFE, DERBYSHIRE. 35 



A " living cave " — that is, a cave which is still a watercourse — 

 must, under ordinary conditions, lie low in a valley, so as to either in- 

 tercept all the water or catch some of it in times of flood. But Rains 

 Cave is near the top of a hill ; and all the drainage of the neighbour- 

 ing valleys can find surface outlets at levels a hundred feet and more 

 below it. It is now as " dead " as a cave can be. But under these 

 circumstances, how could it ever have been a " living " cave? The 

 answer is simple ; the cave has not changed ; the contour and level 

 of the land-surface of the district has. Although the land is eaten 

 away below the surface, it is to a far greater extent worn away at the 

 surface. Frost and vegetation break up the rock ; rills, brooks, and 

 freshets float it away as mud, and roll it away as sand and gravel, to 

 say nothing of what is dissolved. Give these processes time, and they 

 will lower the land to the level of the sea. Rains Cave was once at or 

 near the bottom of a valley, and the amount of rock that has been 

 removed between that bottom and the present one, somewhat repre- 

 sents the lapse of time since this cave was " living " and growing. 

 What this lapse of time may be, the reader must guess ; the 2,000 

 years which have elapsed since the earlier barrows of the Peak were 

 built, have made no appreciable change in the land contour. 



The ancient water-swallow of Windy Knoll at the Castleton end of 

 the above-mentioned trough-like valley, and from which the late Mr. 

 Rooke Pennington, LL.B., obtained an immense number of bison, 

 reindeer, bear, and other bones, has many parallels with our cave. 

 It is high above the neighbouring valleys, although as a " swallow " 

 it must have once been situated low or at the very bottom of a valley. 

 The great point of difference between the two is that the animal re- 

 mains of the latter belong to the time when it was "a going concern," 

 the animals being swamped in the mud and water around the 

 swallow, and washed down it in time of heavy rains ; in the 

 former the remains belong to the present " dead " era of the cave's 

 history. 



"Dead" caves may be regarded as museums. No plough ever 

 turns up their floors, and frequently thick seams of stalagmite — the 

 re-deposited lime of the drip from the roof, having some analogy to 

 the " fur " of a kettle — effectually seal up the contents of the looser 



