13
Vol XXVIII No.2
B 74 B
February 1974
No. 316
QUODCUMQUE FACIENDUM : NIMIS FACIEMUS -CONTENTS-
Editorial Reynolds Rift Limestone and caves of N.W. England. Surveys – Past and Future Round and About Crossword No. 42
BRISTOL EXPLORATION CLUB
13 14 15 16 20 23
The Belfry, Wells Rd, Priddy, Wells, Somerset. Telephone WELLS 72126 - CLUB COMMITTEE Chairman Minutes Sec Members
S.J. Collins G. Wilton-Jones M. Bishop, D.J. Irwin, D. Stuckey, N. Jago, N. Taylor, A.R. Thomas, B. Wilton,
OFFICERS OF THE CLUB A.R THOMAS, Allen’s House, Nine Barrows Lane, Priddy, Wells Somerset. Tel: PRIDDY 269 Honorary Treasurer B. WILTON, 27 Venus Lane, Clutton, Nr. Bristol. D. STUCKEY, 34 Allington Road, Southville, Bristol 3. Tele : BRISTOL 688621 Caving Secretary Climbing Secretary N. JAGO, 27 Quantock Road, Windmill Hill, Bristol 3 N. TAYLOR, Whiddons, Chilcote, Somerset. Tele : WELLS 72338 Hut Warden G. WILTON-JONES, 17 Monkham’s Drive, Watton, Thetford, Norfolk Tacklemaster S.J. COLLINS, Lavender Cottage, Bishops Sutton, Nr. Bristol. B.B. Editor Tel : CHEW MAGNA 2915 Honorary Librarian D.J IRWIN, Townsend Cottage, Townsend, Priddy, Wells Som. Tel : PRIDDY 369 D.J IRWIN As above Publications Editor B. WILTON Address as above B.B. Postal _______________________________________________________________________________________ Honorary Secretary
Editorial TAKE A BOW Response to last month’s appeal for paper has been very good indeed. One is tempted to wonder if the motto had anything to do with it, because club members have ‘done it to excess’ and our supplies of paper are now in a much more healthy state. DILEMMA When articles are in short supply - as at present - the editor faces a number of dilemmas (if this is possible, and I reckon with the B.B., it is!) If he fills a B.B. up with specialist information, most members will consider this to be a waste of paper. If he sends out a very thin B.B. containing only the articles he happens to have by him this would be considered a waste of covers and postage. If he waits until he can produce a standard B.B. containing information of general interest, he is likely to be accuse of letting down the club by not providing a regular source of information. Under these circumstances, it becomes very difficult to win. Apart from the reasons given above, the editor feels that the article he is including in this month's B.B. might possibly be said to earn its keep if it persuades some active caver to do some work along the lines suggested. We hear people say from time to
14 time that there is nothing much to do much to do on Mendip. This could be the chance for somebody to prove such people wrong! PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE While on the subject of articles, we note that from time to time club members send in their work to publications other than the B.B. This is, of course, perfectly fair and in any case there is usually some good reason why an author decides to let a particular piece of work go to a journal which will reach the audience he has in mind. However, most members of the B.E.C. rarely read other publications - and rely almost entirely on the B.B. for keeping abreast of what is going on. There would thus be no harm in authors who have published elsewhere submitting their work for subsequent publication in the B.B. The original source will be brought to the attention of B.B. readers in every case should the author so desire. “Alfie” _______________________________________________________________________________________ We have received the following from the Chelm's Coombe Caving Club - a branch of the National Tower Testing Station Sports and Social Club. PRELIMINARY
REPORT
REYNOLD'S
ON
RIFT
On the 6th of December, 1973, members of the Chelm's Coombe Caving Club broke through into an open cave passage in their dig 'Reynolds’s Rift' at the National Tower Testing Station, Cheddar. We have so far discovered two hundred feet of passage with a vertical range of fifty feet. A hundred feet of this is stream passage. No visits are allowed at the present time, while clearance work is done, while a report is prepared for the National Tower Testing Station. Digging will be continued by club members. The situation as far as access is concerned will be in the full report which will follow when clearance is completed. J. Aylott, Secretary, C.C.C.C. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Addition to members' addresses. 828 Nicolette Abell, Ardtraskart, Greenway Lane, Bath, Som. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Members might like to know that we are still following up information about chemical lights but are not yet in a position to give members any further information. This will be done as soon as possible. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Annual Subscriptions for 1974 should be sent to BARRY WILTON. Members are advised not to leave this chore until the last minute, because there is always a risk that they will get removed from the B.B. circulation list in May.
