USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 27
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It is possible to leave the grand amphitheater at every point of the com- pass. Back of the ladder, directly opposite from the tunnel leading to the dead
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animal chamber, is a series of eight or ten rooms, but the rock is rotten, and there is constant danger of something dropping. The Powells have never gone far in that direction, and they never take visitors in. This course is almost due north. To the northwest is a string of nine rooms with connecting crawls, but they contain no extraordinary features.
Almost where the amphitheater leaves off and the Mother Hubbard wing be- gins, a short passage leads into a room shaped so much like an alligator that it has been given that name. The alligator room is interesting chiefly for the fact that from it Wind Passage extends. The alligator room is ten feet wide and thirty feet long. Wind Passage is so crooked that nothing longer than a four- foot stick can be dragged through it. It is so low that wriggling is the only style of locomotion. And this piece of crawling is between eight hundred and one thousand feet over rocks and under rocks. The clay bottom, which is usual in Marvel cave passages, is not found in this. Through Wind Passage comes a cur- rent of air strong enough to extinguish any ordinary torch. Hence the name. Day and night, in all seasons, that draft blows through. Wind Passage comes to an abrupt termination at a precipice. The depth is about forty feet, and when the explorer has lowered himself by rope he stands in a large round chamber 200 feet across and very high. The guano and clay on the floor are dry, and a little kick- ing raises a great dust. This chamber has never been named. A passage not so contracted and tortuous leads out of the chamber. A crawl of about one hundred and fifty feet ends in a second room, which possesses the suggestive name of The Epsom Salts room. This room is 600 feet long and 200 feet high. In the center is a balloon-shaped sink fourteen feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. Epsom salts like frost work appears upon the walls. After Epsom Salts room is a series of eight large rooms, with short passages between. At the end of the last there is a fissure two feet wide in some places, in others narrowing to one foot. There are ledges on the sides. It is possible to shuffle along this fissure with a foot on either side. The fissure is sixty to seventy feet deep, and at the bottom is a stream of water. Probably there are rooms along the fissure, but the few times this most dangerous route has been traversed the Powells have been too intent on their foot- ing to speculate on side issues. This fissure route is about a mile long. After traveling that distance the explorer bears off to the left and goes through a cor- ridor that much resembles the one leading to the Dead Animal room. It is very low in places and extremely dry. Then comes a series of fifteen or sixteen rooms, and at last the straight high banks of a stream from twelve to fourteen feet wide and ten feet deep. The current is swift. No Name River this is called and it bars the progress of exploration in that direction until material can be dragged through for a bridge or a boat.
Three Rivers with Varying Courses.
The course of the No Name stream is westward. Mystic River's course is south. Lost River flows in still another direction. The streams flowing so vigorously through different portions of the cave account in part for the strong and diverse currents of air. The fact that they rise and fall with the rivers out- side and feel the effects of rain and freshets seems to show that they have outside connections not a great way distant.
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Lost River Canyon is where level heads are turned and confusion reigns. Where the ladders and passage coming down from Registry room bring one to the canyon stands a great rock, shaped like a thick slab. It is perpendicular as if set there by the square and compass and anointed by the oil and wine. This is Sen- tinel Rock. It plays an important part in the geography of the cave. If the ex- plorer notes the rock as he returns from Blondy's throne and the waterfall, he looks backward over his left shoulder and sees the passage to the ladders and the way out. But if Sentinel Rock is passed the traveler is lost. Lost River Canyon has countless side passages and crevices. Six boys and six girls went down to the waterfall on one occasion and started back. They did not come out. As the time went by without sign of them, Mr. Powell descended. When he reached the lad- der he could see the party crawling round and round through Lost River Canyon and its branches looking in vain for the way. Some of them had been there before, but they did not remember Sentinel Rock. They had become bewildered. Their lights had burned until only a bit of candle remained. At the first glimpse one of the party cried out, "Is that Editor Powell?" In a few moments a hysterical girl had the editor by the arm crying, "Papa, I'm going to get hold of you." She never released her grip until she saw blessed daylight coming through the gap in the crater.
