IRONSTONE FOEMATION OF THE FOREST OF DEAN. 273 
aware that vast caverns exist beneath them, capable of accommodating 
the largest assemblies and presenting the most mystic and wonderful 
outlines. One of these old workings, or " weeldons," as they are 
locally termed, on Dean's Meeud, near Mitcheldean, known as the " Sway 
Pole Mine Hole" — a name by no means worthy of its grand extent — 
may be visited without much difficulty by a little venturesome climbing, 
and its description will aiford a good idea of the mode of occurrence of 
the churns, it being remembered that the passages and chambers have 
alone been formed by the excavation of the ironstone, none of the lime- 
stone or " crease," as is attested by the absence of any rubbish-heaps 
at the surface, having been removed. The entrance is by a deep 
precipitous but somewhat sloping pit, barely more than a yard in width. 
When the bottom of this is reached by the aid of a rope or ladder, the 
visitor stands within a small natural vestibule, on one side of which is a 
rude descending staircase, on the other a downright hole, the bottom of 
which has not been found. Lighting our candles, we proceed by the 
staircase — in which, however, there is an inconvenient irregularity in 
the size and order of the steps — -down some twelve yards or so, and then 
enter a low horizontal winding gallery requiring a good deal of crawl- 
ing on hands and knees to traverse it without a wounded head. Arrived 
at the end of this gallery, we can again stand up in a small chamber, 
from which several galleries lead off, but all of which wind back by 
various contorted paths to the staircase just passed. Stooping low, 
again, and taking the one path, we descend to an opening, the gloom of 
which, at first, the light of our candles seems unable to penetrate, but 
which, an assailing gust of cold air tells us, communicates by 
some pipe or channel with the surface above. A few seconds pass, and, 
by the feeble rays thrown before us, we see a steep, descending bank, 
covered with blocks of the " crease " of various sizes, which have 
evidently fallen from the roof, gazing up to which, other blocks, still 
impending and half-detached, make us wish the descent over, especially 
when the first foot that we set on these loose stones sends some of them 
thundering down, and we hear them leap, leap, leaping in the steep 
galleries below, until they seem to fall into some bottomless abyss. Down 
the steep slope, which we traverse altogether — and indeed to offer, here, 
precedence in going is to pay no compliment, with the stones rattling 
and bounding before us — until we reach a small worked-out churn, from 
which we issue by clambering over a huge block of detached rock, and 