15 LIMESTONE & CAVES OF N.W. ENGLAND.
A Review of this important book, which will be in the club library, by Andrew Nichols. Edited by A.C. Waltham. (David & Charles, for the B.C.R.A. 1974. Price £6.95 )
This, the first of a series covering each of the four major British caving areas, is intended, as Trevor Ford says in his foreword, to provide a factual survey for not only the sporting and scientific caver, but teachers and students as well as landowners; quarry industries and water authorities. That, I suspect, is a pious hope. It is a book for cavers, and one which they will find invaluable. It's a large book. 470 pages covering the twelve mile wide limestone strip between Morecambe Bay in the West and Nidderdale in the East, which contains most of the major systems of the Dales. There are two sections. The first opens with a discussion of the overall geology, spelaeomorphology and hydrology; continues with three chapters on the characteristics and behaviour of karst water and ends with a review of biospelaeological and archaeological work. These 180 pages are hard going for the non-specialist, particularly without a glossary - though the authors may fairly expect their readers to have a certain amount of knowledge. Initially, it may disappoint those who expected the same excitement from the writing as from the caves, but a second reading should dispel that because, once absorbed, it adds enormously to the value of the rest of the book. It also represents a great deal of dedicated work. There is, for example, a casual reference in one chapter to 'water sampling from 68 sites over a period of 7 years' - much of it new and all of it important. Archaeological work in the Dales was predominantly 19th century and yielded little from the few inhabited caves, so this chapter continued to disappoint me, though that presumably will not be so with the corresponding reviews of the other caving areas in the series. The second, and larger, section deals with the caves themselves. There is a chapter on each of the 12 areas into which the karst has been sub-divided, with a final discussion of the total chronology. This is why the book will be bought and what it will be judged on. The B.C.R.A. has done well in assembling a team of writers so expert on their particular areas. All the chapters are good and several are outstanding. Tony Waltham's is unusually successful in his disentanglement of the multi-phased development of the Lost Johns-Short Drop-Gavel system. Dave Brooks's discussion of Kingsdale is a masterpiece of clear, precise and jargon-free analysis, and his description of Black Keld brings out all the excitement of one of Britain's major hydrological systems. No serious caver - sporting or scientific - can afford to be ignorant of the caves of North West England, and those who do know a little of the area will have their favourite cave s and theories; and may be affronted to find that they may not have been given the coverage that they think they deserve. Lower Easegill Pot, I am convinced, merits more that a few lines on page 251! Understandably, not everything can be put into 470 pages and Tony Waltham as editor has had to aim for width rather than for depth for this is a survey - not a thesis. Nevertheless, I was surprised by some omissions and editorial emphasis. Chapter 19, for instance, on Ribblesdale refers to ‘the massive hydrological system of Brants Gill Head’ (the Penyghent-Fountains Fell master cave) and proceeds to dismiss it in three pages - while the spelaeologically piffling Morecambe Bay area, however interesting to the theorist, has a lavish 26 pages. The Black Keld system has only a short, though excellent, chapter. Crackpot Cave in Swaledale, another huge hydrological system, is outside the scope of the book altogether. The necessary arbitrary division into twelve areas has had the effect that chapters 14 to 16 are treated almost -without reference to each other and with no mention of the now respectable Three Counties theory. Cavers more familiar with other areas covered by the book will be able possibly to find other examples. However, the sheer size and importance of the area covered must be blamed for what omissions do exist. The material included is accurate and thoroughly discussed, with many gaps in present knowledge valuably pointed out. Not only, is the book recent; it is, unusually for a caving book, right up to date at the time of writing. The presentation is not, unfortunately, up to the standard of the text. There is an excellent bibliography, as full as you could wish and far better than the usual series of footnotes, but the many diagrams and illustrations vary wildly in effectiveness. Some (Figure 70) are crisp and clear. Others (figure 44) are so cluttered with detail as to be useless. The two dozen pages of photographs, apart from the occasional superb shot such as Tony Waltham's of the minarets in Lancaster Hole, are frankly poor with the underground shots generally worse than the surface photography. These shortcomings are minor compared with the success of the book as a whole. 'British Caving' was never adequate to fill the gap caused by the explosion of caving in the last decade and a half, but the B.C.R.A. will undoubtedly do so if the remaining three books are as good as this. It is no substitute for the more specific papers in club journals nor for the successors to Pennine Underground, but that is not it’s purpose. It is a broad survey of a large area and, despite its price a book which every caver ought to get hold of.
