Cave regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills . ch in this portion of thecave is warm. The other wall of this room isan almost perpendicular bank of the soft darkred clay, in which small selenite crystals aresprouting like plants in a garden. we heard a heavy, rolling noise likedistant thunder, and asking if it were possibleto hear a thunder storm so far below the surface,were told it was the protest of angry bats againsta further advance on the quarters to which tlieyhave retreated from the main body of the cave,and their orders were obeyed: so of what may be inthat direction, we gaine
Cave regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills . ch in this portion of thecave is warm. The other wall of this room isan almost perpendicular bank of the soft darkred clay, in which small selenite crystals aresprouting like plants in a garden. we heard a heavy, rolling noise likedistant thunder, and asking if it were possibleto hear a thunder storm so far below the surface,were told it was the protest of angry bats againsta further advance on the quarters to which tlieyhave retreated from the main body of the cave,and their orders were obeyed: so of what may be inthat direction, we gained no positive kno\\ ledgebesides bats, and the fact that, small as they are,their great numbers make them dangerous whenangry. Returning to the gallery and continuingthe journey down over slippery rock andslender ladders MC came at length to the bottomof the Gulf of Doom, into which we had lookedfrom the room now high above us; and weneeded no stimulating help to the imagination topronounce it a fit termination to an artit-tstroubled > Ozarks and Black Hills. 41 Then climbing over au assortment of bowl-ders of all sizes, going up a little, and swingingor sliding down, we came to a point in the nar-row passage where the floor is a fiat slab, like alarge paving stone, tilted up at a steep angleagainst one wall and not reaching the other byabout fifteen inches, with darkness of unknowndepth below: about three feet above this openingthe wall projects in a narrow, shelving ledge, an deverything is covered with a thin coating ofslippery wet clay. The only way to cross thatuninviting bridge is to brace the f ee t against theslab, and leaning on the ledge, slowly workacross. A little more rough work and the descentof the two short ladders, brought us, at last,under the beautiful Waterfall, where we stoodas in a heavy shower of rain at the lowest point3^et reached in the cave, which according to thesurvey of Mr. Prince is four hundred feetbelow the surface. The falling water
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidcaveregionsofoza00owen
