mining industry. Here lead was unearthed and transported across the
hills for shipment at Uphill. The settlement seems to have been a sort
of Roman "Roaring Camp," where the miners relaxed the tedium of their
exile by the excitements of the gaming-table. The surrounding heaps of
slag have been rich in revelations. Discarded trinkets, spoons, forks,
beads, and dice bear eloquent testimony to their habits, whilst on a
shoulder of the neighbouring upland is an amphitheatre. (Take Blagdon
road and turn up a grassy lane on L.: the amphitheatre is in a field
near the top). The workings have now been abandoned, but many attempts
have been made since Roman times to re-start them. A Roman road is
distinctly traceable in the fields beyond the mines. It ran in a
straight line from Uphill to Old Sarum. The rounded upland on the N.W.,
a mile or so farther on, is Blackdown (1067 ft.), the highest point of
the Mendips.

_Cheddar_, a large village 2-1/2 m. S.E. of Axbridge and 12 S.E. from
Weston-super-Mare. The G.W.R. line from Yatton to Wells has a station
here. There are few to whom Cheddar is not known by name as possessing
one of the most remarkable bits of scenery in the British Isles. The
gorge, the sides of which form the famous cliffs, cleaves the edge of
the Mendips very abruptly, and at its mouth lies the village. The most
impressive introduction to the sight is to approach Cheddar by road
from Priddy and to descend the ravine from the top of the hills, as the
cliffs increase in grandeur in the course of the descent, and the best
is thus kept till last. To the majority of sightseers who arrive by
train this is, of course, a counsel of perfection, but it is as well
that those who ascend from the village should be warned that the top of
the pass emerges upon open tableland, and that nothing remarkable
awaits them at the end of their climb. The grand _cañon_ is only a
quarter of a mile or so from the mouth of the gorge. Here the road