16
SURVEYS – PAST AND FUTURE
An article written, so the author says, for the average non-specialist caver.
We all know what a cave survey looks like. Even if some of us have never actually owned one, we have at least seen examples in the Belfry or elsewhere. We also know that, apart from any differences in the standard of drawing or lettering, they are all basically alike. Next year, formal cave surveying will be twenty five years old - for it was back in 1950 that Arthur Butcher published the paper which was adopted by the C.R.G. and which has formed the basis of cave surveys ever since. Now, a quarter of a century is a fairly long time, and it might be of interest to the average caver to see just what cave surveyors on Mendip at least, have been thinking about all this time, and whether we are likely to see any new ideas in the way of cave surveys in the future. The quick answer to what cave surveyors have been thinking about all this time can be summed up in a single word Accuracy. In 1950, Arthur Butcher came out with a series of grades because he assumed that cave surveyors would use a variety of instruments, some better than others, and it would be necessary to give the user some idea of what he could expect in the way of accuracy according to what the surveyor had used when he did the survey. Nothing much happened on Mendip until 1962, when Bryan Ellis attempted to improve on Butcher's system with a simple and ingenious scheme which made sure that a surveyor's equipment was all of roughly the same standard. This scheme of Bryan's was designed to fit in with Butcher's original scheme and was sent to the C.R.G. but was not adopted by them. A year later, in 1963, Dennis Warburton published an article in the Wessex Journal. This was the first serious attempt to replace guesswork by facts, based on both theory and practice. Dennis showed how the accuracy of a survey would vary under different conditions and then compared these figures with actual figures taken from no less than 28 different surveys. As a result of all this, Dennis found a number of very important things about the accuracy of cave surveys. He found, for example, that the accuracy did not depend much on either the surveyor or on the difficulty of the cave being surveyed (within sensible limits, of course!) which was something that came as a surprise to quite a few cave surveyors. Another thing which Dennis found was that most surveys were much closer to each other as far as accuracy went than the grade numbers they had been given would suggest. He reckoned that it would be better if surveyors stated the accuracy they thought they had achieved, rather than give the survey a number. By this time, a number of cave surveyors on Mendip were all discussing what ought to be done as a next step. I put down my own thoughts on the subject in 1964 and they were published as a B.E.C. caving report in 1966. At about this time, Mendip surveyors were meeting frequently to swap ideas and they eventually decided to produce a handbook on the subject - which turned out to be too big for anybody to publish. At least one copy of this book still exists and I am trying to get hold of it for the club library if anyone is interested. One of the conclusions which the surveyors came to was that there were only two real types of survey as far as accuracy went - the properly done survey and the quick, rough sketch. They had lots of other ideas as well, but they did not succeed in getting any of these adopted by the C.R.G. However, some of the surveyors concerned were invited to give papers at C.R.G. meetings and this aroused some interest in their work. At about this time, Mike Luckwill got interested in the subject, and, as a professional mathematician, he had some hard words to say about cave surveyors. He argued that they never took the trouble to read any books on surveying but seemed to prefer to believe that they were pioneering an entirely new subject. Mike pointed out that, apart from the practical examples that Dennis was able to use by 1963, the position in 1969 could and should have been reached in 1950. Had Mike not died so suddenly and tragically, he would no
