During the dreadful earthquake which in 1868 raised the strip of land at

the western foot of the Andes from Iburra in Ecuador, to Iquique in

Peru, 1,200 miles in length, the receding sea uncovered the bay at

Iquique to the depth of four fathoms, and then, returning in an immense

wave, a mass of dark blue water, forty feet high, rushed over the

already ruined city, and swept away every trace of what had been a town.

One spectator, seeing the whole surface of the sea rise like a mountain,

ran for his life to the Pampa. The waves overtook him. Fighting with the

dark water, amidst wreck and ruin of every kind, carried back into the

bay, and again thrown back to the Pampa, wounded and half-naked, he

crept for safety into a hole of the sand, and waited sadly for the dawn.

At Arica, the British Vice-Consul, alarmed at the first shock, rushed

out of the house with his family, and made for the high ground, in just

terror of the expected sea-wave. Through the ruined town, amidst dead

and dying, half stifled with dust, they reached rising ground, and,

looking back, saw a dreadful sequel—the sea rushed in and left not a

vestige remaining of the lower part of Arica. Six vessels were lost in

the bay or tossed over rocks and houses; an American gunboat was whirled

away from her moorings, and laid, without a broken spar or tarnished

flag, high and dry on the sand-hills, a quarter of a mile from the sea.

As might be expected from the movable nature of water, the wave-motion

of earthquakes is frequently propagated to surprising distances over the

sea. The Chilian earthquake of 1835 produced oscillations of the ocean

that made themselves felt on the Sandwich Islands at a distance of 5,000

nautical miles. On Mauai, the sea retreated 120 feet, and then suddenly

returned with a tremendous wave that swept away the trees and houses on

the beach. In Hawaii, a large congregation had assembled for divine

service near Byron’s Bay. Suddenly the water began to sink, so that soon

a great part of the harbour was laid dry. The spectators hurried to the

shore to admire the astonishing spectacle, when a wave, rising twenty

feet above the usual tide-mark, inundated the land, destroyed sixty-six

huts, and drowned eleven of the islanders, though the best swimmers in

the world. So far from its starting-point did the South American

earthquake seek its victims. Fifteen hours and a half after the great

earthquake of Arica (1868) the water-wave undulating over the vast

Pacific was felt at Chatham Islands, a distance of 6,300 miles, and an

hour later at New Zealand.

The enormous powers which come into action during a great earthquake

show themselves not only in the destruction of edifices and the wide-

spread ruin so produced, but in the changes which they effect in the

configuration of the soil. Wherever masses of earth rest loosely upon a

sloped surface of subjacent rock, or where steep mountain crests overlie

wet and unctuous beds of shale, or where the rock itself is composed of

coherent material, or where river-banks are formed of precipitous masses

of clays, or where the corroding waters have undermined the ground, the

violent commotion caused by an earthquake cannot fail to produce

landslips, fissures, and falls of rock. In 1571, on the 17th of

February, the ground opened all at once at the ‘Wonder,’ near Putley,

not far from Marcle in Herefordshire; and a large part of the sloping

surface of the hill—twenty-six acres, it is said—descended with the

trees and sheep-folds, and continued in motion from Saturday to Monday,

masses of ground being turned round through half a circle in their

descent. This was a great landslip, said to have been occasioned by an

earthquake.

Earth-fissures were formerly supposed to be occasioned by a _stretching_

of the ground, occasioned by the wavy nature of the shocks; but Mr.

Mallet has shown that no earthquake wave can possibly produce any such

stretching, and considers them as cases of small and incipient landslips

caused by the shaking downwards of a loose mass. His own observations

left no doubt in his mind that the descriptions, given by the Neapolitan

Academy in their Historical Account of the Earthquake of 1783, of the

earth-fissures therein produced, and designated constantly by the

pompous term ‘voragines,’ are gross exaggerations, and that the well-

known Jamaica earth-fissures, that were said to have opened and closed

with the wave, and to have _bitten people in two_, must be regarded as

audacious fables.

‘The vulgar mind, filled from infancy with superstitious terrors as to

“the things under the earth,” is seized at once by the notion of these

fissures of profound and fabulous depth with fire and vapour of smoke

issuing from within their murky abysses; but they should cease to belong

to science.’

Enormous landslips are sometimes occasioned by earthquakes, but their

extent depends less upon the power and energy of the shock than upon the

conditions of unstable equilibrium presented by great masses of loose

material, through the configuration of the country. In consequence of

landslips or dislodgements of large masses of rock, alterations in the

flow or distribution of the waters frequently take place. Thus, brooks

or rivers are not seldom dammed, and temporary ponds or lakes created.

Permanent elevations of the land have been observed after some

earthquakes. Thus, after the violent shocks of November 19, 1822, a

great part of the coast of Chili was found to be raised several feet

above its previous level, and after the great earthquake which occurred

in New Zealand in the night of January 23, 1855, a large tract of land

was found to be permanently upraised from one to nine feet. Before the

shock there had been no room to pass between the sea and the base of a

perpendicular cliff called Muka-Muka, except for a short time at low

water, and the herdsmen were obliged to wait for low tide in order to

drive their cattle past the cliff. But immediately after the upheaval, a

gently sloping raised beach, more than 100 feet wide, was laid dry,

affording ample space at all states of the tide for the passage of man

and beast.

These permanent elevations have often been attributed to the immediate

agency of earthquakes; but Mr. Mallet proves this assumption to be a

fallacy, as the impulse of the earthquake wave even right above the

focus is utterly incapable of raising the level of the land by a height

much more than instrumentally appreciable, and there is not the least

evidence that any part of even this elevation is permanent. That

earthquakes occur along with, and as part of, a train of other

circumstances which do produce permanent elevation occasionally, and

that earthquakes are probably always the signals that the forces

producing elevation are operative, is another matter, with which that

erroneous or loosely expressed view should not be confounded.

The causes of earthquakes are still hidden in obscurity, and probably

will ever remain so, as these violent convulsions originate at depths

far below the reach of human observation. Mr. Mallet came to the

conclusion that the depth of the original Calabrian shock in 1857 did

not exceed seven or eight miles, and deduces from all the facts known as

to the movements of earthquakes, that the subterranean points where the

shocks originate perhaps never exceed thirty geographical miles, so

that, even supposing the central nucleus of the earth to be fluid, they

cannot possibly be due to the reaction of the internal ocean of molten

stone upon the solid shell with which it is enveloped, but must have

their seat within the latter. The existence of reservoirs of fused

matter at various depths in the solid earth-rind is quite sufficient to

account for all seismic and volcanic phenomena; for it is evident that

whenever rain-water, or the waters of the sea percolating through rocks,

gain access to these subterranean lakes of molten stone, steam must be

generated, the pressure of which will in many cases rend and dislocate

the incumbent masses.

‘During such movements,’ says Sir Charles Lyell, ‘fissures may be formed

and injected with gaseous or fluid matter, which may sometimes fail to

reach the surface, while at other times it may be expelled through

volcanic vents, stufas, and hot springs. When the strain on the rocks

has caused them to split, or the roofs of pre-existing fissures or

caverns have been made to fall in, vibratory jars will be produced and

propagated in all directions, like waves of sound through the crust of

the earth, with varying velocity, according to the violence of the

original shock, and the density or elasticity of the substance through

which they pass. They will travel, for example, faster through granite

than through limestone, and more rapidly through the latter than through

wet clay, but the rate will be uniform through the same homogeneous

medium.’

According to Mr. Poulett Scrope, the originating cause of the earthquake

must be sought in the expansion of some deeply seated mass of mineral

matter, owing to augmentation of temperature or diminution of pressure.

By this expansive force, the solid rocks above are suddenly rent

asunder, and whether below the sea or not, their violent disruption

produces a jarring vibration, which is propagated on either side through

their continuous masses in undulatory pulsations.

Some geologists are of opinion that earthquakes are frequently the

result of the subsiding, sinking in, or cracking of subterranean cavern

roofs, in consequence of the pressure of the superincumbent rocks. Small

local earthquakes may be explained by this theory; but terrible

convulsions which shake a whole continent evidently proceed from a far

more formidable cause, and are more satisfactorily explained by the

agency of subterranean heat and elastic vapours.

If, even during an ordinary storm, the black clouds, the howling of the

wind, the flashes of lightning, and the loud claps of thunder strike men

and brutes with fear, we may naturally expect to see terror carried to

its highest pitch by so dreadful a phenomenon as an earthquake. All

creatures living or burrowing under the earth—rats, mice, moles, snakes—

hastily creep forth from their subterranean abodes, though many no doubt

are gripped and suffocated by the suddenly moved soil before they can

effect their escape; the crocodile, generally silent, like our little

lizards, rushes out of the river and runs bellowing into the woods; the

hogs show symptoms of uneasiness; the horses tremble; the oxen huddle

together; and the fowls run about with discordant cries. On man, the

phenomenon makes a peculiarly deep impression.

