Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-02-27
CallFornIa's Last alarveI.

Tuolumne (Cal) Independent.
A. Gardner has discovered a mammotI,
cave in the dividing ridge between the
South Branch and main Stanislaus riv-
ers, two miles above thejunction and one
mile northerly from Pine Log, at an ele-
vation of about eighteen hundred feet
above the river. The discovery was made
under the following very peculiar cir
cumstanees, in which an insignificant
squirrel figures very conspieuously: On
the first of December, 1873, Gardner says
he was engaged in working his placer
which is distant three hundred feet from
the entrance to the cave. A squirrel
perched itself upon tree near by, and
commenced to chatter and spit acorn
shucI-s at him. This he considered
challenge to fight it out on that line. So
he repaired to his cabin, armed himself
with a double-barreled shotgun, marched
out and faced his diminutive antagonist.
The fight opened with spirited skirmish
of both parties, and ended after Gardner
had fired seven rounds at his squirrel
ship-the seventh just as his little tor
mentor was disappearing in the dark re-
eesses of a crevice in the ledge above his
claim. He pursued it to its retreat, and
then commenced searching in the crevice
to disco yer, if possible, the hiding-place
of his vanquished foe, but failed. The
search, however, resulted in the discov-
cry of the greatest natural wonder in the
county, and, perhaps, in the State, as
future developments in that direction
| In &c Ill ca no
history of its discovery.
1t is adorned with decorations of daz-
cling beauty, unsurpassed in character on
the Pacific slope. The entrance to the
cave is situated at the base of bluff, and
eighty feet above the guleh, and access is
had through crevice in the ledge, three
feet in width by six feet in length. De-
cending by ladder ten feet, you reach the
door of an inclined archway, dipping at
an angle of thirty-fve degrees, from
twenty to thirty feet in height, by thirty
feet in width. Descending the incline,
which is one hundred feet in length, we
reach the door of the grand archway,
from forty to sixty feet in height, vary
| ing in width from twenty to thirty feet,
from which radiate. scores of smaller
archways leading to spacious chambers,
with their lofty ceilings draped with bril-
liant talactites, that glitter and sparkle in
the light of a lamp like gems of ocean
waves of which we read. The floors and
walls of this subterraneous hall are en-
tirely coated with stalagmites. pure crys-
talization. We can best describe this
crystal formation in this wise: For in
HI
pears to the vision like a sheet of snow
lying loosely in large flakes on pane of
glass. We visited, under the guidance
of the discoverer, many large chambers,
of which the grandeur and brilliancy
battle description. Our rambles through
the subterraneous archways were eontin-
ued for four hours. To give the most
minute details of what we witnessed dur
ing our rambles in the cave would fill
every page of the Tuolumne Independent.
The FFBridal Chamber is sixty feet in
length, twenty feet in width, with slight
ly arched ceiling ten to fifteen feet; floor
and walls crystalized; from the ceiling
depend hundreds of stalactites from one
to six feet in length. This chamber far
surpasses the wondrous beauties of the
tFCave City, of Calaveras County. So
says R. Bostwick, who, in 1859, visited
that cave. e'The Crystal Palace, y though
not SO spacious as the aforementioned
room, is equally as attractive, its crystal
formations are of rare beauty.
Explorations made of the cave extend
over an area of one-half a mile. In no
direction already explored has there been
found any terminating point to the cav
ern. Gardner says he will continue to
explore till every recess of the caye is
discovered and its extent known
Through some system of experimental
surveys of the surface, he determined the
extent of the cave to exceed four miles.