Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/175

 Hole may be, has never been ascertained. Cotton above a century ago, plumbed it with a line two thousand six hundred and fifty-two feet in length, but did not reach the bottom. More of the history of its interior, however, was known about thirty-five years ago, in consequence of the two horses of a gentleman and lady being found without their riders near the abyss. The country people immediately imagined (and perhaps with reason) that the latter had been robbed, murdered, and thrown into Elden-Hole; and let down some miners into it in order to search for the bodies. These bold fellows descended perpendicularly about one thousand two hundred feet, when they reached a declivity, which continued in an angle of sixty degrees for one hundred and twenty feet. At the extremity of this, a dreadful and boundless gulph disclosed itself, whose sides and bottom were perfectly invisible. Here their lights were extinguished by the impurity of the air, which prevented a further descent; and allowed them only to let down a line one thousand feet deeper, without finding a bottom; though, from the circumstance of its being wet when drawn up, they were convinced that the abyss contained a great body of water.

Two years ago the similar circumstance of a man'shorse without its master being discovered near VOL. I.