410 



VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 



[anno 1740. 



much larger, but was blocked up with lime and stone, which plainly appears 

 still, but to what purpose is not known. Within this narrow entrance, it grows 

 much wider and loftier. The floor is a pretty even rock, from 2 to 4 or 5 

 yards broad: the sides and top are rugged and unequal, from 6 to 12 or 14 

 feet high. 



About 40 yards from the door, there is a pretty deep pit, 7 or 8 yards over; 

 but, when passed, the floor is plain and even, as before, for about 200 yards, 

 which is the farthest that any one known has ventured into it. Most people 

 that have gone into it, went by a thread or clue; others have carried a bundle 

 of straw, and dropped it by the way, to guide their return ; which seems alto- 

 gether unnecessary, there being no windings or chambers throughout of any 

 extent. It is all over, even in the depth of winter, as dry as any place of the 

 kind under ground can be ; and, what seems very strange, it often pours forth 

 such a deluge as covers the adjacent plain, sometimes with above 20 feet depth 

 of water. 



The times of its overflowing are uncertain and irregular; sometimes it does 

 not happen above once in a year or two, but most commonly 3 or 4 times a 

 year; it is sometimes observed to succeed great rains and storms, though it 

 often happens without either. The neighbouring inhabitants are alarmed at its 

 approach, by a great noise, as of many falling waters at a distance ; which con- 

 tinues for some hours before, and generally all the time of the flood. The 

 water comes forth with extreme rapidity from the mouth of the cave, and like- 

 wise from some smaller holes in the low ground, attended with a surprising 

 noise; it flows for a day or two, and always returns into the same cave, and 

 partly into the small holes, from whence it was observed to come before, but 

 with a more slow and tardy course. The water is of a putrid quality, like 

 stagnated pond-water, insipid as spring- water. It always leaves a filthy muddy 

 scum on the ground it covered, which greatly enriches the soil. It has been 

 known sometimes to overflow and ebb in 6 or 8 hours time, but in a much less 

 quantity. 



There is neither river nor lake any where in that part of the country, and it 

 is above 6 miles from the sea. There are very near it several much lower 

 valleys, in which there is no appearance of water, unless a little rain-water 

 collected in a pit, in the fissure of a rock, or the like. 



Of an extraordinary Tumour on the Thigh. By Mr. Mizael MaJfalguerat, Sur 

 geon, St. Edmund' 5-bury . N° 456, p. 365. 



Grace Lowdell, a woman of the parish of St. James, in Bury St. Edmund's, 



