THE DESCENT OF EASTWATER CAVERN, THE SECOND
VERTICAL DROP.
From Sketch by H. E. Balch.
THE GREAT CANYON, EASTWATER CAVERN.
From Sketch by H. E. Balch.
After an exceedingly painful journey back to the mouth of the tunnel, we sat down to lunch, before re-ascending the rope ladder, and carrying our baggage through a series of awkward holes and pits, all deluged with water, into the big chamber at the head of the main passages. In this chamber, whose walls, floor, and roof are formed of gigantic blocks seemingly on the point of collapsing, is an opening in the roof, through which a stream comes tumbling in. At the farthest corner therefrom a large opening leads to the bottom of a chimney or aven. Great quantities of clay on walls and roof show that this cavern has frequently been filled with water through the choking up of the lower exit. The stream runs away into the rocky floor at the lower end of the cave, and a few feet above it is a flood-way, a short, low tunnel, through which we crawled. Then begins one of the most interesting portions of the cavern. In one of those broad, low-roofed fissures, inclined at the same angle of fifty degrees as the general dip of the strata, and formed, in fact, by the widening of a bedding-plane in the Limestone strata, a deep, winding channel has been cut by the stream we have just passed. It has been called, from its likeness, the Canyon. For a considerable distance our path lies down the Canyon, and with our heavy burdens we find the passage far from easy. As far as possible, we keep near the top of the ravine, straddling across. Sometimes, however, there is no help for it but to drop right to the bottom. Before we reach its termination, we have to climb out on the smooth, sloping floor of the main fissure, and wriggle forwards lying on our sides or on our backs. Foot-hold and hand-hold being singularly scarce hereabouts, we shall find this one of the most troublesome places in returning. On the right, we have a glimpse through a hole here and there of another great low-roofed fissure sloping at the same angle; then there are cross roads, with a tunnel on the left admitting to a stalactite chamber, and a passage on the right leading to the lower end of the Canyon.
We now reached the most constricted portion of the main channel. It is a low, roundish tunnel, with an S curve at the distant end. A good deal of our locomotion might be likened to crawling through drain-pipes; we were now coming to a sort of trap. The S bend has to be taken with the body lying on its right side. Once in it, the explorer cannot turn round, since the diameter every way only just admits a human body, and the three curves are close together. My candle went out half-way through, and to unjam my arm and get it down for the waterproof matches was a difficult and protracted operation. Moving the luggage through was a very severe task, the width of the hole at one spot being only nine and a half inches.