Mr. Powell considers that one of his greatest feats was finding his way out from the foot of the waterfall without light. It was a feat wholly unintentional. Dr. Jones, an early and frequent explorer of the cave, came out one day insisting that he had found an entirely new route from the waterfall to Blondy's throne. He claimed that he had discovered a hole just back of the fall, and that it was much easier going. Powell didn't believe him, but he had had so many discoveries upset previous knowledge that after listening to the Doctor carefully he went down to see for himself. He carried with him a candle and a box of patent matches. Never noticing that the matches were only good when scratched on the box lid, he threw away the box. Reaching the foot of the waterfall Mr. Powell saw through the mist a dark spot which he had not observed before. Concluding that that was the hole Dr. Jones had mentioned, Powell dashed through the water towards it. He struck solid wall instead of space and reeled backward. The water put out the light. When he recovered from the shock he tried to strike a match, and then another and another. After repeated failures he realized the situation. Turning with his back squarely to the wall he started through the fall and for the passage. Feeling his way almost inch by inch, and stopping every few feet to think out the turns and chutes, he came at last to the Sentinel Rock. It took two hours to make the trip out but it was accomplished.
The Original Arkansas Traveler.
After a day of hard climbing and crawling Mr. Powell sat on the gallery of the Glade Echo homestead and talked most interestingly of Marvel Cave's history.
"I have," said he, "been told a great many things about the cave by the people round about here and I have given a good deal of time to investigating them. Many of the stories, I am satisfied, are purely imaginary. Some have foundation. The oldest reference to the cave in print was, I think, a short newspaper descrip- tion. This was probably published a great many years ago and revived from time to time and started on its rounds. I found it printed in an appendix to a history
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of Missouri published long ago. The curious thing about the account is that it doesn't locate the cave further than to say it is in the Ozarks. From the descrip- tion, it seems that the writer was lowered into the Amphitheater and crawled per- haps as far as the Registry. He speaks of there being another throne about the middle of the Amphitheater. This prompts me to believe that since his visit considerable debris has fallen in through the slit in the bottom of the crater and covered up one of the thrones. I have a theory that this description of Marvel Cave was written fifty years ago, and that the man who visited the cave and wrote it was Col. Falconer. Falconer was the original of 'The Arkansas Traveler.' He is the character about whom so many stories are told. He had a place in Dade County, but he was seldom at home. Dressed in good clothes, riding a fine horse, he traveled all over this part of Missouri and Arkansas. Wherever he went he carried his fiddle. And he fiddled his way to the hearts of the pioneers while he explored their country. Falconer passed up and down the Old Wilder- ness road, then a mere trail, in his travels. He could hardly have failed to hear, from the hunters, of Marvel Cave, and it was just like him to visit the place and go down into it. He wrote what he saw, but never thought of telling the way to it or of locating it more definitely than in the Ozarks."
Traditions of Spanish Treasure.
When Mr. Powell began to explore the cave he heard many stories about it having been visited by the Spaniards at an early day. Some people believed that treasure had been hidden here.
"I have never been able to find any confirmation of these lost-wealth stories," said Mr. Powell. "We found upon our earliest visits the remnants of some old ladders, such as the Spaniards used. They are simply long poles with notches alternating on each side for footholds. The same kind of ladders are to be seen now in Mexican mines. Two of those poles, or sections of them, are now in the cave. You saw them in one corner of the Mother Hubbard room. The Spaniards roamed through this region looking for silver at an early day. It is altogether probable that they made ladders and descended into the cave, but I have never found any evidence that they mined there, or that they concealed any treasure. At one time I thought that I had found some inscriptions on the wall down near the Sullivan room and also on the wall in the Water Works room, but afterwards I became satisfied that they were due to natural causes.
"Next to these Spanish ladders I have mentioned," Mr. Powell continued, "the oldest relics I ever found in the cave were two whisky bottles. They were dis- covered on my first visit in 1882. Just such bottles, shaped like a canteen, were in use by the army many years ago. One of the bottles had blown in the glass a flag and a cannon and the date 1835. These were evidences that some one had been in the cave long before, perhaps at the time a body of regular soldiers passed through long before the Civil war. The first descent into the cave of which I have found any definite account was made by Harry T. Blow and a prospecting party in search of mineral in 1869. The prospectors went down into the cave and left a record of their visit on the wall of the Registry room. We found it there. From 1869 I don't think the interior of the cave was visited until our party came in 1882. There was no means of descent. We spent some time preparing a way to get down. A large tree was suspended from the slit in the floor of the crater.
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Holes were bored and rounds driven through, making what is known as an Indian ladder. With that we made our descent."