‘A bad earthquake,’ says Mr. Darwin, ‘at once destroys our oldest

associations. The earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath

our feet like a thin crust over a fluid. One second of time has created

in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection

would not have produced.’ We can no longer trust the soil on which we

stand, and feel ourselves completely at the mercy of some unknown

destructive power, which at any moment, without forewarning, can destroy

our property or our lives. But as first impressions are always the

deepest, so habit renders man callous even to the terrors of an ordinary

earthquake. In countries where slight shocks are of frequent occurrence,

almost every vestige of fear vanishes from the minds of the natives, or

of the strangers whom a long residence has familiarised with the

phenomenon.

On the rainless coast of Peru, thunderstorms and hail are unknown. The

thunder of the storm is there replaced by the thunder which accompanies

the earthquake. But the frequent repetition of this subterranean tumult,

and the general belief that dangerous shocks occur only twice or thrice

in the course of a century, produce in Lima so great an indifference

towards slighter oscillations of the soil that they hardly attract more

attention than a hail-storm in Northern Europe.

CHAPTER X.

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE OF LISBON.

A dreadful All Saints’ Day—The Victims of a Minute—Report of an Eye-

witness—Conflagration—Banditti—Pombal brings Order into Chaos—

Intrigues of the Jesuits—Damages caused by the Earthquake in other

Places—at Cadiz—in Barbary—Widespread Alarm—Remarks of Goethe on the

Earthquake.

History exhibits few catastrophes more terrible than that which was

caused by the great earthquake which, on November 1, 1755, levelled the

town of Lisbon to the dust. On other occasions, such as that of a siege,

a famine, or a plague, calamity approaches by degrees, giving its

victims time to measure its growth, and preparing them, as it were, to

sustain an increasing weight of misery; but here destruction fell upon

the devoted city with the rapidity of a flash of lightning.

[Illustration: THE EARTHQUAKE AT LISBON IN 1755.]

A bright sun shone over Lisbon on that fatal morning. The weather was as

mild and beautiful as on a fine summer’s day in England, when, about

forty minutes past nine, in the morning, an earthquake shock, followed

almost immediately by another and another, brought down convents,

churches, palaces, and houses in one common ruin, and, at a very

moderate computation, occasioned the loss of thirty thousand lives. ‘The

shocking sight of the dead bodies,’ says an eye-witness of the scene,

‘together with the shrieks and cries of those who were half buried in

the ruins, exceeds all description; for the fear and consternation were

so great that the most resolute person durst not stay a moment to remove

a few stones off the friend he loved most, though many might have been

saved by so doing; but nothing was thought of but self-preservation.

Getting into open places, and into the middle of streets, was the most

probable security. Such as were in the upper storeys of houses were, in

general, more fortunate than those who attempted to escape by the doors;

for they were buried under the ruins with the greatest part of the foot-

passengers; such as were in equipages escaped best, though their cattle

and drivers suffered severely; but those lost in houses and the streets

are very unequal in number to those that were buried in the ruins of

churches; for as it was a day of great devotion, and the time of

celebrating mass, all the churches in the city were vastly crowded; and

the number of churches here exceeds that of both London and Westminster;

and as the steeples are built high, they mostly fell with the roof of

the church, and the stones are so large that few escaped.’[11]

Footnote 11:

Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlix. part i. p. 404.

Many of those who were not crushed or disabled by the falling buildings

fled to the Tagus, vainly hoping that they might find there the safety

which they had lost on land. For, soon after the shock, the sea also

came rushing in like a torrent, though against wind and tide, and rising

in an enormous wave, overflowed its banks, devouring all it met on its

destructive path. Many large vessels sank at once; others, torn from

their anchors, disappeared in the vortex, or, striking against each

other, were shattered to pieces. A fine new stone quay, where about

three thousand persons had assembled for safety, slipped into the river,

and every one was lost; nor did so much as a single body appear

afterwards.

Had the misery ended here, it might in some degree have admitted of

redress; for, though lives could not be restored, yet a great part of

the immense riches that were in the ruins might have been recovered; but

a new calamity soon put an end to such hopes, for, in about two hours

after the shock, fires broke out in three different parts of the city,

caused by the goods and the kitchen fires being all jumbled together.

About this time also, a fresh gale suddenly springing up, made the fire

rage with such violence that, at the end of three days, the greatest

part of the city was reduced to ashes. What the earthquake had spared

fell a prey to the fire, and the flames consumed thousands of mutilated

victims, who, incapable of flight, lay half-buried in the ruins.

According to a popular report, which, true or not, shows the hatred in

which the Holy Office was held, the Inquisition was the first building

that fell down, and probably more than one inquisitor, who, in his life-

time, had sent scores of Jews or heretics to the stake, was now, in his

turn, burnt alive.

As if the unshackled elements were not sufficient agents of destruction,

the prisons also cast forth their lawless denizens, and a host of

malefactors, rejoicing in the public calamity which paralysed the arm of

justice, added rapine and murder to the miseries of the city.

More than 60,000 persons are supposed to have perished in Lisbon from

all these various causes. The total loss of property was estimated at

fifty millions of dollars, an enormous sum for a small country, and in

times when money was far more valuable than at present. A few shocks

sufficed to destroy the treasures accumulated by the savings of many

generations.

The royal family was at this time residing in the small palace of Belem,

about a league out of town, and thus escaped being buried among the

ruins of the capital—a fortunate occurrence in the midst of so many

misfortunes; for the anarchy that must have ensued from the destruction

of all authority would have filled the cup of misery to the brim. As it

was, Government seemed utterly incapable of contending with a disaster

of such colossal proportions. ‘What is to be done?’ said the helpless

king to his minister Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, who, on entering the

council-chamber, found his sovereign vainly seeking for advice among his

weeping and irresolute courtiers: ‘how can we alleviate the chastisement

which Divine justice has imposed upon us?’ ‘Sire! by burying the dead

and taking care of the living,’ was the ready answer of the great

statesman, whose noble bearing and confident mien at once restored the

king’s courage. From that moment José bestowed a boundless confidence

upon Pombal. Without losing a single moment, the minister, invested with

full powers, threw himself into a carriage, and hastened with all speed

to the scene of destruction. Wherever his presence was most needed,

there was he sure to be found. For several days and nights he never left

his carriage, whence, incessantly active in his efforts to reduce chaos

to order, he issued no less than two hundred decrees, all bearing the

stamp of a master-mind. Troops from the provinces were summoned in all

haste, and concentrated round the capital, which no one was allowed to

leave without permission, so that the robbers, who had enriched

themselves with the plunder of palaces and churches, were unable to

escape with their spoils.

In all his numerous ordinances Carvalho neglected none of the details

necessary for insuring their practical utility, writing many of them on

his knees with a pencil, and sending them, without loss of time, to the

various officers charged with their execution. His wise regulations for

ensuring a speedy supply and a regular distribution of provisions

averted famine. Great fears were entertained of pestilential disorders,

in consequence of the putrid exhalations of so many corpses, which it

was impossible to bury. To prevent this additional misfortune, Carvalho

induced the Patriarch to give orders that the bodies of the dead should

be cast into the sea, with only such religious ceremonies as

circumstances permitted.

But the Jesuits, the mortal enemies of the enlightened minister, did not

lose this opportunity of intriguing against him, and openly ascribed the

catastrophe to the wrath of God against an impious Government. Thus

Pombal had not only to cope with the disastrous effects of the

earthquake, but also with the venomous attacks of hypocritical bigots,

in spite of whose clamours he interdicted all public processions and

devotional exercises that were calculated still further to inflame the

excited minds of the populace.

Though Lisbon was the chief sufferer from the great earthquake of 1755,

the shocks which destroyed the capital of Portugal proved disastrous in

many other places, and vibrated far and wide over a considerable portion

of the globe. St. Ubes was nearly swallowed up by the sudden rising of

the sea. At Cadiz the shocks were so violent that the water in the

cisterns washed backwards and forwards so as to make a great froth upon

it. No damage was done, on account of the excessive strength of the

buildings; but, about an hour after, an immense wave, at least 60 feet

higher than common, was seen approaching from the sea. It broke against

the west part of the town, which is very rocky, and where, fortunately,

the cliffs abated a great deal of its force. At last it burst upon the

walls, destroyed part of the fortifications, and swept away huge pieces

of cannon. The strong causeway which connects the town with the Island

of Leon, was utterly destroyed, and more than fifty people drowned that

were on it at the time.

