Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black HillsOwen, Luella Agnes
Science
Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills
Owen, Luella Agnes
Caves -- Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.); Caves -- Ozark Mountains
pillar the room is divided into three galleries, one above another.
With great difficulty and much danger we climbed into each of
these. The floors were all like the pillar of pure white onyx, and
extended back a distance of thirty or more feet. The floor of one
formed the roof of another. They were brilliant with hanging
pendants and the side walls were all veneered with the same white
and crystalline formation. To entirely describe them is impossible.
A day in each would still leave the observer short of words in
which to tell of the wonders.
"Turning towards the right hand from the entrance we advance two
hundred feet up an incline of dry clay, the room widening gradually
until its width is forty feet, when we reach the top of an
elevation thirty feet above the starting point, where a sudden
steep descent brings us to a halt. A stone cast down strikes water
and the sound of a splash comes back to us. With caution we seek
our way down the hill and stand on the edge of a small lake or
pond. Suddenly my son, who is in the lead, rushes back saying:
'Look out! I put my hand on a snake.' Some of us, being armed with
hickory canes that had been thrown down, concentrated our lights
and advanced. Sure enough, there is a snake a yard long coiled up
on a section of rotten wood. It proves to be a copperhead, the most
quarrelsome and vicious snake in this country; but his nature is
changed so that he makes no effort to fight and is killed with a
blow, and is sent to be hoisted up that we may examine him in
daylight. No others were found, and probably he had fallen in at
the opening, and spent a long, weary time in expiation of his
upper-earth crimes.
"Examining the lake we find it to be about forty feet wide and the
same long, and it fills the room from wall to wall. We cannot pass
it so must either stop or wade through. We decide to wade, and on
measuring the water find it only two or three feet deep, with a
soft clay bottom, and in many places islands of stalagmite rise
above the surface.
"On the sides of the lake there are formations in the shape of
sofas and lounges, and they appear to be cushioned, but the
cushions are found to be hard, solid rock. As the lights advance
across the lake new wonders are revealed. Curtains and draperies
hanging from the top almost touch the water and entirely cut off
the view beyond. Passing under a curtain at one of the highest
places, we emerge from the lake, and once more on dry land, advance
up a slope. Here the water formations have taken human shapes of
all sizes and several colors now appear and help to present a chaos
of beauty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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