Caving , Episodes of Underground Exploration (E.A. Baker)

[Ian Adams]

CAVING Episodes of Underground Exploration by ?Ernest A Baker? (Second Edition)

First published in 1932, this 2nd edition from 1935 contains a wealth of accounts spanning the United Kingdom and Northern Europe.

This lengthy work begins with an explanation of caves and caving then plunges into a detailed account of being imprisoned by flood water in Swildon?s Hole. Exactly the kind of experience you would want to portray to someone taking up the sport for the first time. Following further adventures around Mendip, the author takes us over to Wookey for more underground history involving the Celtic and Romano-British cave dwellers.

Interestingly, we are led around the whole country to explore not only caves but the underground of London (The Dene holes and the Fleet sewers). With roman history and many notable references, there is a great deal to learn that you could not have expected to find here.

Finally we are whisked over the sea to Ireland and then to France and Northern Europe. A little treat awaits where you explore the sea caves of Moher (now off limits) and then onto bigger, better known systems in France including the underground river system which trapped a large party in November 1999 for 10 days (didn?t read this book did they?)

With a lavish amount of photographs to compliment the accounts, this is certainly an old tome of fascination. 

 

[Jenny P]

The British Caving Library has both the 1932 Edition and the 1935 Edition - agreed it's an excellent book and well worth a read.

I have a 1970 re-print/re-issue edition myself - I couldn't find an original copy - but the Library doesn't have this reprint so I'll donate mine.  I haven't checked but guess it's probably a re-print of the 1935 Edition.

There have been quite a few of these special reprints or replica editions of interest to cavers.  One of the best was Hutton's Tour to the Caves of Ingleton and Settle, which I bought as a replica edition when it first came out, quite a few years ago.

 

[langcliffe]

One of the best was Hutton's Tour to the Caves of Ingleton and Settle, which I bought as a replica edition when it first came out, quite a few years ago.

A wonderful book - a pre-cursor to Northern Caves.  It was first published in 1780 by Richardson and Urquehart as part of an addendum to the second edition of Thomas West's Guide to the Lakes (I am lucky enough to possess a copy), but it was based on a short article which appeared in letter format in the March 1761 edition of The Gentleman's Magazine under the pseudonym Pastor. The Thomas West version was republished later in 1780 as a work in its own right by the same publisher, and a year later a new edition was issued. This is the edition which was published in facsimile in 1970 by S.R. Publishers.

It was too highbrow for William Wordsworth: "Mr Hutton having read Virgil at Cambridge, more especially the sixth book of the Aeneis, seems to have been perpetually haunted by the image of the infernal regions; and the moment he found himself in a cave he imagined himself metamorphosed into Aeneas. This fancy pervades his journal of his descent into the caves of Yorkshire; and after having identified the great Trojan prince with the parish minister of Burton, he found no difficulty in transforming the old hostler of the inn at Ingleton into the Sybil."

 

[Martin Laverty]

Interesting. Has anyone identified Blackside Cove, Sir William's Cove,  Atkinson's Chamber, as described by Pastor ( https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000080773926;view=1up;seq=140 ), I wonder.

 

[langcliffe]

Interesting. Has anyone identified Blackside Cove, Sir William's Cove,  Atkinson's Chamber, as described by Pastor ( https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000080773926;view=1up;seq=140 ), I wonder.

A good question. Trevor Shaw wrote a superb paper for the Pengelly Trust on John Hutton, and he might have. Unfortunately I cannot lay hands on my copy at the moment.

Shaw T.R., 1971, "John Hutton, 1740?-1806", Studies in Speleology Vol. 2 Parts 3-4, William Pengelly Cave Studies Trust Ltd

 

[David Rose]

Where does that review of Hutton from W. Wordsworth come from, Langcliffe?

There is definitely a future in having poets review caving books. I would love to know what Carol Ann Duffy thinks of the recent Mendip Underground or the Three Counties volume of Northern Caves. She would be a most discerning critic. I will offer a pint and accolades in the next BCA newsletter to whomever comes up with the best pastiche review written in her style. 

 

[langcliffe]

Where does that review of Hutton from W. Wordsworth come from, Langcliffe?

Wordsworth W., 1819 "Three original Sonnets by W. Wordsworth, Esq.; suggested by Westall's Views of the Caves in Yorkshire", Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Vol. 4 No. 12, p 471, William Blackwood, Eldinburgh and John Murray, London

 

[langcliffe]

Interesting. Has anyone identified Blackside Cove, Sir William's Cove,  Atkinson's Chamber, as described by Pastor ( https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000080773926;view=1up;seq=140 ), I wonder.

Nothing like reviving an ancient topic, but I have now unearthed from the piles on my floor the Studies in Speleology that includes Trevor Shaw's erudite article on the subject.

Apparently Blackside Cave appears on the 1846 Enclosures map at the point where Juniper Gulf is situated.

It has been suggested by Anon in a 1951 CPC Journal that Atkinson's Chamber may have been Long Kin East Cave.

There is no discussion on the possible identification of Sir William's Cave.