In Seville a number of houses were thrown down, and the bells were set

a-ringing in Malaga. In Italy, Germany, and France, in Holland and in

Sweden, in Great Britain and in Ireland, the lakes and rivers were

violently agitated. The water in Loch Lomond rose suddenly and violently

against its banks, so that a large stone lying at some distance from the

shore, in shallow water, was moved from its place, and carried to dry

land, leaving a deep furrow in the ground along which it had moved. At

Kinsale, in Ireland, a great body of water suddenly burst into the

harbour, and with such violence that it broke the cables of two vessels,

each moored with two anchors, and of several boats which lay near the

town. The vessels were whirled round several times by an eddy formed in

the water, and then hurried back again with the same rapidity as before.

London was shaken, the midland counties disturbed, and one high cliff in

Yorkshire threw down its half-separated rocks. At Töplitz, in Bohemia,

between eleven and twelve o’clock, the mineral waters increased so much

in quantity that all the baths ran over. About half an hour before, the

spring grew turbid and flowed muddy, and, having stopped entirely for

nearly a minute, broke forth again with prodigious violence, driving

before it a considerable quantity of reddish ochre. After this, it

became clear, and flowed as pure as before, but supplying more water

than usual, and that hotter and more impregnated with its medicinal

substances.

In Barbary, the earthquake was felt nearly as severely as in Portugal.

Great part of the city of Algiers was destroyed; at Fez, Mequinez, and

Morocco many houses were thrown down, and numbers of persons were buried

in the ruins. At Tangiers and Sallee the waters rushed into the streets

with great violence, and when they retired they left behind them a great

quantity of fish.

Ships sailing on the distant Atlantic received such violent concussions

that it seemed as if they had struck upon a rock, and even America was

disturbed.

At the Island of Antigua the sea rose to such a height as had never been

known before, and at Barbadoes a tremendous wave overflowed the wharfs

and rushed into the streets. The remote Canadian lakes were seen to ebb

and flow in an extraordinary manner, and the Red Indian hunter felt the

last expiring pulsations of the great terrestrial shock which a few

hours before had overthrown the distant capital of Portugal.

Such were the extraordinary effects of this terrible earthquake, which

extended over a space of not less than four millions of square miles! Of

the enormous sensation it produced over all Europe, as well as of the

deep impression it made upon his own youthful mind, Goethe, then about

six years old, has given us a masterly account in his autobiography

(‘Dichtung und Wahrheit’).

‘For the first time,’ says the illustrious poet, ‘the boy’s peace of

mind was disturbed by an extraordinary event. On November 1, 1755, the

earthquake of Lisbon took place, and spread consternation over a world

which had long been accustomed to tranquillity and peace. A large and

splendid capital, the seat of wealth and commerce, suddenly falls a prey

to the most terrible disaster. The earth shakes, the sea rises, ships

are dashed against each other, houses, churches, and towers fall in; the

king’s palace is partly engulfed by the waves; the bursting earth seems

to vomit flames, for smoke and fire appear everywhere among the ruins.

Sixty thousand persons, but a moment before in the enjoyment of a

comfortable existence, are swept away, and they are the most fortunate

who no longer feel or remember their misery. The flames continue to

rage, along with a host of criminals whom the catastrophe has set at

liberty. The unfortunate survivors are exposed to robbery, to murder, to

every act of violence; and thus on all sides Nature replaces law by the

reign of unfettered anarchy. Swifter than the news could travel, the

effects of the earthquake had already spread over a wide extent of land;

in many places slighter commotions had been felt; mineral springs had

suddenly ceased to flow; and all these circumstances increased the

general alarm when the terrible details of the catastrophe became known.

The pious were now not sparing of moral reflexions, the philosophers of

consolations, the clergy of admonitions. Thus the attention of the world

was for some time concentrated upon this single topic, and the public,

excited by the misfortunes of strangers, began to feel an increasing

anxiety for its personal safety, as from all sides intelligence came

pouring in of the widely-extended effects of the earthquake. The demon

of fear has indeed, perhaps, never spread terror so rapidly and so

powerfully over the earth. The boy who heard the subject frequently

discussed was not a little perplexed. God, the Creator and Preserver of

Heaven and Earth, whom the first article of faith represented as

supremely wise and merciful, appeared by no means paternal while thus

enveloping the just and the unjust in indiscriminate ruin. It was in

vain that his youthful mind endeavoured to shake off these impressions,

nor can this be wondered at, as even the wise and the learned did not

agree in their opinions on the subject.’

CHAPTER XI.

LANDSLIPS.

Igneous and Aqueous Causes of Landslips—Fall of the Diablerets in 1714

and 1749—Escape of a Peasant from his living Tomb—Vitaliano Donati on

the Fall of a Mountain near Sallenches—The Destruction of Goldau in

1806—Wonderful Preservation of a Child—Burial of Velleja and

Tauretunum, of Plürs and Scilano—Landslip near Axmouth in Dorsetshire—

Falling in of Cavern-roofs—Dollinas and Jamas in Carniola and

Dalmatia—Bursting of Bogs—Crateriform Hollows in the Eifel.

Landslips, or sudden subsidences and displacements of portions of land,

result both from igneous and aqueous causes.

Wherever cavities have been formed beneath the surface of the earth,

whether in consequence of volcanic eruptions or by the erosive and

dissolving action of subterranean waters, the shock of an earthquake or

the mere weight of the superincumbent mass may cause the roof to fall

in, or the superficial ground, no longer sustained by its undermined

foundations, to slide away and sink to a lower level.

In mountainous regions it frequently occurs that the foundations of a

rock, undermined by filtering waters, give way, and that huge masses of

stone and earth, now no longer reposing on a solid basis, are

precipitated into the valley below. More than once, the slipping or

falling in of a mountain has brought death and destruction upon the

humble dwellings of the Alpine peasants, and added many a mournful page

to their simple annals. Thus, in the years 1714 and 1749, large beds of

stone were detached from the Diablerets, a mountain stock between the

cantons of Vaux and Valais, and burying the meadows of Cheville and

Leytron under a mound of rubbish 300 feet deep, killed many herds and

shepherds.

In the first of these catastrophes, the life of a peasant was preserved

in a wonderful manner. An immense block came toppling down close to his

châlet and covered it like a shield, so as to preserve it from being

crushed by the following débris, though piled up two hundred feet above

it. Thus, immured as it were in a living tomb, the unfortunate man spent

miserable weeks and months, subsisting on the stores of cheese hoarded

in his hut, without light and air, and in constant fear that the rocks

above his head might give way and bury him under their ruins. With all

the energy of despair, he endeavoured to find his way out of the mighty

mound of rubbish, and at length, after incredible toil, emerged into the

open daylight. More like a spectre than a human being, pale and

emaciated, with torn clothes, and covered with bruises, he knocked at

the door of his house[12] in the lower valley, where his wife and

children, who had already long reckoned him among the dead, were at

first terrified at his ghost-like appearance, and called in the village

pastor to convince them of his identity, before they ventured to rejoice

at his return.

Footnote 12:

It is almost superfluous to mention that in the Alps many of the

peasants lead a migratory existence. During the summer they ascend,

with their herds, into the higher valleys, where they remain,

separated from their families, until the first night-frosts force them

to return to their homes on a lower level.

On the road from Sallenches to Servoz, in the Valley of the Arve, well

known to all the visitors of Mont Blanc, may be seen the ruins of a high

mountain which collapsed in the year 1751, causing so dreadful a crash

and raising such clouds of dust that the whole neighbourhood thought the

world was at an end. The black dust was taken for smoke; flames had been

seen darting about in the murky clouds, and the report spread to Turin

that a new Vesuvius had suddenly opened its subterranean furnaces among

the highest of the Alpine mountains. The king, alarmed or interested at

the news, immediately sent the famous geologist Vitaliano Donati to

gather accurate information on the spot. Donati, travelling night and

day, with all the eagerness of a zealous naturalist, arrived while the

appalling phenomenon was still in full activity.

‘The peasants,’ writes Donati to a friend, ‘had all fled from the

neighbourhood, and did not venture to approach the crashing mountain

within a distance of two Italian miles. The country around was covered

with dust, which closely resembled ashes, and had been carried by the

wind to a distance of five miles. I examined the dust, and found it to

consist of pulverised marble. I also attentively observed the smoke, but

could see no flames, nor could I perceive a sulphurous smell; the water

also of the rivulets and sources showed no trace of sulphurous matter.

