The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1913-09-11
EASTERN KENTUCKY CAVES

the cave begins with a great room
forty feet in size and from this room
great rough rudely decked pass
age leads down and down into the
heart Of the mountain. To right and
left smaller passages lead off into
the silent darkness and now and "A
gain from some yawning black hole
comes the murmur of water dashing
along far below and stones thrown in
give back hollow roar as they 20
bounding down echoing dungeons till
they come 10 rest in some subterran-
can pocket far from the prying eyes of
mortal man. Here and there stelac-
titeS hang from the walls and cell
ing and stalagmites lift their blunt
ed forms from the rugged floor. At
the far end Of one long passage near
the moulding remains of lecch which
must have been old before the war,
we came upon fine deposit of pipe
clay and several members Of the
party paused long enough to secure
enough Of this guiltless element to
carve out souvenirs of our visit.
Forty minutes served to explore this
cave and after taking several kodak
pictures at the mouth we scrambled
along the side of the mountain 10
water cave. from whose cold recesses
a sparkling stream comes gurglirg
out into the sunshine.
From this water cave we climbed
up the face Of a nearly perpendicular
rock that leads to Sampson cave. The
only possible way of reaching this
cave is 10y means Of poles and by
clinging like flies TO narrow lodges
and inches in the weatherworn stone
where the slip of an inch would
mean fall of forty feet or more 20
the boulderS below We made the as
cent one by one until we stood upon
the narrow shelf from which the cave
Is entered, and such an entrance
/ First narrow hole, scarcely fifteen
inches in diameter. then the pass
age enlargeS little only To become
SO small that one has TO work him
self forward inch by inch. II was an
amusing sight indeed 10 those of us
who finally reached breathing space
To see one after another of our com
| panionS come wriggling like ground
hogs out of that narrow hole in the
pale light of our lanterns and the old
cave echoed to many peal of hearty
| laughter as streaked with mud, hat
less and putting they came slowly in
TO view. At last all were inside and
/ for an hour we clambered over rock
masses, crept along the slippery edges
of crevices, explored winding pass
ages, crawled into dark holes, slid
down precipitous slopes and flashed
our lights into great echoing cham
bers whose downward ceilings gave
back our footsteps like the echoing
arches Of some dimly lighted cathe-
dral. II was in this cave some years
ago that one member of party got
lost. The others thought he had
gone ahead of them but going home
and not finding him they refilled their
lanterns and secured several spools of
white line thread and went back IN
search of the missing explorer. Fas-
tening one end of their thread outside
the cave they went from passage TO
passage until they found the place
where their friend scratched rock
with his boot heel. in siding down
into dark passage. No one had
ever been down there before and they
did not know what TO expect, but
leaving one of their number to guard
the entrance they slid down and
found another passage that turned
back under the main channel of the
cave. So down this passage they
hurried, slipping and stumbling over
loose stones and wading in icy water
until they found him huddled upon a
ledge of rock which he had managed
to warm up slightly with a poor fire
of doty wood that soon went out. lie
had been there all night when they
found him and his feeling through
those long silent hours can be imagin-
ed better than described for he knew
| that with his lantern empty and only
few broken matches his fate was
sealed unless some one should come
and find him. The welcome he gave
his rescuers was but little less en-
thusiastic than the one they offered
him.
/ Walking until we were weary we
finally made our way back to the
entrance, crawled through the mar
row hole, worked our way along the
ledge and slid down the poles TO
safety and making our way down the