HURRICANE BLUFF CAVE
Half a mile below Lackaye Bluff, opposite the lower end of an island in the Gasconade, is a rock shelter 85 feet in length, 15 feet high in front, 6 feet high at the rear, and 15 feet deep along the middle portion, wedging out at either end. A large pile of talus in front forms a natural windbreak, and the depression is a favorite camping place with present-day hunters and fishermen. A small quantity of flint chips and many shells can be seen around the wall and for some distance down the slope in front. The site may repay investigation, though there is no great depth of earth.
It is reported that paintings of a deer or elk and other objects are to be seen on the face of a bluff near Paydown.
STRATMAN CAVE (39)
On the farm of Henry L. Stratman, 2½ miles above the Rock Island Railway bridge across the Gasconade River, is a cave near the top of a bluff facing the Gasconade. The entrance is 33 feet wide and 35 feet high. Forty feet back the walls approach each other, forming a doorway or short passage 5 feet wide. Beyond this is a room 18 feet deep and 9 feet across, with a rock ledge or shelf on each side several feet wide and elevated from a foot to 2 feet above the earth floor. This room is well lighted. The earth at the rear is 10 feet higher than at the main entrance. Behind this, in turn, nearly shut off by a large column of stalagmite, is a third room, 8 feet wide, whose earth floor rises rapidly. Were the stalagmite removed, there would be ample light for 20 or 30 feet farther, or about 90 feet in all.
Refuse, mostly shell, shows for 100 feet down the hill. There is some shell in the cave, along the walls; but most of the floor is a comparatively recent accumulation of roof dust and small fragments of rock, and is quite dry as far as light penetrates.
The entrance is much more easily reached from the top of the hill than from the foot of the bluff.
The trend and appearance of the reentrant side walls connecting the present entrance with the straight face of the cliff indicates that the earth in the cavern has a depth of 30 feet or more. Should this prove to be the case, here would be a most excellent place to search for evidence of occupation which, whether continuous or not, might bridge the time from the modern Indian to the earliest inhabitant.
Certainly no other cave in Missouri offers such facilities or inducements for careful and thorough investigation with a view to determining the existence of an early "cave man" in this country.