West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1885-09-18

~Ai'-A 4 -AAD'41 20 VIZ ltA'rlAtiN NAAA S'h-
tains nothing OF special interest.
Near the farther end Of this room we
climbed upward with some difficulty,
for 20 feet, through a narrow passage
at the left between rocks, and found
ourselves in q room, almost symmet.
rical in shape, and It's feet long, 40
feet wide, and 80 feet to the ceiling
The hoor,of this room is pure white
sand that has fallen from above and
the ceiling looks like white marble.
At one side Of this room small
opening leads into room 5x6 feet
and 4 feet. high. The floor of this
small room is white sand and fun.
mel shaped. 1t has the appearance
OF being the wollow OF some wild an.
imal. 1t was discovered by Fortney,
Hyde, Kildow and White last year,
and was named by them the "Vir.
gin Shrine" ON account of the re-.
semblance the large stalagmite in it
bears TO a woman in q sitting pos
ture. Some very fine specimens Of
stalactites hang from the ceiling of
this small room.
At the farther end of the large
room we just described, an opening
is found through which we walked up
right for 80 feet and came to room
about 20 feet square and at least 80
feet to the ceiling at the highest
point. Large rocks lie on the floor
of this room and they evidently fell
from above. Water is continually
dropping from the ceiling, and large
powders above look like they might
fall at any time. Spent little time
as possible in this room. The pas
sage leading back from this room is
very small and it was with Difficult
ty we crawled Though it. After o
crawl of Is feet the passage widen
ed and got higher so that we were
enabled to walk upright. A walk
of two or three minutes brought us
to.a huge rock that seemed to block
our passage, but it was soon mount.
ed and passed over, but not without
a great deal of difficulty attended by
danger. Once ever the rock, we
found ourselves in small room very
irregular in shape. Here we found
two passages leading in different di-
rections. One of these opened to
the left, the other opened straight
ahead. Braham ,Fortney and Staley
took the passage leading straight on
while the rest of us remained where
we were. They returned in half
an hour and reported that they had
gone into the passage as far as tney
could get, and brought back with
them some small rootlets they got
back ct the end of the passage.
How these roOtlets got there we
could not imagine, for we were prob
ably 1000 feet below the surface of
the ground above us.
After their return we all took the
passage to the left which led us
down over rocks and powders for
forty feet. Here We found room
probably 30 feet long and very ir.
regular in shape. The small stream
found near the mouth of the cave
runs through this room and in it
forms q small waterfall three feet
high. We got into Che bed of this
stream and followed itG course Of
least 200 yards and came to room
l0xl2 feet filed with crystal pure
water. Our progress was checked
here as the water is too deep to wade.
BY sounding with cane it was
found 70 be three feet deep. This
passage varies in width from 2 TO 5
feet and in height from to 4 feet
IL appears to have been formed by
the small stream Of water that now
runs through it,
After coming in contact with the
lake OF pend Of water, we retraced
our step and reached the mouth of
the cave at 2 o'clock, having been in
it six hours.
This cave is wholly within Che
sand stone, and what we now wished
70 find was an opening leading into
Che limestone aGatum above. We
had learned that Solomon walls
knew Of such p passage, and while
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