This convinced me at once that no volcanic eruption was taking place,

and penetrating into the cloud of dust which enveloped the mountain, I

advanced close to the scene of the commotion. I there saw enormous rocks

tumbling piecemeal into an abyss with a dreadful noise, louder than the

rolling of thunder or the roar of heavy artillery, and distinctly saw

that the smoke was nothing but the dust rising from their fall.

‘Further investigations also showed me the cause of the phenomenon, for

I found the mountain to consist of horizontal strata, the lowest being

composed of a loose stone of a slaty texture, while the upper ones,

though of a more compact nature, were rent with numerous crevices. On

the back of the mountain were three small lakes, the water of which,

penetrating through the fissures of the strata, had gradually loosened

their foundations. The snow, which had fallen during the previous winter

more abundantly than had ever been known within the memory of man,

hastened the progress of destruction, and caused the fall of six hundred

million cubic feet of stone, which alone would have sufficed to form a

great mountain. Six shepherds, as many houses, and a great number of

cows and goats have been buried under the ruins.

‘In my report to the king I have accurately described the causes and

effects of the catastrophe, and foretold its speedy termination—a

prediction which has been fully verified by the event—and thus the new

volcano has become extinct almost as soon as its formation was

announced.’

Fortunately, this grand convulsion of nature, which spread consternation

far and wide, caused the death of but a few victims. The landslip of the

Rufi or Rossberg, which, on September 2, 1806, devastated the lovely

Vale of Goldau, and overwhelmed four villages, with their rich pasture-

grounds and gardens, was far more disastrous. The preceding years had

been unusually wet, the filtering waters had loosened the Nagelfluh, or

coarse conglomerate of which the mountain is composed, and the rains

having latterly been almost continuous, a great part of the mountain,

undermined by the subterranean action of the waters, at length gave way

and was hurled into the valley below.

Early in the morning the shepherds who were tending their herds on the

mountains perceived fresh crevices in the ground and on the rock walls.

In many parts the turf appeared as if turned up by a ploughshare, and a

cracking noise as if roots were violently snapped asunder was heard in

the neighbouring forest. From hour to hour, the rents, the cracking, the

rolling down of single stones increased, until finally, at about five in

the afternoon, a large chasm opened in the flanks of the mountain,

growing every instant deeper, longer, and broader. Then from the

opposite Righi the forest might be seen to wave to and fro like a storm-

tossed sea, and the whole flank of the mountain to slide down with a

constantly increasing velocity, until finally hundreds of millions of

cubic feet of rock came sweeping down into the valley with a noise as if

the foundations of the earth were giving way. The friction or clash of

the huge stones, hurled against each other in their fall, produced so

intense a heat that flames were seen to flash forth from the avalanche,

and the moisture with which they were saturated, being suddenly changed

into steam, caused explosions like those from the crater of a volcano.

Dense clouds of dust veiled the scene of destruction, and it was not

before they slowly rolled away that the whole extent of the disaster

became visible. Where, but a few hours since, four prosperous villages—

Goldau, Busingen, Upper and Lower Röthen, and Lowerz—had been gilded by

the sun, and numerous herds had been grazing on the rich pastures along

the borders of the lake of Lowerz, nothing was now to be seen but a

desolate chaos of rocks, beneath which 457 persons lay buried. From this

terrible disaster some wonderful escapes are recorded. High on the slope

of the Rossberg, lived Bläsi Mettler, with his young wife Agatha. When,

in the morning, the first premonitory signs of the disaster appeared,

and the labouring mountain began to raise its warning voice, the

superstitious peasant, fancying he heard the jubilee of demons, hastened

down to Arth, on the bank of the lake of Zug, and begged the parish

priest, with tears and lamentations, to accompany him, and exorcise the

evil spirits with a copious sprinkling of holy water. While he was still

speaking, the catastrophe took place, and he now rushed back again to

his hut, where beyond all doubt his beloved wife and his only child,

which was but four weeks old, had found a premature grave.

Meanwhile Agatha had spent several anxious hours. She was preparing her

humble evening meal when the thundering uproar and the shaking of the

hut filled her with the terrors of death. Seizing the infant, which lay

awake in its cradle, she crossed the threshold, while the soil under her

feet slid down into the valley. Escaping into the open air, she looked

back and saw her hut and a sea of huge stone blocks roll down into the

vale below, while the spot on which she stood remained unmoved. In this

situation she was found by Bläsi, who, though a poor and ruined man,

still thanked God for the wonderful preservation of his family.

About a thousand feet lower down the mountain lived Bläsi’s brother

Bastian, who, when the mountain slipped, was tending his herd on the

opposite Righi. But his wife and her two little children were in his hut

when it was buried beneath the stony avalanche. After the terrible

commotion had subsided, the relations of Frau Mettler, anxious to

ascertain her fate, hastened to the scene of desolation. The hut had

disappeared, the green Alpine meadow was covered with a heap of ruins,

but, not far from the former site of the humble cottage, the youngest

child lay quietly sleeping. At the peril of his life, one of the

infant’s relations clambered over the ruins and rescued the little

sleeper, who, unhurt amidst the falling rafters of the hut and the ruins

of the crumbling mountain, had been carried away with the bed on which

he was reposing. On my last visit to Switzerland, I was informed that

Sebastian Meinhardt Mettler, the child thus wonderfully saved, died in

the year 1867, at the age of sixty-one.

Some of the victims who had been buried in the ruins of the villages

were dug out and restored to daylight; others, less fortunate, may have

slowly perished, immured in a living grave; but by far the greater

number were no doubt suddenly killed. The total number of those who were

saved, either by the assistance of their friends, or by a timely flight,

or by absence from their homes at the time of the disaster, amounted to

220; but more than double that number perished, and probably there was

not one among the survivors who had not to lament the loss of friends

and kinsfolk.

This dreadful catastrophe also levied its tribute among the strangers

whom the beauties of Alpine scenery annually attract to Switzerland. A

party of tourists had left Arth in the afternoon with the intention of

spending the night in Schwyz. Part of the company had already entered

the ill-fated village of Goldau, and the others were about to follow,

when suddenly the thundering roar of the sliding mountain caused them to

stop. Looking up and seeing rocks, forests, huts, all rushing down in

horrible confusion, they instinctively ran back for their lives. The

warning came not one instant too soon, for close behind the spot where

they stopped panting for breath, the stones still fell like hail. But

their unfortunate companions, the wife and daughter of Baron Diesbach,

Colonel Victor von Steiger, and some boys, whose tutor had been slowly

following them with the Baron, were buried beneath the ruins.

From the Righi the traveller still looks down upon the avalanche of

stones, and the flank of the Rossberg still plainly shows the spot

where, more than half a century ago, the masses of rock now reposing in

the valley detached themselves from the mountain. But the beautifying

hand of vegetation has already done much to adorn the scene of ruin.

Green mosses have woven their soft carpet over the naked stones, while

grasses and flowers, and in some places even shrubs and trees, have

sprung up between them. The tears also which once were shed over the

victims of the great catastrophe have long since been dried, and its

last witnesses have passed away to make room for a new generation, who

remember the mountain-slip which buried their fathers only as a legend

of the past.

This terrible disaster, however appalling through the far-spread

desolation it entailed, has yet been equalled or surpassed by others of

a like nature. In the fifth century, the old Roman town of Velleja was

buried under the ruins of the Ravinazzo Mountain, and the bones and

coins dug out of its ancient site prove that no time was left to the

inhabitants for flight. Tauretunum was once a flourishing Roman town,

situated on the south bank of the lake of Geneva, at the foot of the

Dent d’Oche. In 563 it was utterly destroyed by a disruption of the

overhanging mountain. The avalanche of stones which at that time was

hurled down upon the devoted city is still visible as a promontory

projecting far into the lake, which is here at least 500 feet deep. The

immense wave caused by the rocky mass as it plunged into the water

inundated the opposite shore from Morges to Vevay, and swept away every

homestead that lay on its path.

In the night of September 4, 1618, the falling of the Monte Conto, in

the Vale of Chiavenna, so completely buried the small town of Plürs and

the village of Scilano, that of their 2,430 inhabitants but three

remained alive, and but one single house escaped the universal

destruction. At present, magnificent chestnut-trees grow upon the mound

of ruins and cast their shade over the graves of the long-forgotten

victims. Three villages, with their whole population, were covered in

the district of Treviso when the Piz mountain fell in 1772; and the

enormous masses of rock which in 1248 detached themselves from Mount

Grenier, south of Chambery in Savoy, buried five parishes, including the

town and church of Saint André, the ruin occupying an extent of about

nine square miles.

