Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills

by Luella Agnes Owen

Rising above the Silent Lake is the Glacier, its moist surface suggesting that the lake is fed by a slight thaw, while the perpendicular front at the water's edge gives the impression of a berg having recently broken off and floated away.

The Glacier flows between two high walls of dark rock, and the steep incline of perhaps seventy feet, covered with a smooth deposit of calcite and shining with moisture, has the appearance of ice and is as uninviting for a climb. The top is connected with the roof above by a group of short, and for this region, heavy columns of dripstone, the oldest formation of that character in the cave.

An occasional overflow of the lake passes out to one side, then turns and goes under the Glacier where its first few feet of descent are called the Pearl Beds, where a variety of water-polished pebbles are being coated over and cemented together with calcite crystal.

From the Glacier down to the lowest level of the cave by another route than that taken for the ascent, there is abundant evidence that at one time this portion of the cave was subject to excessively violent activity, and if studied with a view to the penetration of the principle of geyser action, offers many interesting and valuable suggestions that can be added to and expanded into definite theories in connection with the balance of the cave; all important requirements are clearly shown.

At a short distance from the Glacier is a small circular dome, called the Picture Gallery, which evidently was shaped by water forced up from below. The descent from here takes us into the St. Louis Tunnel, a long rough passage leading down into the great Cathedral, by the still descending irregularities of which we finally reach the Garden of Eden, the objective point of a favorite tourist route, but usually approached from the opposite direction. It is a large chamber of very irregular shape, with an extremely uneven ceiling, dipping nearly to the floor and rising suddenly to distant heights, while every portion of all the varied surfaces glitters with a mass of frost work in every form it is known to have assumed; the banks of orange buds in different stages of expansion being exceptionally handsome. A portion of this wonderful room especially admired is Cupid's Alcove, where the frost is tinged with a pinkish flush from the brilliant paint clay captured in minute particles by the vapors. The whole room is a marvel of loveliness, but unfortunately visitors have wrought such noticeable damage that wire screening must be placed before the general admittance of large parties can be resumed.

Passing out and down to a lower level, by way of Jacob's Well, we find the source of that magnificent abundance of frost work to be in the Chamber of Forbidden Fruit, where a yellow calcite floor-crust indicates the surface level of water diminishing in volume by evaporation long after the upward flow had forever ceased, and from which the rising vapor ascended to decorate the Garden of Eden, just described. But since this water completely disappeared, leaving in evidence only the record-bearing crust, a percolating drip has prepared indisputable proof of the remote distance of that time by depositing on the crust great clusters of luscious fruits, chiefly cherries, which appear to have been carelessly tossed down in heaps, but are firmly fixed in place.

The onward journey continues up and down through Beacon Heights, a large chamber which imitates Rocky Mountain scenery and terminates at the Corkscrew Path which, as the name indicates, is a spiral path winding down like a great stairway against the wall of an approximately circular chamber which is perhaps the highest in the cave, and shows the most violent water-action. The plunging torrent rushed on from here to tear out the heavy rock and form the next chamber, known as Dante's Inferno, whence, its force being divided, it went more gently in various directions. And by one of these passages we now re-enter the main route of travel once more, and finally return to the face of the earth, wondering if it will be possible to so describe those wonderful scenes as to represent with even a limited degree of fairness or justice the awe-inspiring grandeur of the entire trip, or the perfection of fragile loveliness formed and preserved as by special miracles in the Garden of Eden.

One peculiarity of this great journey was that the box work, so abundant in other portions of the cave, was here conspicuously absent.

THE CRYSTAL PALACE.

Another route in Wind Cave is that to the Crystal Palace which, although the shortest, is the one most seldom taken by visitors, because of a certain amount of difficulty and discomfort being unavoidable. Only a portion of the great stairway below the entrance is descended, when we abandon it and climb into a hole in the side-wall of the narrow passage, from which point to the end of the trip our feet prove to be merely encumbrances.