Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-28
SUNDAY MAGAZINE for JANUARY 20. 1906
INTO THE EARTFT'S DEPTHS
Continued from page 10

nj page ~
could not use my telephone. for the re-
ceiver was full of water, though | could
send messages. At the bottom, the water
spread itself over a large chamber five
hundred feet long, one hundred teet
wide and ninety feet high. Then it
flowed away down a tunnel at one end
of the chamber. Sometimes these under
ground streams come to the surface again
several miles away.
There is legend that shepherd once
dropped a whip down the shaft of cave.
and his sweetheart who lived on the
bank of brook some miles below found
it floating in the stream a day or two
later. She wrote and told her lover, and
he replied that he would send her sheep
by the same method. He led the animal
to the brink of the pit; but it struggled
so that the man lost his footing, and it
was his corpse and not the sleeps that
the girl found opposite her cottage door.
l carry with me bottle of f1uorescein
"a deep dye, extracted from coal-tar.
One part of this will tinge twenty million
parts of water sufficiently for its presence
to be recognized by a machine constructed
for the purpose 1t has led to some
curious experiments.
l hope l may tempt American readers
to take to cave-hunting. 1t is sport that
should just suit your national character
your pluck, skill and perseverance.
That reminds me that two years ago |
visited the interesting cave of Drach, in
Majorca, one of the Balearic Isles.
One of the chambers is called the " Hall
of the Lost" and one of the stalagmites
bears this inscription in Spanish: No
hope remains 1t records the adventure
of three men who entered the cave at
six o'clock one morning, lost themselves,
and were rescued at ten o'clock the same
night by an innkeeper who lived near.
Fancy an American or Briton scrawling
that mo hope remained" when he had
been little more than half day in prison!
Why, l should never have found out in
that time that l was lost even, so much
of interest is there to see. There is a
fairy lake in that cave on which my little
boat f1oated for hours amid a virgin
forest of stalactites and stalagmites
of dazzling whiteness and all sorts of
quaint and beautiful shapes.
lust one word in conclusion. AS
have visited every cave worth seeing in
Europe, and a few in Asia and South
America, Isought to have some theory as
to the cause of their existence. Some
biologists think they have been caused
by earthquakes, which in my opinion
is absurd; others say the action of water
which seems more reasonable and is,
think, correct in some cases. But
believe that in most cases caves have
been formed by the action of carbonic-
acid gas. 1t rather tells against my
theory, though, that l never but once
met with choke-damp. That was at Rogue
de Corne, when Armand, who was going
first down a second pit, asked us to pass
him a safety-lamp, as his candle, which
he was holding low, would not burn.
Gaupillat shouted to him to come back,
and we lowered a candle, which went
out at once. Another time, as he was
crawling through bottle-neck" leading
from one chamber to another, Armand
stuck fast, cutting off our air. Our
candles soon sputtered out, and we began
to gasp and choke. At last with supreme
effort the burly cork" was got out and