Sometimes the same village has been repeatedly destroyed by mountain-

slips. Thus excavations have shown that Brienz, a hamlet built on the

borders of the lake of the same name, on a mound of accumulated ruins,

has been twice overwhelmed by a deluge of stones and mud, and twice

reconstructed.

It would be useless to multiply examples of the undermining power of

water. I will merely add that it is impossible to wander through the

valleys of Switzerland without being struck by the sight of the sloping

hillocks of rubbish piled up against the foot of every gigantic rock

wall, which in many cases can only be attributed to that cause. Some are

entirely overgrown with large firs, thus showing that the last stony

avalanche took place at a remote period; others are desolate heaps of

rubbish, which evidently prove that the work of destruction is

constantly going on, and that the highest peaks will ultimately be

levelled with the plain. Over many a hamlet the sword of Damocles is

continually suspended in the shape of a precipitous rock-wall, or of a

forest-crowned mountain-brow. For years the undermining waters are

slowly and secretly at work, and then suddenly the crisis takes place.

[Illustration: AXMOUTH LANDSLIP.]

Were the history of the Andes or of the Himalayas as familiar to us as

that of the Alps, we should be able to relate many like instances of

disastrous mountain-slips. But the high places of the earth do not alone

bear witness to the power of aqueous erosion, for wherever the soil is

undermined, it may be precipitated to a lower level. Thus, the

phenomenon is by no means uncommon in England, though rarely occurring

on so large a scale as in the landslip which took place at Axmouth in

Dorsetshire, on December 24, 1839.

‘The tract of downs ranging there along the coast,’ says Sir Charles

Lyell (‘Principles of Geology’), ‘is capped by chalk, which rests on

sandstone, beneath which is more than 100 feet of loose sand, the whole

of these masses reposing on retentive beds of clay shelving towards the

sea. Numerous springs, issuing from the loose sand, have gradually

removed portions of it, and thus undermined the superstratum. In 1839,

an excessively wet season had saturated all the rocks with moisture, so

as to increase the weight of the incumbent mass, from which the support

had already been withdrawn by the action of springs. Thus, the

superstrata were precipitated into hollows prepared for them, and the

adjacent masses of partially undermined rock to which the motion was

communicated, were made to slide down, on a slippery basis of watery

sand, towards the sea. These causes gave rise to a convulsion, which

began on the morning of December 24, with a crashing noise; and, on the

evening of the same day, fissures were seen opening in the ground, and

the walls of tenements rending and sinking, until a deep chasm or ravine

was formed, extending nearly three-quarters of a mile in length, with a

depth of from 100 to 150 feet, and a breadth exceeding 240 feet. At the

bottom of this deep gulf lie fragments of the original surface, thrown

together in the wildest confusion. In consequence of lateral movements,

the tract intervening between the new fissure and the sea, including the

ancient undercliff, was fractured, and the whole line of sea-cliff

carried bodily forwards for many yards. This motion of the sea-cliff

produced a further effect, which may rank among the most striking

phenomena of this catastrophe. The lateral pressure of the descending

rocks urged the neighbouring strata, extending beneath the shingle of

the shore, by their state of unnatural condensation, to burst upwards in

a line parallel to the coast, so that an elevated ridge, more than a

mile in length and rising more than forty feet, covered by a confused

assemblage of broken strata and immense blocks of rock, invested with

seaweed and corallines, and scattered over with shells and starfish, and

other productions of the deep, forms an extended reef in front of the

present range of cliffs.’

Landslips caused by the falling in of cavern roofs are nowhere more

common than in the cretaceous strata, which are more liable than others

to be undermined by the action of running waters. In the vast chalk-

range extending from Carinthia to the Morea, they occur of all sizes,

from a diameter of a few fathoms to one of many thousand feet, and are

not seldom of considerable depth. They are generally funnel-shaped,

sometimes elongated; and the bottom of the larger ones is generally

covered with villages, orchards, vineyards, or considerable tracts of

arable land. In Dalmatia, Carinthia, Carniola, and Istria, where the

country consists chiefly of arid plateaux or mountain-chains, exposed to

the dry north-easterly winds, the cultivation of the soil is almost

exclusively confined to these depressions or _dollinas_, which, as a

further protection against the cutting blasts, are inclosed with walls

of loose stones.

Besides the funnel-shaped landslips or _dollinas_, there are others with

perpendicular sides like walls or shafts, which are called _jamas_ or

mouths. One of these (near Breschiak) descends to a depth of 384 feet.

The hares seek a winter refuge in the _dollinas_, and the _jamas_, as

the favourite resort of pigeons, are also called pigeon-holes or

_golubinas_. Many a pedestrian has lost his life by falling into a

_jama_, particularly in former times, when fewer precautions were taken

to protect the stranger against these treacherous precipices.

In the Jura Mountains there are also whole rows of cauldron-shaped

depressions; and in North Jutland, where the chalk formation is likewise

very extensive, a recent landslip suddenly emptied the Norr Lake, which

lost itself in subterranean channels.

Effects very similar to those of an ordinary landslip are sometimes

produced by the bursting of a bog. On the western confines of England

and Scotland, the Solway Moss occupies a flat area about seven miles in

circumference. Its surface is covered with grass and rushes, presenting

a dry crust and a fair appearance; but it shakes under the least

pressure, the bottom being unsound and semi-fluid. The adventurous

passenger therefore, who sometimes, in dry seasons, traverses this

treacherous waste, must pick his way over the rushy tussocks as they

appear before him, for here the soil is firmest. If his foot slip, or if

he venture to move in any other part, it is possible he may sink never

to rise again.

On December 16, 1772, this quagmire, having been filled, like a great

sponge, with water, during heavy rains, swelled to an unusual height

above the surrounding country, and then burst. The turfy covering seemed

for a time to act like the skin of a bladder retaining the fluid within,

till it forced a passage for itself, when a stream of black half-

consolidated mud began at first to creep over the plain, resembling in

the slow rate of its progress an ordinary lava-current. No lives were

lost, but the deluge totally overwhelmed some cottages, and covered 400

acres with a mass of mud and vegetable matter, which in the lowest parts

of the submerged area was at least fifteen feet deep.

It may easily be imagined that in Ireland, the classic land of bogs,

such phenomena are not uncommon. In the peat of Donegal an ancient log-

cabin was found, in 1833, at the depth of fourteen feet. The cabin was

filled with peat, and was surrounded by other huts, which were not

examined. Trunks and roots of trees, preserved in their natural

position, lay around these huts. There can be little doubt that we have

here one instance out of many in which villages have been overwhelmed by

the bursting of a moss.

In many volcanic regions we find circular cauldron-shaped depressions in

the earth’s surface, which might easily be mistaken for land-slips, but

which have in reality been formed by explosive discharges of confined

vapours. When vents or fissures are produced by a paroxysm of volcanic

energy, we can easily understand how in some cases the pent-up gases,

finding a sudden outlet through some weaker part of the surface, must

act like a powder mine, and scattering the rocks that surrounded the

orifice, leave a deep hollow behind as a memento of their fury. The

depressions thus caused bear a great resemblance to real craters, from

which they are, however, distinguished by the absence of a cone of

scoriæ and from their never having ejected lava.

These curious crateriform hollows are very common in the Eifel, a

volcanic region in Rhenish Prussia, where, probably owing to the clayey

nature of the soil, they have become reservoirs of water, or Maare, as

they are called by the natives. Most of them still have small lakes at

their bottom, while others have been drained for the sake of

cultivation, or by the spontaneous rupture or erosion of their banks.

Some of them are of considerable dimensions, such as that of Meerfeld,

the diameter of which falls very little short of a mile; or the

Pulvermaar of Gillenfeld, remarkable for the extreme regularity of its

magnificent oval basin.

Similar lakes or Maare occur in Auvergne, in Java, in the Canary

Islands, in New Zealand, and in the volcanic districts of Italy. The

beautiful lakes of Albano and Nemi, which have been so often sung by

ancient and modern poets, belong to this class; but Fr. Hoffmann, a

celebrated German geologist, ascribes the origin of the former to a

landslip caused by the falling in of the roof of a vast subterranean

cavern.

[Illustration: STALACTITE CAVERN AT AGGTELEK, HUNGARY: THE CAVE OF

BORODLA.]

CHAPTER XII.

ON CAVES IN GENERAL.

