went on to see the exit or tail of this sough, The original
exit had fallen in and the great pressure of water built
up behind the fall blew out a thirty-foot crater in the
hillside so that the water now gushes up from a well-like
funnel in the limestone. Quite an impressive sight.
Sunday was a cooler, wetter day, and for much of the
time we were in the bleaker parts of the Peak National
Park, We passed through the plague village of Eyam, where
the villagers went into voluntary isolation to prevent the
pestilence passing to neighbouring villages. There is still
the well, in the waters of which the villagers left money
to pay for food brought there from outside. A keen wind and
driving drizzle kept most people in their cars, and the
horizon was blotted out.
By the time we reached Dirtlow Rake, the rain had
stopped and the air felt warmer, Here we saw how a
horizontal vein of mineral-bearing rock (a rake) had been
mined. The resulting twenty to forty-foot gorge ran
almost straight for perhaps a mile across the moors. The
sides yielded bright crystals of galena, yellow fluorspar,
pink barytes and some pieces of the much-sought-after
blue john,
Shafts had been sunk by the rake from which galleries
would run to reach the deeper deposits of minerals. We
tried to find the depth of one by timing the fall of a stone,
but Newton's famous formula (after much head-scratching to
recall it) applies only to free fall in a. vacuum, and we
feel our estimate of 600 ft, was probably very wide of the
mark.
We had lunch in Castleton before going on to visit
Peak Cavern, This is quite impressive; the entrance is
said to be the largest in Europe. We saw how the flood
waters have carved out large open spaces, produced
upside-down waterfalls, and wedged large boulders
precariously up sinuous chimneys, As this cavern is
regularly flooded completely, there is an absence of
stalactites and stalagmites, except near the entrance.
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