Discomfiture of Dr. Beaver.
One of the most persistent upholders of the theory of hidden treasures in Marvel Cave was a man who called himself "Dr. Beaver." The Doctor was on hand at the time of the explorations of 1882.
"Beaver," said Mr. Powell, "claimed to be able to read Spanish. He also pretended to have a lot of information, charts, and so on, about the location of the treasure. He even insisted that he had been in the cave years before, but I am satisfied that he had never gone down until our visit. At first we paid some attention to Beaver, but gradually we all became confident there was nothing in him. Dr. Jones and I concluded to make a test of him. We found some pieces of slate and notched and scratched them so as to make them look as if they were intended to convey some secret information. Then we daubed clay on them and partially washed it off. We took bits of rope and rubbed clay into them and dried them to make them look old. We put these things on a ledge up back of the Great White Throne. The next day when we went down to continue the explora- tion we took Beaver along with us and gradually worked around to the ledge. We fixed it so that Beaver was in advance and so that he was the first to see the slates and rope. The discovery tickled him immensely. He carried the slates away and made a study of them with the aid of his alleged charts. After awhile he came back with a complete translation and a bigger story than ever about the buried treasure. We let Beaver run on for some time about the importance of the dis- covery. Finally Dr. Jones remarked :
"'Well, there's more in 'em than I thought there was when I made 'em."
"When he saw how he had been duped, Beaver was so mad he wanted to fight. He insisted that he would whip the Doctor, but of course we wouldn't let him. He lost all interest in the cave exploration after that, and disappeared."
Cave Stories.
One cave story of which Mr. Powell found partial confirmation was told to him by an old hunter. "In 1883," said Mr. Powell, "this old hunter heard that I had been exploring the cave. He had never been down, but he had hunted and trapped all through this region, and knew of the cave. He came all the way from his home over near Ozark to tell me the story. Thirty-seven years before, the hunter's narration ran, he and an Indian followed a bear to the crater above the cave. The bear crawled under a large rock which partially overhung the opening into the cave. The hunter and the Indian sent the dog in under the rock to dis- lodge the bear. It was a failure. Then the Indian drew his knife and crawled under the rock. He stabbed the bear. The bear jumped forward. Indian, bear and dog went through the hole and disappeared. The hunter listened long, but could hear no sound. He went home. After thirty-seven years the curiosity to know the sequel to that story prompted him to journey thirty miles across the mountain and see whether any trace of Indian, bear or dog had been found." Mr. Powell and the hunter went to the spot where the fatal encounter had taken place. Mr. Powell noted the probable direction of the fall. He descended into the cave, and, after a little search, found the skeleton of the bear. Of the Indian and dog there was no trace.
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Another old resident of the region entertained Mr. Powell with the story of two dogs that had been lowered into the cave and turned loose. These dogs, the tradition ran, had after some days found their way out of the cave and returned to their master. The Powells tried this experiment until they felt sure there was nothing in it. They thought that it might lead to the discovery of an outlet on the level. But the cave has a strange effect on dogs. Instead of seeking an exit the unfortunate animals go wild with fear. They lose all of their ordinary sagacity. So far from making any effort to thread the passages they crouch down in the Amphitheater with their eyes on the opening far above them and howl and whine most piteously by the hour.
Another long ago tradition of the neighborhood was that the cave was used before the war as a hiding place for runaway negroes. A story is told of a hunter seeing a negro come out of what was supposed to be an outlet of Marvel Cave. This alleged outlet is in the glades of Indian Creek, not many miles from Marvel Cave. It goes by the name of the Nigger Hole to this day. But if there is a connection between the big cave and the hole it has not yet been traced. The theodolite has been used. It was shown that the Marvel Cave extends a long way in the direction of Indian Creek. The theory is that somewhere along the creek is the entrance by which the thousands of animals, prehistoric and more recent, found their way into the great chamber to die. It is instinct with the feline tribe to seek a hidden spot when the pangs of dissolution come on. It is also instinct which takes them into just such catacombs as the Dead Animal Chamber. Rarely, however, do they find a place where the mummifying conditions-the evenness of temperature and the dryness-are so perfect. Runaway slaves, numbers of them, made use of the smaller caves of this region for hiding and resting places on their way from Arkansas to Kansas. This is well authenticated, but there is nothing to show they descended into the great Marvel Cave.