Their various Forms—Natural Tunnels—The Ventanillas of Gualgayoc—Eimeo—

Torgatten—Hole in the Mürtschenstock—The Trebich Cave—Grotto of

Antiparos—Vast Dimensions of the Cave of Adelsberg and of the Mammoth

Cave—Discovery of Baumann’s Cave—Limestone Caves—Causes of their

Excavation—Stalactites and Stalagmites—Their Origin—Variety of Forms—

Marine Caves—Shetland—Fingal’s Cave—The Azure Cave—Cave under

Bonifacio—Grotta di Nettuno, near Syracuse—The Bufador of Papa Luna—

Volcanic Caves—The Fossa della Palomba—Caves of San Miguel—The

Surtshellir.

The natural excavations which abound in many mountain chains, or on

rocky shores washed by the stormy sea, are extremely various in their

forms. Many are mere rents or crevices in the disruptured rocks; others

wide vaults, not seldom of hall or dome-like dimensions, or long and

narrow passages branching out in numerous ramifications. Not seldom the

same cave alternately expands into spacious chambers, and then again

contracts into narrow tunnels or galleries. The walls of many are smooth

and nearly parallel; the sides of others are irregular and rugged. Many

have narrow entrances and swell at greater depths into majestic

proportions; while others open with wide portals, and gradually diminish

in size as they penetrate into the rock. Sometimes an excavation pierces

a mountain from side to side like a natural tunnel, so as to allow a

passage to the light of day. Such, among others, are the numerous

perforations or _windows_ (ventanillas) in the serrated bastions of the

rich silver mountain Gualgayoc in the Peruvian Andes, or the opening

through one of the high peaks of the romantic island of Eimeo which

rises within sight of Tahiti out of the dark blue ocean. According to a

popular tradition, this hole owes its origin to Oro, the powerful god of

war, who, having one day quarrelled with the minor god of Eimeo, hurled

his mighty spear at him over the sea. As even gods, when losing their

temper, are apt to miss their aim, the puny delinquent escaped unhurt,

while the dreadful lance flew like a thunderbolt through the mountain,

leaving the perforation as a lasting memorial of its passage. In Europe

we likewise meet with several remarkable instances of such natural

tunnels. One of the most celebrated is the grotto of Torgatten in

Norway, which perforates a huge rock, 400 feet above the level of the

sea. Its proportions are truly colossal, as it is no less than 900 feet

long by from 80 to 100 feet broad; and the arches of its vast portals

measure respectively 200 and 120 feet. Its floor is nearly horizontal,

and covered with fine sand; its sides are smooth, as if they had been

chiselled by the hand of man. The sea, with its numberless cliffs and

white-crested breakers, appears through the immense gallery as through

the tube of a gigantic telescope, and in fine sunny weather affords a

spectacle of incomparable beauty.

Whoever has visited the romantic lake of Wallenstädt, in Switzerland,

will have had his attention directed to a tunnel near the summit of the

almost inaccessible Mürtschenstock, a favourite resort of the chamois.

It is visible from the lake near the hamlet of Mühlehorn, and, though of

considerable dimensions, appears to the eye like a mere speck of snow on

the huge grey rockwall, which towers to a height of 7,517 feet. From the

1st to the 3rd of February, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the

inhabitants of Mühlehorn see through this aperture the disk of the sun

for the first time after a long winter.

In the structure of some caves a vertical direction predominates; as,

for instance, in the Trebich Cave, three leagues from Trieste, which

consists of several perpendicular shafts, connected by narrow

transversal passages, and descending one after another, until finally,

at a depth of more than a thousand feet, the cavern terminates in a wide

vaulted space spanning a subterranean river. Such, also, is the renowned

Grotto of Antiparos, into which the visitor is let down by a rope to a

depth of about twenty fathoms. After reaching a tolerably even platform,

he is obliged to descend another precipice, and then to proceed over

slippery rocks until he finally reaches the terminal vault.

In most caverns, however, the chief direction is horizontal, either on

several planes, separated from each other by more or less steep

passages, or on a single level. The dimensions of caves are as various

as their forms. Many are small and of inconsiderable depth—mere holes

worn in the rock; while others are of a truly astonishing size, and

fatigue the wondering spectator as he wanders through their lofty halls

or endless galleries. The famous Cave of Adelsberg in Carniola has been

explored to a distance of 1,243 fathoms from the chief entrance; and in

the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky no less than 226 avenues branch out to the

right and left from the main gallery, so as to form a network of

subterranean passages and halls of various dimensions, whose total

length has been computed at about 160 miles!

As many caves are without any visible communication with the external

world, and the entrance of others is frequently narrow, and concealed

behind rocks in solitary ravines on wild hill slopes or steep sea

shores, far from the busy haunts of man, we cannot wonder that chance

has frequently been instrumental in their discovery. Sometimes a hunter

pursuing a wild animal has been led to the hidden cave in which it

sought a refuge, or the workmen in a quarry have been suddenly surprised

at meeting with a hollow in the rock, which opened an unexpected passage

into the bowels of the mountain. The digging of wells, of cellars, of

foundations, the boring for mines or Artesian wells, has often revealed

the existence of unknown subterranean chambers; and so recently as 1868,

one of the finest known caverns, which already attracts a number of

delighted visitors, was discovered in the neighbourhood of the thriving

manufacturing town of Iserlohn in Westphalia, on blasting a rock for the

making of a railway. We may thus infer that a vast number of caves must

still be totally unknown; many so situated that chance may one day lead

to their discovery; while others are hollowed out at such vast depths in

the earth-rind as to be for ever inaccessible to man.

Even of those caves which have been objects of curiosity for centuries,

many have still been by no means thoroughly explored. In the year 1848

an American gentleman persuaded the guides of Baumann’s Cave in the Harz

Mountains to accompany him on a voyage of discovery through parts of the

cavern hitherto untrodden by man. It was no easy task to clamber over

slippery rocks and deep chasms yawning into black abysses; but curiosity

and the spirit of adventure kept leading them on from passage to passage

and vault to vault, when suddenly the lights began to burn more dimly;

and the glass of the guiding compass having been accidentally broken

warned them to retrace their steps. They had been wandering for twenty-

four hours in the subterranean labyrinth, and after so long an absence

from the light of day, joyfully hailed the green hill slope which decks

that mysterious palace of the gnomes. Franz Baumann, the first

discoverer of the cavern, was less fortunate. Its tortuous windings

confused the expert and intrepid miner, who lost his way in the recesses

of the cave. While seeking in vain for an outlet, his sparing light went

out. Three days he groped about in darkness, until at length, worn out

and exhausted, he was led by a wonderful chance to the mouth of the

cave. Before he died he had yet sufficient strength briefly to mention

the wonders he had seen during his fatal expedition. His descendants

still enjoy the privilege of serving as guides to the visitors of the

cave, and never fail to relate the melancholy end of their ill-fated

forefather.

Grottoes and caves occur in every kind of rock, in lavas, basalt, slate,

and granite, as well as in limestone, dolomite, and gypsum; for the

volcanic powers are capable of rending the hardest stone, and the

foaming breakers of a turbulent ocean meet with no cliff that is able

ultimately to resist their never-tiring assaults.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE OF ADELSBERG.]

But, owing to their great fragility and to the solubility of limestone

(carbonate of lime) in water containing carbonic acid, calcareous rocks

are more liable than any others to be shattered and undermined, both by

volcanic and aqueous causes. Its water readily absorbs carbonic acid

gas. Every drop of rain that falls upon the ground necessarily contains

some small portion of this gas, which, as we all know, is constantly

mixed with the atmosphere, and thus becomes a solvent for chalk; more

particularly if the latter, as, for instance, in the Karst Mountains of

Carniola, contains some proto-carbonate of iron, which, changing into an

oxide when in contact with water, yields its carbonic acid to the

percolating fluid, and consequently increases its solvent powers. Hence

every shower of rain that filters through the crevices of a limestone

rock wears away some part of its mass; and if we consider the vast

number of years over which these operations have extended, and add to

their effects the transporting powers of the waters on their progress

through the subterranean channels which they have excavated or enlarged,

we can easily comprehend how in the course of ages whole mountains may

be hollowed out.

