The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-12-14

explorer a fall that would mean certain
 deaht As a matter of precaution 1T
 making such descents one should have
 an extra safety line about his waist
 For myself l use rope ladders, as they
 are more comfortable than mere knot
 ted ropes and can be ascended more
 easily. The greatest descent l have
 ever made required TAO yards of these
 ladders.
 The costume which I have adopted
 for my work is made of tough sail cloth
 Sail cloth does not wet through and is
 not easily torn by contact with the
 rocks I wear a hat of waXed leather,
 which l have found to be the best pro-
 lection against falling pieces of rock.
 My jacket contains as many pockets as
 1t can accommodate, and In these l carry
 a email hammer, my signal whistle,
 matches, flask of rum, flint and a steel, and candles, while the repair bag I slung over my shoulder contains an ex- tra telephone receiver-I use a portal ble
 telephone for communicating with the
 surface-cords, a plumb line, ther-
 mometer and barometer, medicines and
 bandages to be used in case of acidents, a compass, knives instruments and a few provisions This is rather an ex-
 tensive equipment for one man to carry. | but everything is made as light and
 compact as possible. If the cavern to
 be explored is an extensive one, of
 course 1t is necessary for me to take a
 number of companions. In such cases
 we usually take along collapsible boat
 for navigating such lakes or streams as ] tp,, GOT nd tOO1E fnI,
 securing specimens, iron weights and
 sounding apparatus. Thus equipped we
 are prepared to travel almost any dis
 tance that the wndings of the subter-
 ranean passages may lead us and if
 we have sufficient supply of telephone
 tape We can keep in communication
 with the surface.
 f 'The greatest danger in underground exploration is from carbonic gas, and
 were it not for the me-honored test of the lighted candle this would make the exploration of subterranean passages al- most impossible It is necessary al- ways to carry candles and test the air with them For ordinary illumination, however, use either electric lights fed by small storage batteries or else coI- lapslble mica lantern which I invented for this purpose. For ascending or de- scending such heights as may be en- countered in the interior we carry very light collapsible ladders made in sec tions six or eight feet in length.
 Perhaps the narrowest escape from death that I have experienced in the course of my exploring work occurred in September, 1895. With number of companions I entered the reat cavern of Pardirac, which is one of the most interesting I have ever seen, containing, as it does extensive lakes, consider able river and wonderful stalagmite formations. The passage leading to the main cavern was a narrow one with a stream three feet in depth flowing through it. When that was passed, However, we found ourselves in a lofty and extensive chamber with large circular lake containing picturesque stalagmite islands near the centre. We spread our table and ate our luncheon on the shore of this lake, and then launching our sail-coth boat, set out for further exploration. We were fool hardy to the extent to taking three per sons in the light boat, which was in- tended for two only, but the glories which unfolded themselves as we went on made us oblivious of danger and al- so from the fact that the stream com ing from the direction by which we had entered was steadily rising. That should have warned us, for there had been signs of rain before we started | and any considerable rise in the water would cut off our retreat
 AS matter of fact we were intent | only what was before us and went on, | abandoning our telephone when we reached the end of the tape From the I opposite side of the lake we found our river flowing. and embark ing on that we followed it for long distance. Frequently we encountered | rapids around which we had to carry the boat, but for the most part our progress was easy. We had advanced | more than mile from the foot of the | opening and were 300 feet underground [ when at the foot of some rapids our boat was overturned as we were reem- barking in it. We were plunged into water fourteen feet in depth and in- tensly cold, but as we could all swim we wer able to regain the shore. A more serious matter was the loss of the most of our instruments and the wetting of our matches and candles. We found a few candles that had escaped the water and after great trouble we man aged to strike light with the flint and collect part of our scattered out fit We then observed what we should have noticed before, that the water in the stream was rising rapidly.
 'In fear lest we might be cut off we started back, but our progress was slow, lrenched garments and compelled to weighed down as we were with or weighed down as we were with our lrag our boat and carry all our equip nent on our shoulders It was a terri ole trip and the steadily increasing lepth of the water struck terror to our hearts. It made our advance more diff ,ult also. The rapids which we had passed so easily on our entering jour- icy we were now compelled to toll trough against the increasing current ID to our armpits in water, carrying our ' andles between our teeth and dragging ( ourselves forward by means of the pro- ( ecting rocks along side of the stream ( "It seemed an age before we again { cached the shore of our lake. As a natter of fact it was about three and { half hours. Here we found a new 1