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ANNUAL REPORT For the YEAR 1772.

Mr. Ferguson's Description of the Devil's Cave, at Castletown, in the Peak of Derbyshire.

HAVING heard much of this wonderful curiousity in Nature, I was long ago desirous of seeing it, but never had the wished-for opportunity till in the beginning of October, when my business led me through that part of the country where it is; and the following account is the best I can give, from short notes taken down in the different parts of it, as my conductor or guide informed me, who seemed to be very intelligent, and behaved with the greatest degree of civility. 
The entrance into this complicated cavern is through an almost regular arch, 12 yards high, formed by nature at the bottom of a rock, whose height is 87 yards. Immediately within this arch is a cavern of the same height, 40 yards wide, and above 100 in length. The roof of this place is flattish, all of solid rock, and looks dreadful over head, because it has nothing but the natural side-walls to support it. A packthread manufactory is therein carried on by poor people, by the light that comes through the arch. 
Toward the further end from the entrance, the roof comes down with a gradual slope to about two feet from the surface of a water 14 yards over, the rock, in that place, forming a kind of arch, under which I was pushed, by my guide, across the water, in a long oval tub, as I lay on my back in straw, with a candle in my hand, and was for the greatest part of the way on the river, so near the arched roof, that it touched my hat, if I raised my head but two inches from the straw on which I lay in the tub (called the boat); which, I believe, was not above a foot in depth.
When landed on the further side of this water, and helped out of the boat by my guide, I was conducted through a low place into a cavern 70 yards wide, and 40 yards high, in the top of which are several openings upwards, reaching so high, that I could not see to their tops. On one side of this place I saw several young lads, with candles in their hands, clambering up a very rough stony accent, and they disappeared when about half way up. I asked my guide who they were, and he told me they were the fingers, and that I would soon see them again, for they were going through an opening that led into the next cavern.
At 87 yards from the first water, I came to a second, 9 yards and a half broad, over which my guide carried me on his back. I then went under three natural arches, at some distance from one another, and all of them pretty regular; then entered a third cavern, called Roger Rain's house, because there is a continual dropping at one side of it, like a moderate rain. I no sooner entered that cavern than I was agreeably surprized by a melodious singing, which seemed to echo from all sides ; and, on looking back, I saw the above mentioned lads, in a large round opening called the chancel, 19 yards above the bottom where I stood. They sing for what the visitors please to give them as they return.
At the top of a steep, rugged, stony

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stony accent, on one side of this cavern, I saw a smaller irregular hole, and asked my guide whether there was another cavern beyond it? He told me there was; but that very few people ventured to go through into it, on account of the frightful appearance at the top of the hole, where the stones seemed to be almost loose, as if ready to fall and close up the passage. I told him, that, if he would venture through, I would follow him; so I did, creeping flat, the place being rather too low to go on all fours. We then got into a long, narrow, irregular, and very high cavern, which has surprising openings, of various shapes at top, too high to see how far they reach.
 We returned through the hole, into Roger Rain's house again, and from thence went down 50 yards lower, on wet sand, wherein steps are made for convenience; at the bottom of which we entered into a cavern called the Devil's Cellar, in which, my guide told me, there had been many bowls of good rum punch made and drank, the water having been heated by a fire occasionally made there for that purpose. In the roof of this cellar is a large opening, through which the smoke of the fire ascends, and has been seen, by the people above-ground, to go out at the top of the rock. But this opening is so irregular and crooked, that no stone let down into it from the top, was ever known to fall quite through into the cavern.
 From this place I was conducted a good way onward, under a roof too low to let one walk upright, and then entered a cavern called the Bell, because the top of it is shaped somewhat like the side of a bell. From thence, I was conducted through a very low place into a higher, in the bottom of which runs a third water; and the roof of that place slopes gradually downward, till it comes within five inches of the surface of the running water under it. My guide then told me, that I was just 207 yards below the surface of the ground, and 750 yards from the first entrance into the rock, and there was no going any further. Throughout the whole, I found the air very agreeable, and warm enough to bring on a moderate perspiration, although, in less than a fortnight before, all the caverns beyond the first river (where I was ferried under the low arch) had been filled to a considerable height with water, during a flood occasioned by great and long-continued rains.
JAMES FERGUSON.
Nov. 16, 1772.

A Censure of the present Taste in Music.

SIR,
THE performer in music is now anxious to produce sounds that strike the ear; but is little ambitious of moving the heart. When, however, there is nothing in music but mere harmony, it wants its most essential quality, it becomes a mechanical art, it dazzles, but cannot affect the mind. This is a reflection which the greatest part of modern performers never make. Charmed with the trick they have of united sounds that seem not to be made for each other, they seek for nothing more. The design, however, of music, as well as of all the polite

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