56 
Cole’s Cave, 
The Natural Hiftory of the Book I. 
little beyond it, a lively Reprefentation of a Lion; and as it would ill 
become me to deliver fuch. traditional Reports as true, without the ut- 
moft Certainty; I went down into feveral of thefe Caves, but not with- 
out Difficulty, and Danger of being fuffocated, being often taken with a 
violent Vomiting, when I came out into the open Air; with the additional 
Mortification of finding, that the petrified conglaciated Subftances, fo 
ftrongly affirmed to bear fuch Portraitures, might, without ‘the Affiftance 
of any far-fetched Ideas, be as well faid to reprefent a Cock and a Bull, 
as a Woman and a Lion. 
The Inadvertency and credulous Propenfity of the Vulgar, on one hand, 
to believe every Story, that hath fomething marvelous in it ; and, on the 
other hand, that infatuating Fondnefs and Pride fome Men have to be. 
thought more knowing than their Neighbours ; together with lucrative 
Confiderations; gave the crafty Part of Mankind an early Opportunity of 
ufhering into the Heathen World the Belief of Harpyes, Centaurs, and 
Satyrs, as well as, in a more enlightened Age, the lefs pernicious, tho’ 
not lefs ridiculous, Exiftence of Unicorns, Griffins, and Flying Dragons, 
with a great many other fuch fenfelefs Chimera’s, which ferve to aftonith, 
and fet the weak and ignorant Part of Mankind a gaping. 
As Cole’s Cave is by far the largeft, and moft worthy our Notice, I fhall 
confine myfelf to the Defcription of that alone: Firft, obferving that I 
never took a Survey of it, but it ftrongly afle&ed my Imagination, and 
recalled to my Mind that awful Defcription, which Virgil gives us of the 
firft Entrance into the Shades below : 
Spelunca alta fuit, vaftog; immanis hiatu. 
Its Situation is almoft in the Bottom of a melancholy hideous Gully (3), 
which is about an Hundred and Sixty-five Feet deep ; where, above you, 
nothing is to be feen but the Tops of high Rocks, and impending Clifts, 
thro’ the gloomy Branches of lofty Trees. 
Such was the folemn Silence, which 0 er/pread 
The Shrine of Ammon, or Dodona’s Shades ; 
Gtiover’s Leonid. 
. The Defcent, towards itsEntrance, is by a fteep craggy Precipice of great 
Height, where your Security from a Fall depends much upon the good 
Hold you take of the Roots of Trees, and Branches of Underwood. 
Having rather flid than walked down in this manner a confiderable 
Way, you are, on a fudden, within an Inclofure of very high perpendicu- 
lar Rocks, the Sky-light being admitted by two Holes in the Roof 
of 
(3) A deep Chafn made between Hills, by repeated Torrents of Rain. 