17 doubt have put his arguments on paper - indeed, he was in the process of doing just that at the time of his death - and perhaps he would have shaken up many cave surveyors. As it was, his remarks did not go unnoticed, because Dave Irwin, Roger Stenner and Doug Stuckey had been concerned with the problems of the Cuthbert’s survey and, by using the approach suggested by Mike Luckwill and adding several ideas of their own, they have come up with a survey which is probably as accurate as any cave survey really needs to be. So, at the present day, it is rapidly becoming possible, if it has not already done so, for a cave survey to be carried out with a degree of accuracy good enough for all practical purposes. The arguments which have led to this state of affairs have been omitted from this review but it might be of interest to state the main conclusions which have resulted from the quarter of a century since 1950. Firstly, increased accuracy has not happened because we now have better instruments or more skilful surveyors. It has happened by using the same instruments and by taking the same reading with them, but with better techniques. This is something which I doubt any surveyor of 1950 would have suggested might happen. Secondly, it has been shown that any reasonable surveyor will produce an accurate survey providing he uses his instruments in the right way, and that this survey should be pretty well as accurate as anybody requires. Now to answer the second question. Will we be seeing anything new in the way of cave surveys in the future? The answer to this depends very much on what cavers decide to do. With the problem of accuracy near enough solved, the more mathematically inclined caver may well lose interest in the subject. The caver who is keen on drawing cave surveys might well turn his attention to the problems of just how you decide what the shape of a cave really is, and how you put this down clearly on paper. There are a number of techniques which could be used, and Dave Irwin for one is currently experimenting in this direction. There is, however, a field in which the average caver could contribute greatly to the art of cave surveys, and I will try to explain just how this could be done. To illustrate what I have in mind, one has only to read the last Christmas B.B. This B.B. had three articles about caving trips. On the Birk's Fell trip, the party had difficulty in finding some parts of the cave. Admittedly they had gone down for the fun of exploring it for themselves - but it still might have been useful to them if one member of the party had been able to take down a survey which actually showed how to get round the system. In the article on G.G., the party had consulted a survey but were still in some doubt about taking the correct turning - and the penalty for missing it might well have been quite high! I have been arguing the case for maps which are actually designed to give the average caver as much information as he could reasonably want about the actual cave for some time now. I gave a paper to the C.R.G. symposium at Leicester on this subject. After the paper was over, the chairman asked the 200 cavers present if they had any questions. There were none. He then asked people to put up their hands if they thought this sort of thing was a good idea and should be tackled on actual caves. Almost everyone present put up his hand. I only mention this because it shows that it is no use saying "It's not worth trying because nobody wants it." After all, nobody was ever asked whether they wanted the present sort of cave survey. At this stage, I can almost hear people saying "If you think it's such a good idea, why don't you DO something about it? "Alas! As one gets on a bit, the time available for doing anything worthwhile underground gets there are so many other things which take up all one's time. That is why I hope that some young, keen active caver might care to consider doing something along these lines. What lines? Well, I personally had two schemes in mind although they are by no means the only possible ways of doing the job. The first of these is called the Descriptive or Pictorial Map. One of these can be started by taking an existing survey - preferably of a well-known cave like Swildons, so that it can get a good trying out by a large number of cavers. The first thing to do is to decide whether the survey actually enables you to cave properly. Does it, for instance, show clearly all the places where it is possible to miss one's way? Not all surveys are good enough for this. As an example, I can never find my way into Browne's Passage in Stoke I
18 from the survey. All places where this can happen should be noted. One good trick for making a survey show places like this, is to include an enlargement of any tricky bit. The actual enlargement can be drawn in down the cave and shown like this:
The next thing to decide from the existing survey is whether or not various parts of the cave get in each other's way too much - or whether the surveyor has gone to the other extreme and separated them so much that it is not easy to see what leads to what. For instance, I used to find it very difficult to see where the Dolphin Pot route in Eastwater came out on the plan of the lower series. Where portions of the cave are detached to make the survey clearer, it should be shown clearly that this has been done. The sketch below should make this point clear.