Traces of mineral, zinc and lead are found in the cave, but nothing that is workable. There is tripoli also. And it is one of the standing jokes of the guides to prompt visitors to test their lifting powers on the rocks scattered about. When the visitors have strained their backs, the guide picks up a chunk of tripoli about ten times the size the largest rock that has been lifted and handles it as if it was a base ball. After the mystery is explained, there is a laugh all round.
Cave Sensations.
The sensations in the great caverns are very peculiar. They are altogether different from those experienced in mines. No man has ever been able to sleep in the Marvel Cave. Mr. Powell tried to perform the feat, but with all of his love for the cave and with all his steadiness of nerve, he has failed to make a comfortable night of it. The Powells have frequently passed nights underground, but they were engaged in exploration. The first impression upon lying down to sleep in the cave is of intense stillness. Then noises are heard and they grow more and more distinct. The strain on the nerves finally becomes such that sleeping is entirely out of the question.
"I went down into the cave one night intending to sleep there," Mr. Powell said, "just for the novelty of the thing. It never occurred to me that I couldn't do it. I picked out a comfortable dry place in the Mother Hubbard room and lay down. It was very still at first. Then I began to hear the dripping of water.
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It was a long way off, but it sounded very sharp and grew louder. The next noise that took my attention was made by the bats. I could hear them flying about in the darkness over me. Their wings seemed to squeak. Next an owl flew through the amphitheater and gave a yell just as he passed Echo Point. The echo swelled the sound tenfold, and the yells seemed to come from as many directions. I jumped to my feet in spite of myself. Of course I recognized in a moment what it was and lay down again. Then I could hear the water rolling in rooms I knew were a quarter of a mile away. The sound seemed to grow louder and to come nearer. I heard the splashing of the waterfall still farther away. One thing succeeded another. It was useless to keep up the experiment. I came out of the cave and went to bed. Working in the cave at night is all right. You do not observe any difference from working down there in the day time, but sleeping is an impossibility."
The Amateur Scientists.
Of all the visitors the one who least impressed Mr. Powell was the genus scientificus.
"The most of these scientists," said Mr. Powell, "are very thick-headed. They don't know enough to amount to shucks." One day Mr. Powell was going by the cave, when he found an old man with four boys there. The old man said the party had "come all the way from Kansas to see the cave in the interest of science." While Mr. Powell was debating in his mind whether to follow the trail of a wounded deer or sacrifice himself to science two drovers came along. They, too, wanted to see the cave. The party was made up. The old man watched the preparations for the descent and took a good view of the long ladder. Just as the word was given and the party started the old man suddenly weakened and said :
"Well, boys, I've brought you this far. There might something happen. I won't go down."
Mr. Powell urged. The old man became more and more positive. The drovers saw the old man's fears rising, and they joined with Powell in insisting that having come as the guardian of the boys he must go with them or be remiss in his duty toward them. At length Mr. Powell announced his decision, that the old man must descend or the boys shouldn't ; he wouldn't be responsible for their safety unless the old man went down. The scientist hung to the ladder, talked of his rheumatics, and finally descended. When he found himself on a firm footing his self-confidence returned in part, and he began to talk.
"Boys," he said to his charges, with much show of cheerfulness, "I promised to explain things as I went along. Now, this here cave has been a volcany once. All this rock you see gone out of here was biled out by fire. Them things you see down yonder is stagalmites. Them's nothing but melted rocks. They jest biled up and friz like you see 'em now. If we'd been on top of this hill when this was blowin' out, we'd better kept away. It'd been mighty hot."
Mr. Powell asked the scientist from Kansas what he thought had become of that which "blew out."
The old man studied a little and replied: "I reckon it must ha' run off down hill into the hollers. I didn't see nothing of it on top."
"How long ago do you think it happened?" asked Mr. Powell.
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"Oh, it might have been 100 years," was the scientific reply.
The bats in the cave come to be on familiar terms with those whom they see daily. They will sometimes gather close around Mr. Powell and allow him to handle them, while a stranger can not get near without alarming them. On this occasion Mr. Powell put up his hand in passing near a wall and took down several bats, replacing them after a few moments.
"Right there, boys," broke in the old man, "ye learn the law of kindness. They know him, and he can handle them. If you'd take hold of 'em they'd wipe your lives out and eat your eyes out."
And then the scientist, who had never lost sight of the hole in the roof, insisted on going out, and made one of the boys go to the top of the ladder with him.
