s the
angler with various species of fish, many of them of large size.
A former race, presumably the modern Indian, did much work within the
cave. Tons of travertine or stalagmite, the so-called alabaster, have
been quarried from some of the deposits, while a large number of flint
nodules has been dug out of the cave-earth where they fell from the
disintegrating limestone. Some of this labor was carried on more than
a mile from daylight.
The mouth of the cave was formerly almost closed by a mass of talus.
About 10 feet has been removed from the top of this, so that one may
now walk in without difficulty. On the inner side of the portion
remaining there is a slope for 96 feet, to a vertical depth of a
little more than 27 feet. The next 100 feet gives a descent of about 3
feet; then another steep slope begins. The first point at which
bedrock floor is found within the cave is 120 feet lower than the
point of entry. It is supposed that the drainage to which the cave
owes its origin was outward; if this was the case the floor must be
more than 120 feet below the roof at the doorway. While this may be
true, it is not indicated by the condition of the visible strata. For
about 50 feet outward the side walls are nearly parallel and nowhere
more than 30 feet apart. Then they terminate at an angle in the
outcrop of the ledge along the hillside. The appearance and condition
of the upper strata, together with this narrow separation of the side
walls outside the cave, produce the impression that at a period not
very remote the roof of the cavern reached to the outcropping ledge in
which the walls end. Even though the rock floor should be at the great
depth supposed there is a possibility that an earth floor could be
found below the detritus which has accumulated since the roof fell in
or has worn away.
To test the matter a shaft was begun at a point 16 feet in front of
the doorway. This was as near as such work could be done without
interfering with the advent of visitors, and allowed a margin of 30
feet toward the outer slope. The shaft, 6 feet in diameter, soon
passed into a compact mass of red clay filled with rocks of various
sizes. At 14 feet down this was broken by an irregular stratum
averaging a foot in thickness, of coarse sand or fine gravel with a
slight admixture of clay, such as would form in a running stream. Its
slope was inward or toward the cave. As there are sandstone ledges on
the hillside above, this sand
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