As the streams that flow on the surface of the earth are constantly

altering their courses, thus also the subterranean waters are ever

active in excavating new channels in the bosom of the rock. Finding at

length new outlets on a lower level, they abandon their ancient beds,

and the explorer now wanders dry-footed where once a foaming river

gushed along. The Cave of Adelsberg is a remarkable example of the

changes which the subterranean waters, aided by time or by the

disrupting power of earthquakes, may thus bring about; for the Poik now

flows beneath its galleries in the same north-easterly direction, in a

channel which is for the greatest part unknown and inexplorable, so that

the dry cave of the present day must evidently have been the old river-

bed. But nowhere can be found such perfect, unequivocal, and abundant

proofs of the action of running water in corroding and excavating new

passages in a soluble rock as in the huge Mammoth Cave. The rough-hewn

block in the quarry does not bear more distinct proof of the hammer and

the chisel of the workman than these interminable galleries afford of

its denuding and dissolving power. At Niagara we see a vast chasm

evidently cut by water for seven miles, and still in progress; but we

cannot see beneath the cataract the water-worn surface, nor the rounded

angles of the precipice; while the frosts and rains of countless winters

have reduced the walls of the chasm itself to a talus of crumbling and

moss-grown rocks. But in the Mammoth Cave we see a freshness and

perfection of surface such as can be found only where the destructive

agencies of meteoric causes are wholly absent. Here we have the dry beds

of subterranean rivers exactly as they were left thousands of years ago

by the streams which flowed through them when Niagara was young. No

angle is less sharp, no groove or excavation less perfect, than it was

originally left when the waters were suddenly drained off by cutting

their way to some lower level. The very sand and rounded pebbles, which

now pave the galleries and which anciently formed the bed of the stream,

have remained in many of the more distant galleries untrodden even by

the foot of man. ‘The rush of ideas was strange and overpowering,’ says

Professor Silliman, ‘as I stood in one of these before unvisited

avenues, in which the glow of a lamp had never before shone, and

considered the complex chain of phenomena which were before me. There

were the delicate silicious forms of cyathophylli and encrinites

protruding from the softer limestone, which had yielded to the

dissolving power of the water; these carried me back to that vast and

desolate ocean in which they flourished, and were entombed as the

crystalline matrix was slowly cast around them, mute chroniclers of a

distant epoch. Then succeeded the long periods of the upper secondary,

and, these past, the slow but resistless force of the contracting sphere

elevated and drained the rocky beds of the ancient ocean. The action of

the meteorological causes commenced, and the dissolving power of fresh

water, following the almost invisible lines of structure in the rocks,

began to hollow out these winding paths slowly and yet surely.’ What a

lesson for the thoughtful spectator, and how vast a prospect into the

dark abysses of the past here unrolls itself before him!

After abandoning the vaults where they once collected and formed a

running stream, the waters, filtering through the porous limestone,

begin to ornament them with lustrous petrifactions; for whether below or

above the surface of the earth, Nature ever loves to decorate her works.

The moisture, charged with carbonate of lime, evaporates or parts with

its free carbonic acid in coming into contact with the air of the cave;

the carbonate, now no longer held in solution, precipitates and forms

calcareous incrustations or excrescences, which in course of time assume

every variety of fantastic shape, either hanging like icicles from the

vault (stalactites), or rising in columns (stalagmites) from the floor

of the cave where the dripping water deposited its spar. Sometimes

stalactites and stalagmites join as they continue to grow in opposite

directions, and ultimately form pillars which appear to sustain the

roof.

On considering the simple physical and chemical agencies which are at

work in the formation of these beautiful productions—solution,

mechanical dripping, evaporation, and precipitation—a great similarity

might naturally be expected in their forms; but here also Nature shows

herself as a consummate artist, and with the simplest means brings forth

an astonishing variety of effects. As among the leaves of a forest there

are not two perfectly alike, thus also every stalactite differs from

another; and the celebrated traveller Kohl affirms that every

stalactital cave has its peculiar style or character of decoration. The

causes to which stalactites owe their existence are indeed everywhere

the same, but the circumstances under which the drops fall and evaporate

are so various that in each case some new shape is produced. Thus all

the infinite diversity of forms which we admire in the corals and

sponges of the seas, is wonderfully repeated in the dark vaults of the

subterranean world.

The variety and beauty of their colouring likewise contribute to adorn

these formations. They are generally white, sometimes rivalling the

purity of snow, and translucent, even when of considerable thickness,

but often also green, brown, yellow, red, orange—a variety of tints

which produces the most pleasing effects, and is chiefly owing to the

metallic salts with which the water has been impregnated while filtering

through the calcareous rock.

All these wonderful plays of Nature, in which form and colour contribute

to delight the eye or to charm the fancy of the spectator, are, however,

still less interesting than the reflections suggested by the slow growth

of stalactites in general, and the enormous size which some of them

attain.

[Illustration: STALACTITAL CAVERN IN AUSTRALIA.]

Inscriptions seventy or eighty years old appear covered only with a thin

translucent coat of sinter, and in the Cave of Adelsberg names scratched

in the walls more than six centuries ago are still perfectly legible.

How many ages must, then, have passed before such colossal stalagmites

could have been formed as, for instance, in the Australian cavern

explored by Mr. Woods,[13] or in the Cave of Corneale, near Trieste,

where we find one of these formations measuring fifty feet in

circumference, and another rising thirty-five feet above the ground,

with a trunk as massive as that of an old oak. The ruins of Thebes, or

the rock-temples of Ipsamboul, appear almost as works of the present day

when compared with those amazing monuments of time. But, while

meditating on their colossal dimensions, the mind is necessarily carried

still further back, and wanders through the countless ages which the

filtering waters, collecting into subterranean streams, required for

hollowing out the vast cavities on whose floor those gigantic

stalagmites were subsequently deposited. An epoch of still older date

presents itself when the limestone rocks, now pierced with vast

stalactital caverns, were first slowly forming at the bottom of the

primeval sea by the accumulation of countless exuviæ of zoophytes, star-

fishes, and foraminifera, and after growing into strata many hundred

feet thick, were then forced upwards by plutonic powers, and became

portions of the dry land. Nor is this the end of the vast perspective,

for changes still more remote loom in the fathomless distance. The mind

grows giddy while thus plunging into the abyss of time, and, in spite of

the ideas of sublimity awakened by such meditations, feels a painful

sense of its incapacity to conceive a plan of such infinite extent.

Footnote 13:

‘The Geology of South Australia.’

While on land the running or filtering waters restlessly pursue their

work of excavation, the tumultuous waves of the ocean impress on every

rocky shore the seal of their tremendous power. As, day after day, and

year after year, the billows strike against the cliffs that oppose their

progress, they undermine their foundations, scoop out wide portals in

their projecting headlands, and hollow out deep caverns. Here also water

appears as the beautifying element, decorating inanimate nature with

picturesque forms; and the sea nowhere exhibits more romantic scenes

than on the bold coasts against which her waves have been beating for

many a millennium. During the calm ebb tide seals are often seen sunning

themselves at the entrance of the oceanic grottoes, while cormorants

stand before them as guardians of the dark galleries beyond; the waves

murmur in softer strains, and the screeching sea-mew glides with his

silvery pinions through the tranquil air; but when the stormy flood

batters against the coast, the billows rush into the caverns, scaring

all animal life away, and no voice is heard but that of the ocean.

Our coasts abound in beauties such as these, particularly on the wild

shores of Shetland or the stormy Hebrides—

‘Where rise no groves and where no gardens blow,

Where even the hardy heath scarce dares to grow;

But rocks on rocks, in mist and storm arrayed,

Stretch far to sea their giant colonnade.’—SCOTT.

Along the coast of the mainland of Shetland and the neighbouring islets

of Bressay and Noss, cape follows upon cape, consisting of bold cliffs

hollowed into caverns, or divided into pillars and arches of fantastic

appearance, by the constant action of the waves. As the voyager passes

the most northerly of these headlands, and turns into the open sea, the

scenes become yet more sublime. Rocks, upwards of three or four hundred

feet in height, present themselves in colossal succession, sinking

perpendicularly into the sea, which is very deep, even within a few

fathoms of their base. All these huge precipices abound with caves, many

of which run much farther into the rock than the boldest islander has

ever ventured to penetrate. One of these marine excavations, called ‘The

Orkneyman’s Harbour,’ is remarkable for the circumstance of an Orkney

vessel having once run in there to escape a French privateer. Sir Walter

Scott, who visited this interesting spot, found the entrance lofty

enough to admit his six-oared boat without striking the mast, but a

sudden turn in the direction of the cave would have consigned him to

utter darkness if he had gone in further. The dropping of the sea fowl

and cormorants into the water from the sides of the cavern, when

disturbed by his approach, had something in it wild and terrible.

The shores of Caithness and of Sutherland, and of many of the islets in

the Highland seas, likewise exhibit many wonderful specimens of the

fantastic architecture of the ocean; but pre-eminent above all in

grandeur and renown is Fingal’s Cave.