Rider Haggard Vindicated.
"I have read 'She' and 'King Solomon's Mines,' and those books which deal with wonderful caves," said Will Powell. "I never go up Lost River Canyon that I don't think of them. Haggard describes one long gallery which is almost identical with part of this canyon. I'll be darned if there isn't one place where the rocks are laid up in blocks sixteen feet long and three or four feet thick just as Haggard tells it."
"Haggard," said the father of the young guide, taking up the conversation, "describes in his books many cave effects which we find to be strictly true in our experience here. For instance, there is the crystallization which is forever going on under the fall. Haggard treats a like effect as a means of preserving human bodies. I don't know that this Lost River water will do that, but it will put a coating of crystal on a stick in three months."
Lost River Canyon is considered the most dangerous part of the cave because of its network of passages and the sameness of the region. Beyond Springstead Throne the canyon runs into a series of circular rooms, from five to ten feet high, looking just like so many circus tents. The voice room is one of these. It is reached by a crevice from Lost River Canyon about a quarter of a mile from Sentinel Rock. At all times it is possible to hear in this room a rumbling which resembles the human voice.
Near to the lower passage leading to the foot of the waterfall is the Neighbor- hood Room. It covers an acre of ground. Lost River is crossed nine times in the exploration of the room. The name grew out of a curious circumstance. One rainy day Mr. Powell and a companion in search of new cave territory went into this room. Mr. Powell left a candle near the entrance, and he and his com- panion started forward to examine the room. Suddenly his companion remarked : "Looks like this was a settled neighborhood. We just left a light behind us, and here is another." It was the light they had left, and as often as they started forward they brought up in a short time with their own light in front of them. Great as it is in width and breadth, the Neighborhood Room is only ten or twelve feet high. It was reached by a descent through a fissure and a crawl of thirty or forty feet.
The Geology of It.
"Marvel Cave," Mr. Powell said, "is not like Mammoth Cave. It is more after the order of Luray, in Virginia. It consists of many large rooms with
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small connections. Mammoth is a succession of large rooms, But there is no room in Mammoth half as high from floor to roof as the amphitheater of Marvel Cave. Right in front of the Great White Throne the distance from floor to roof is 250 feet. The roof is a great sheet of marble. The depth of the cave is another extraordinary feature of it. I maintain that there are three distinct formations in view. In the Registry Room one can see the roots of the rocks of one formation. The Upper Silurian system ends there. In the lowest parts of the cave are to be seen the Archaic rocks. We actually run through the Lower Silurian complete. When Ladd, the geologist, was down here he thought the lower rocks might be metamorphosed. He wasn't quite willing to admit they were Archaic. I conjecture that they are Archaic because of the mica we find in them. A great deal occurred during the upheaval, and much of it can be seen in Marvel Cave. Capt. Anthony Arnold, of Springfield, spent a week here on two different occasions. His opinion is that the strata seen in the cave embrace three periods-the Sub-Carboniferous, the Upper Silurian and the Lower Silu- rian. I have had a good deal of experience with the geologists. Starting out from Galena to come over here they begin by contradicting me and saying that my theories are undoubtedly wrong, but after arriving and seeing they usually give up their preconceived ideas about the cave. It is a revelation to them in many ways. The onyx we find is a mere formation in the water in darkness. Ages of hardening are necessary to make it the article of commerce. In the top of the waterfall onyx is seen in the first stages of formation. As to the spring and the theory that the water forms from condensation owing to the counter cur- rents of air of different temperature, I have sought the opinion of scientists. I wrote to Prof. Eaton, of William Jewell College, among others, giving him a detailed description of the conditions. He corresponded with the professors of the State University at Columbia, and they agreed that condensation was the principle which produced the steady dripping in the Shower-bath Room and the collection of water in the spring. I don't know that there is anywhere under- ground a freak of nature just like this spring, at least of such magnitude. There is never any lack of pure air in the cave. Currents enter from different direc- tions and are very perceptible. The 10° difference in temperature in different parts of the cave mystifies visitors. Chambers on the same level have this differ- ence. The explanation is found in the bat guano, I am satisfied. The tempera- ture in the chambers where guano is found is 10° lower than in those where no guano is found. The guano contains 13 per cent of ammonia, and that produces the cold. Some scientists shake their heads at this, but they can find no other explanation."
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