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
The name Dry Lake was given because in blasting out a passage a
misdirected shot went through the bottom of the Lake, which in
consequence was soon drained; but the heavily charged water has sealed
up the unfortunate break, and resumed its interrupted work. The ceiling
drops to a height of little more than three feet directly above the Lake
margin, and is a beautiful crystal mass, which at a little distance down
the sloping floor appears as the background for a fine piece of cave
statuary called The Bridal Veil, and formed of cream-tinted dripstone.
Not a great deal of imagination is required to see a slender girlish
figure completely enveloped in the flowing folds of a wedding veil that
falls lightly about her feet. The figure itself is three feet ten inches
in height and stands on an almost flat circular base of the same
material, that measures nine inches in depth and two feet eight inches
in diameter. At times the water rises sufficiently to cover the base, in
proof of which it left a fringe-like border of small sharp crystals,
such as could be formed only beneath the water's surface. Most of this
border has, unfortunately, been chiseled off for specimens, but will be
renewed in time if left undisturbed; and that condition can easily be
secured with a few feet of wire netting.
To one side of this room is a most daintily beautiful alcove so
profusely decorated with fragile forms of dripstone that a passage
through it without causing damage is extremely difficult. This alcove is
about twenty-five feet in either direction, with a sloping floor almost
covered with stalagmitic growths above the earlier deposit of sharp
crystals, and many of these rise in slender columns to the glass-like
ceiling, which varies in height from three to six feet and is thickly
studded with small stalactites of both varieties--the pointed, solid
form, and those of uniform size, which are always hollow like a pipe
stem. The central ornament is the Chimes, a musical group of stalactites
which is scarcely more beautiful than Cleopatra's Needle, at a
distance of a few feet to one side, a transparent column four feet
in height and having an average circumference of seventeen inches.
[Illustration: The Chimes. Page 188.]
[Illustration: The Needle. Page 188.]
[Illustration: Tower of Babel. Page 189.]
The Abode of the Fairies is a similar, though smaller room, with The
Tower of Babel for a handsome show-piece. While this portion of the cave
is extremely attractive, the measurements given show that in comparison
with caves of other states the drip deposit here is too small to be
reckoned an important feature in itself, but in conjunction with the
miles of calc-spar that give the cave a character distinctly its own, it
well repays all attention.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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