Having got the existing survey into a form so that the caver can see and understand the cave, it is now necessary to visit all parts of the cave and make notes of anything the caver might find useful. Here is a list of some of them:What tackle is necessary and what, if any, provided? What and where are the main obstacles? How long might any given trip be expected to take? How wet is the cave, or parts of it? Are there any places worth photographing? Are there any restrictions on lighting etc.? Are any passages too small for average cavers? Are there any special hazards (instability, ventilation, etc.)? Is the cave, or parts of it, liable to flooding? Are there any special techniques which have to be used? Are some portions of the cave only accessible with diving equipment? …and so on. All this sort of information should now be added to the survey - using words or symbols. If symbols are used, there must be a key to them but they should also be clear enough in meaning hardly to need that key. There's not much point in giving a caver all this information in code! If in doubt, ask any fellow caver what he thinks a sign means - and if he gets it wrong, or at least doesn’t agree with it after you've told him - scrap it and try again. In same cases, don't try at all. It's just as easy to write MUD SUMP alongside a mud sump than it is to invent some symbol for one, which the caver has to learn. Fixed and portable tackle is fairly easy. Most people would realize what the diagram at the top of the next page meant….
19
If a lake, stream or canal is shown on a survey, it is of more interest to the caver to know how wet he is going to get than to be told it is 320 feet above sea level. Something of the sort shown below might well do in such a case‌..
And so on. One thing that could be of use to a caver is not so much how long a particular passage is (which he can get from the survey anyway) but how much time it will take to get along. Time markers, representing 5 minutes of average caving time between them, could be the answer here. The sign I have suggested is as drawn below, which is supposed to be a stylised drawing of an hour glass:-
‌and is shown at appropriate intervals alongside every passage in the cave. Thus, any proposed trip can be estimated by adding up all the time markers along the chosen route. There are many more types of useful information which can be added in this way. The result would be a survey which could be used by cavers fresh to the district to plan a trip in advance. They would know what tackle they needed and where it was all to be used. They would know what sections of the cave could be visited normally, what bits needed diving equipment, what passages were too small for the larger members of the party, whether it was worth taking a camera down, and a lot of other useful information which is not available on the present type of survey. I am sure that a survey laid out on these lines would get used extensively, if it were done for a well visited cave like Swildons. If anyone is interested in having a go, I am prepared to help as much, or as little, as required. This article has gone on quite long enough, so I will not describe any other new sort of survey, except to say that there is also a need for a method of putting down useful information in a much smaller space than a normal survey takes up. It is not easy to spread out a large sheet of paper in a wet, constricted underground place. However, if there is any interest in this subject, and we get another month in which hardly anybody has sent in anything for the B.B., I might describe possible methods in a further article. S.J. Collins.
20
ROUND and ABOUT
…A Monthly Miscellany, by ‘Wig’
35. M.R.O. News. New callout arrangements starting on SUNDAY, March 3rd 1974 for Mendip are the result of re-organisation within the Somerset police force. The police have requested that all emergency calls must be routed through their regional control centre at Frome as from Sunday, 3rd March. To comply with this, all calls for cave rescue must follow this procedure:DIAL 999 - Ask for POLICE - Request police for CAVE RESCUE. As a result of the phone change, the M.R.O. notices will be changed and will also include the name of each cave and the location of the nearest telephone. The police will require the following information:1. Name and address of caller. 2. Number and situation of telephone. 3. Nature of accident. 4. Name of cave. 5. Position in cave (if known) 6. Number of people in party. 7. Experience and condition of party. The informant must then WAIT at the phone until contacted by an M.R.O. Warden, who will give him instructions. The police will ring wardens in list order until one is located. The police and the warden will then decide what action is necessary and further action will be at the discretion of the warden and police. 36. M.R.O. Wardens. The present list is:- Howard Kenny; Willie Stanton: Dave Irwin; Alan Thomas; Bob Craig; Roy Bennett; Oliver Lloyd; Phil Davies; Jim Hanwell; Tim Reynolds; Fred Davies; Brian Woodward; Pete Franklin; Brian Prewer; John Chapman; Frank Frost and Harry Stanbury. 37. M.R.O. Annual Report. There have been 15 rescues including alerts during the last year. Four of the six have been as a result of falls, and 1973 might be described 'The Year of the Fracture'. Two notable and ominous ‘firsts’ have occurred - the first abseiling accident in a Mendip cave and the first badly injured patient requiring rescuing through a sump. These reflect the increase in abseiling and prussicking by relatively inexperienced cavers. Whilst M.R.O. is strictly concerned with cave rescue matters, we feel obliged to urge more thought in using these new climbing aids and greater care regarding the composition of parties, especially on long trips. Sunday, 15th April 1973. Swildons Hole. On returning from a trip beyond sump I with two friends, David Dryden fell about 15 feet on attempting to climb up the well in the Upper Series. He broke the left tibia and fibula. In a subsequent I thank you letter, Dryden writes…'the accident was cause mainly through exhaustion brought about by not eating a substantial meal beforehand. I had eaten something that didn’t agree with me the day before and was feeling the after effects that day. Perhaps I’ll know next time to abandon the trip if I'm not in A.1. condition.' Tuesday, 24th April, 1973. Swildons Hole. A group of Bristol cavers were reported overdue. They were not members of a club. A search of the cave found the party unharmed at the bottom of Vicarage Pot. They had abseiled down the pitch and pulled the rope down after them before realising their mistake. This was an exact repeat of the callout of 2.11.69. We hope that the message has now been learned.
