Database of Underground Sites in South East England

Chelsea Speleological Society Records Vol 18 1990
Adrian Pearce, 137 pages, paperback, £5.00.

A computer database of over 2000 underground sites in South East England based on the long running series of CSS Records and other sources. It consists of 137 pages of close spaced printing divided into location, subject and place indices.

Not very exciting bed time reading but a useful source document if you are interested in caves in the South East none the less.

Unfortunately the publications of Croydon Caving Club have not been listed as a source. This is a shame since Pelobates often contains important references to sites in the South East.

Allan Ockenden

Sardinia Expedition 1989

Shepton Mallet Caving Club
Journal Number One Autumn 1991 Mark Sims et al, 64 pages, paperback, £4.00.

Following the Croydon Caving Club expedition to Sardinia in 1991 (see Pelobates No 56), this timely publication gives concise details of the caves visited by SMCC 2 years previously. Several surveys are included - all 3 of the caves we visited are there!

Also included is a brief introduction to the island and a list of all of its 103 caves over 500m long and/or 50m deep. These are well referenced to a selected bibliography giving 147 articles available from the BCRA library (mostly in Italian). The journal concludes with an Italian-English speleo dictionary and a list of useful addresses in Sardinia.

This work provides probably the best English language reference guide to Sardinia available and would have been invalueable on our expedition. For example, we experienced some confusion regarding the map references we had; as the guide explains, "all longitudes are given with respect to Rome!"

Steve Wray