lity of cerebral lesions
of tubercular origin giving rise to strange hallucinations. Some _idee
fixe_, according to these gentlemen, caused the doctor to wander down
the tunnel, and a fall among the rocks was sufficient to account for his
injuries. On the other hand, a legend of a strange creature in the
Gap has existed for some months back, and the farmers look upon
Dr. Hardcastle's narrative and his personal injuries as a final
corroboration. So the matter stands, and so the matter will continue
to stand, for no definite solution seems to us to be now possible. It
transcends human wit to give any scientific explanation which could
cover the alleged facts."

Perhaps before the _Courier_ published these words they would have been
wise to send their representative to me. I have thought the matter out,
as no one else has occasion to do, and it is possible that I might
have removed some of the more obvious difficulties of the narrative and
brought it one degree nearer to scientific acceptance. Let me then write
down the only explanation which seems to me to elucidate what I know to
my cost to have been a series of facts. My theory may seem to be
wildly improbable, but at least no one can venture to say that it is
impossible.

My view is--and it was formed, as is shown by my diary, before my
personal adventure--that in this part of England there is a vast
subterranean lake or sea, which is fed by the great number of streams
which pass down through the limestone. Where there is a large collection
of water there must also be some evaporation, mists or rain, and a
possibility of vegetation. This in turn suggests that there may be
animal life, arising, as the vegetable life would also do, from those
seeds and types which had been introduced at an early period of the
world's history, when communication with the outer air was more easy.
This place had then developed a fauna and flora of its own, including
such monsters as the one which I had seen, which may well have been the
old cave-bear, enormously enlarged and modified by its new environment.
For countless aeons the internal and the external creation had kept
apart, growing steadily away from each other. Then there had come some
rift in the depths of the mountain which had enabled one creature to
wander up and, by means of the Roman tunnel, to reach the open air. Like
all subterranean life, it had lost the power of sight, but this had no
doubt been compensated for by natu