21 Monday, 24th June, 1973. Stoke Lane Slocker. A Wessex party going down the cave was passed by a Cotham party on its way out. The latter, on surfacing, found the stream was rising rapidly due to a thunderstorm. The W.C.C. party were found making a rapid and safe exit before the stream rose to dangerous levels at the entrance. Saturday, 30th June, 1973. Goatchurch Cavern. Yeaden, a member of a scout party, on his first caving trip, fell and dislocated his shoulder in the Water Chamber. As the medic could not return the shoulder, his arm was strapped up and he was encouraged to get out under his own steam. Saturday, 30th June, 1973. Longwood Swallet. Tress, one of an M.C.G. party returning from a trip to August Hole, fell off the 10' climb into the entrance passages. He badly injured his jaw and right cheek. He was given first aid and persuaded to move out, largely on his own. A sit harness was found to be very useful in helping him up the narrow entrance shaft. Sunday, 15th July, 1973. St. Swithin's Day Alert! The meteorological office issued a general warning that up to 2 inches of rain could fall on Mendip during the after noon. Wells police notified M.R.O. Local cavers were notified. In the event, the local fall was not as heavy as first feared. Sunday, 22nd July, 1973. Swildons Role. A telephone call was received direct from Mike Collins, caving sec. of M.N.R.C. informing that a friend was stuck just beyond the little waterfall inside the entrance at the beginning of the Dry Ways. Collins explains‌'I was asked by a party coming from Swildons IV to show them the short way out so that they could get out before their lights faded. This I did, but Doug Stevens, who is rather stocky, got stuck but was adequately protected and would not suffer from exposure. I left the cave to summon assistance on Priddy Green. The chaps went back to the rear of him via the Old Grotto, and one directly to him so that he would not be alone too long.' Stephens was quickly freed by members of the St. Albans C. C. Saturday, 27th October. Sidcot Swallet. A party of five from Wolverhampton were in the cave when one of their carbide lamps came to pieces. Fearing that they might be gassed, three of them fled to raise the alarm, supposing that their two companions might have been overcome. During the telephone conversation with M.R.O. the other two appeared. THE SMALL QUANTITIES OF CARBIDE GAS ARE UNLIKELY TO BE HARMFUL IN ROOMY CAVES, THOUGH QUITE LOW CONCENTRATIONS ARE COMBUSTIBLE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SEAL THE GAS IN, AS IT DETONATES ON COMPRESSION TO ABOUT TWO ATMOSPHERES. Monday, 12th November, 1973. Swildons Hole. A Cerberus S.S. party went down the cave with the of abseiling down the old Forty on a double line. The first two members descended safely. However, when Graham Price began his abseil, the loop flicked off the belay and he fell about 30 feet with the loose rope. Fortunately, he did not crash on those below but landed on his left hip, sustaining a multiple fractured of the pelvis and a not too serious internal rupture. This potentially difficult rescue went well on the whole though communications were delayed because the public call box on Priddy Green was inoperative. It is believed that the fall occurred because the rope was dry and stiff and so 'stood up' off the belay when the abseiler briefly supported his own weight on the ledge below the lip of the pitch.
