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Somerset, in the
South of England, is a land of mysteries. Here
at Wookey Hole, where a river flows out of the
underworld, pagan and Christian legends intermingle.
Here, too are mysteries
of man himself. How did the early cavemen, who
inhabited these caves, really live from day to
day? And what makes a modern diver explore the
caverns beyond the sunlight?
Even the earliest
men who lived in the valley of Wookey Hole 50,000
years ago, hunting bear and rhinoceros with stone
weapons, must have been in awe of the great caves
for they had already existed for millions of years.
When, much later,
the Celtic peoples of the Iron Age were moving
into Britain, they found the caves a safe and
even comfortable place to live - inside, the temperature
is a constant 11° Celsius. Yet by the 15th
century only bones, broken pottery and legends
remained.
Then, in 1914 the
archaeologist Herbert Balch, having completed
a two year excavation of the caves, published
his findings, and the age of real exploration
had begun...
Visitors came to
wonder at the secret river and its encrusted caverns.
Perhaps Coleridge was inspired to write the lines:
"Where
Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man"
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