QUADRUPEDS. 273 



and then rises a little, without enlarging much, till, at the distance of 

 sixty feet from the present entrance, it opens into a kind of grotto, 

 about six feet high, seven feet wide, and little more in length. From 

 thence the passage makes a sudden turn to the right, but winding 

 round a projecting part of the rock which is partly undermined, it 

 presently resumes its former direction, in which it runs above forty 

 feet, and then bends a little more towards the left. From the grotto 

 to this bend, the floor is nearly on the same level ; but the roof, instead 

 of being flat, appears arched, the middle part of the strata above being 

 gone, and their broken edges approaching each other at distances 

 which gradually shorten upwards, till a solid bed seems to form the 

 central part of the arch. Beyond the bend last mentioned, the pas- 

 sage has a considerable ascent for about twenty feet, leading to 

 another chamber, where persons can stand upright. It has a higher 

 roof than the first grotto, but is very narrow. Here a narrow fissure, 

 in which also a person may stand upright, meets the main cavern 

 from the right, at a very sharp angle, running southward and growing 

 narrower as it proceeds, till it ends in a perpendicular crevice in 

 the rock, on the south-east side of the quarry. The main cavern 

 continues its north-east course for about eighty or ninety feet beyond 

 this lateral passage, partly on the same level, but rather descending. 

 Towards the extremity, it is much contracted, and its narrow dimen- 

 sions, with the impediments occasioned by stalactites and fragments 

 of the rock, have prevented its being explored any further. About 

 half way between the opening on the right and the end of the cave, 

 another branch is sent off" on the left, in a north-west direction, leading 

 towards the slope. It has been penetrated for about fifty feet or more, 

 though a man in exploring it must crawl on his belly. The water 

 which percolates through the roof at this end of the cavern, probably 

 finds here a passage towards the beck or its subterraneous channel, 

 like that at the first entrance of the cave, the place being damp and low. 



3 X 