22 Saturday, 1st December, 1973. Eastwater Cavern. An anxious friend phoned the Wells police to report that his friends were overdue from a trip down the Twin Verts. They were adequately equipped. The party emerged from the cave just as rescuers were being rounded up. Thursday, 10th January, 1974. Sludge Pit. Wells police phoned Jim Hanwell at 2.40 a.m. reporting that a worried wife from Bristol had phoned in regarding an overdue party that had gone down the cave the previous evening. Whilst the police were checking the Eastwater Lane, a message was received from Bristol reporting the safe return of the cavers. They had been delayed by a puncture. Surely, it would have been better had those involved troubled to contact their homes to announce the delay and save needless worry and a rescue alert. Saturday, 19th January, 1974. Swildons Hole. Sith, a Bath University student visiting Swildons II, fell at the 11 foot drop in the Old Approach Passage. It was suspected that he had fractured an ankle, although he had broken both tibia and fibula. This was the longest distance haul yet made on Mendip, and the first serious injury in Swildons II. It is probably not without significance that Smith was the only member of the Bath party without a wet suit, as well as being the least experienced caver. He had been caving five times previously, including one much shorter trip in Swildons. Saturday, 19th January, 1974. Swildons Hole. Whilst engaged on the Swildons Rescue, it was reported that a party had not confirmed their return from a trip to Primrose Path. Two cavers were detailed to reconnoitre the cave whilst the police tried to locate those involved at their homes. The presence of a rope at the pot gave cause for alarm. A member of the party was found safe and sound in his bed at his home in Wells. Why make needless work by leaving ropes underground or failing to remove outdated notices on blackboards? Sunday, 20th January, 1974. General Alert. The worried father of P. Sprules contacted Frome police when his son failed to turn up after a days I caving at 2 a.m. A check of the list of those helping underground in the Swildons rescue found him in a hauling team. Sunday, 27th January, 1974. Eastwater Cavern. A party from the Harrow Moles Club were reported about two and a half hours overdue during the evening. No official callout was received, so it appears that they underestimated the duration of their trip. This is proving to be a common occurrence with parties not familiar with the cave. 38. Library Notes. The latest publications received include:Gloucester S.S. News sheet Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb. British Caver No 61. D.B.S.S. Proceedings Vol.13,No 2. Cerberus S.S. Newsletter No 34. Bibliography on lava tube caves - Harter. Supplement to above - Harter. W.C.C. Journal No 151. The Great Storms and Floods of July 1968 - W.C.C. Oce. Pub. Series 1 number 2. Belfry Bulletin. Volume 27 - two bound sets. D.S.S. Journal No.114. New Climbs 1968 - Ed. Rogers. (Many thanks to 'Milch' Mills for this donation.)
23 39. Those moaning letters. Recently a letter appeared appealing for information happening 'on top of the hill' - I wonder why this writer did not offer the B. B. his article that appeared in the C.D.G. Newsletter on the interesting 'overland I route from Wookey 4 to Wookey 9. I'm sure that this would have been far more interesting to club members than my silly notes! Nuff said! _______________________________________________________________________________________
MONTHLY CROSSWORD – Number 43. Across: 1
2
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7 8 11
12
9
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1. All west for typical Mendip cave. (7) 6. You’ll…the day (Priddy Green Song). (3) 7. French stop in Cuthbert’s. (5) 8. Think on the right lines for this. (4) 11. and 14. Describes abortive dig? (2,2) 16. These may hurt in a tight squeeze. (4) 21. Black hole? (5) 22. Green? (3) 23. Shorten this in G.B.. (7)
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Down 16
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22 23
1. Iron etc. causes this stal (5) 2. Form of nave underground. (4) 3. Part of Mendip cave name. (4) 4. Sump – otherwise part. (4) 5. Resting place underground? (3) 9. Forward direction in cave. (2) 10. Initially, for example. (1,1) 12. Alternative which sounds like 22 across. (2)
Solution to Last Month’s Crossword F C
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O A
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13. Mendip cave. (1,1) 15. Coloured rift in Cuthbert’s. (5) 17. Dear’s curtailed is a notion. (4) 18. Crystalline substance, commonly. (4) 19. Fastener on wet suit. (4) 20. Mendip Hole. (3)