372 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
due distance from each other, give some idea of liuted pillars in old 
churches. 
" In a direct line from this cave to the opposite point is a road thirty 
feet long. The descent is steep and rugged, either from stones thrown 
into it from above, since the discovery, or from fragments that have 
fallen off at different times, from different places below. This road is 
very strongly but rudely arched over, and many holes on both sides are 
to be seen, but, being very narrow, do not admit of remote inspection or 
critical scrutiny. Having scrambled down this deep descent, we arrive 
at a natural arch of Gothic-like structure, which is four feet from side 
to side, and six feet high. Here some petrifactions are seen depending. 
On the right of this arch is an opening like a funnel, into which a 
slender person might creep ; on the left is another correspondent funnel, 
the course of which is oblique, and the end unknown. 
" Beyond this Gothic pile is a large space, to which the arch is an 
entrance. This space or inner room, (for so we have termed it) is eleven 
feet long, ten broad, twenty-five high. Its sides have many large exca- 
vations, and here two columns, which seem to be a mass of petrifactions, 
project considerably. On the surface of these pillars below, are seen 
some fantastic protuberances, and on the hanging roofs above, some 
crystal drops that have been petrified in their progress. Between those 
columns is a chasm capable of containing three or four men. 
" Returning from this room, we perceived on the left an avenue thirty 
feet long, naturally floored with clay, and vaulted with stone. It bears 
S.S.W., and before we have crept through it, we see a passage of difficult 
access and dangerous investigation. It runs forward twenty-five feet, 
and opens over the vault thirty feet high near the largest well. Opposite 
to this passage are two caverns, both on the right hand. The first bears 
N.W. by W., and running forward in a straight line about twenty feet 
forms a curve that verges somewhat N.E. Here we walk and creep in 
a winding course from cell to cell till we are stopped by a well of water, 
the breadth and depth of which are as yet not fully known. This 
winding cavern is three feet wide, some parts five feet high, in some 
eight. Returning to the avenue we find, adjoining to this cavern, but 
separated by a large and massy partition of stone, the second cavern 
running west ; and by descending down some small piles of lime-stone 
or rather broken rocks, the bottom here being shelvy slate, or more 
properly a combination of slate and lime-stone, we discover another well 
of water. This is the largest. The depth of it is in one place twenty- 
three feet, the width uncertain. Opposite to this well, on the left hand, 
by mounting over a small ridge of rocks covered with wet and slippery 
clay we enter a vault eight feet broad, eighteen long, thirty high. Here, 
towards the S.E., a road, not easy of ascent, runs upwards of seventy- 
two feet towards the surface of the earth, and so near to it that the 