Sir Walter Scott, who twice visited this celebrated grotto (in 1810 and

1814), pronounced it above all description sublime. ‘The stupendous

columns and side-walls, the depth and strength of the ocean with which

the cavern is filled, the variety of tints formed by stalactites

dropping and petrifying between the pillars, and resembling a sort of

chasing of yellow or cream-coloured marble, filling the interstices of

the roof—the corresponding variety below, where the ocean rolls over a

red, and in some places a violet-coloured rock, the basis of the

basaltic pillars—the dreadful noise of those august billows, so well

corresponding with the grandeur of the scene—are all circumstances

elsewhere unparalleled.’

In the Azure Cave of Capri, the Mediterranean possesses a marine grotto

rivalling Fingal’s Cave in celebrity, and no less wonderful in its

peculiar style of beauty. As the roof of its narrow entrance rises only

a few feet above the level of the sea, it is probable that no human eye

had ever been delighted with its charms before 1826, when it was

accidentally discovered by two Prussian artists who were swimming in the

neighbourhood. After passing the low portal the cave widens to grand

proportions, 125 feet long and 145 feet broad, and except a small

landing-place on a projecting rock at the further end, its precipitous

walls are on all sides bathed by the influx of the waters, which, in

that sea, are so clear that the smallest objects may be distinctly seen

on the bottom of the deep basin, the most beautiful bathing-place a

mermaid might wish for. All the light that enters the grotto must first

penetrate the whole depth of the waters before it can be reflected into

the cave, and it thus acquires so blue a tinge, from the large body of

clear water through which it has passed, that the walls of the cavern

are illumined by a radiance of the purest azure. Had Byron known of the

existence of this magic cave, Childe Harold would surely have devoted

some of his most brilliant stanzas to its praise.

In many other parts of the Mediterranean the limestone rocks that fringe

its shores have been worn into magnificent caverns, less singular,

indeed, than the fairy grot of Capri, but still of rare and wonderful

beauty. Such, among others, is the Antro di Nettuno, in the island of

Sardinia, about twelve miles from the small seaport of Alghero.[14]

Footnote 14:

‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ 3rd edit. p. 49.

Exceedingly picturesque caverns have also been worn by the chafing

waters in the chalk cliffs under Bonifacio, in the island of Corsica.

Their entrances festooned with hanging boughs, they penetrate far into

the interior of the rocks, and the water percolating through their

vaulted roofs has formed stalactites of fantastic shapes. The boat

glides through the arched entrance, and the glaring sunshine without is

replaced by cool and grateful shade. Fishes are flitting in the clear

water; limpid streams oozing through the rocks form crystal basins with

pebbly bottoms; and the channels from the blue sea, flowing over the

chalk, become cerulean. Poetic fancy has never pictured anything more

enchanting than these lovely caves.

[Illustration: CAVE UNDER BONIFACIO.]

The rocky coast of Sicily is likewise hollowed out with numerous marine

grottoes, which, though rarely noticed by travellers, may well be ranked

amongst the greatest natural beauties of the island. One of the most

remarkable is the Grotta di Nettuno, near Syracuse, which, in calm

weather, admits a boat to a considerable distance. Its rugged vaults

rise to a height of about twenty or thirty feet, and are covered with

stalactites wherever the water does not reach. There is no landing-

place, and throughout the whole cave the water is as deep as in the open

sea beyond. Nothing can be more charming than to look back from the dark

recesses of the grotto upon the bright sunshine without, and to listen

to the soothing murmurs of the clear waves as they ripple against the

rocky walls. The atmosphere is so pure in this delicious climate that

not a trace of fog or mist obscures even the remotest parts of the cave,

and the serene daylight falling through the entrance renders even its

deepest shadows translucent. Here a lover of nature might linger for

hours enjoying the most delicious coolness, and watching the charming

effects of light and shade in their ever-varying play.

On many rocky shores the ocean has worn out subterranean channels in the

cliffs, against which it has been beating for ages, and then frequently

emerges in water-spouts, or fountains, from the opposite end. Thus in

the Skerries, one of the Shetland Islands, a deep chasm or inlet, which

is open overhead, is continued underground, and then again opens to the

sky in the middle of the island. When the tide is high, the waves rise

up through this inland aperture, with a noise like the blowing of a

whale.

Similar phenomena occur on the south side of the Mauritius,[15] on the

north coast of Newfoundland, near Huatulco on the Mexican coast of the

Pacific, and near Peniscola, in Spain, where a cave, through whose roof

at storm tides the sea bursts with a terrific noise, has received the

name of the ‘Bufador, or the water-spout of Pope Luna,’ the family name

of Benedict XIII., who, having been deposed by the Councils of Pisa and

Constance, retired to the small Spanish town where he was born. As the

chief occupation of the holy father in exile was to vent a continuous

torrent of curses and excommunications upon his numerous enemies, it is

probable that this circumstance caused his name to be given to the noisy

but harmless Bufador.

Footnote 15:

‘The Sea and its Living Wonders,’ 3rd edit. p. 52.

Though water, aided by time, is probably the chief excavating power,

there can be no doubt that the action of subterranean fire has likewise

produced, and still produces, many hollows in the hard crust of the

earth. Wherever a volcano has been piled up to the skies, the matter

ejected from its vents must necessarily have left a void behind, and

given rise to corresponding cavities in the space beneath. The shock of

an earthquake must frequently rend asunder deep-seated rocks, and the

slow upheaval of considerable tracts of land can hardly be supposed to

take place without the formation of hollows and crevices.

When the lavas poured forth during an eruption are in a liquid state,

they do not form on cooling a compact homogeneous mass, but generally

exhibit a porous, spongy texture, due to the bubbles of the vapour

generated through, or entangled in, their mass. These bubbles frequently

unite in larger volumes, which, influenced by their elasticity and

inferior specific gravity, rise towards the surface of the lava as it

flows on, and, when sufficiently powerful, raise its crust in dome-like

or conical protuberances, which not seldom burst open at the summit, or

crack at the sides. The hollows thus formed are often so large as to

entitle them to the name of caves.

According to Sir Charles Lyell, the sudden conversion into steam of

lakes or streams of water, overwhelmed by a fiery current, may perhaps

explain the formation of many of the extensive underground passages or

caverns which form a common feature in the structure of a volcano. Great

volumes of vapour, thus produced, may force their way through liquid

lava, already coated over externally with a solid crust, and may cause

the sides of such passages, as they harden, to assume a very irregular

outline. The famous cave on Etna, called the Fossa della Palomba, which

opens near Nicolosi, not far from Monte Rossi, has not improbably been

thus formed. After reaching the bottom of a hollow 625 feet in

circumference at its mouth, and 78 feet deep, the explorer enters

another dark cavity, and then others in succession, sometimes descending

precipices by means of ladders. At length the vaults terminate in a

great gallery ninety feet long, and from fifteen to fifty feet broad,

beyond which there is still a passage never yet visited, so that the

whole extent of the Fossa remains unknown.

The volcanic caves of Punta Delgada in the Island of San Miguel, one of

the Azores, are still more grand. Their entrance is through a narrow

crevice, which soon, however, expands into an enormous hall, whose vault

even the strongest torch-light is unable to illumine. In one spot, an

opening in the floor shows that the lava, which is here but a foot

thick, forms the roof of a second cave, situated below the first, into

which even the boldest explorer has never ventured, but the noise of

stones cast into the abyss proves it to be of considerable size. The

first-mentioned cave leads into another, the width of which is estimated

by Webster[16] at 120 feet; but the height he was unable to measure.

Gradually this cave becomes narrower and lower, until, about 450 feet

from the entrance, it terminates in a low vault. Black lava stalactites

everywhere hang down from the roof, and the floor is so covered with

sharp-sided blocks of the same volcanic material that walking among them

becomes a task of the greatest difficulty.

Footnote 16:

‘Description of the Island of Saint Michael.’

While a lava-stream is flowing along, a slag-crust forms on its surface,

inclosing the internal fluid matter as in a canal. But when the supply

of fresh lava from the vent diminishes or entirely ceases, the still

liquid interior at the central part of the current continuing for some

time to flow on, often leaves behind hollow gutters, arched over by a

thin and brittle roof—so thin sometimes as to yield to the weight of a

person stepping on them. Such vaulted roofs have pseudo-stalactitic

projections left by the subsidence of the liquid, and are coated with a

glossy varnish. Sometimes, very large caverns are thus formed beneath

the surface of a lava-stream, and even rival in their extent and

windings the caves worn by water in limestone rocks. The famous

Surtshellir,[17] situated near Kalmanstunga in Iceland, is a remarkable

instance of a vast lava excavation owing its origin to this cause. It

has very appropriately been named after Surt, the prince of darkness and

fire, of the ancient Scandinavian mythology; for this gloomy deity could

not possibly have chosen a fitter residence than its vast and dismal

halls, once glowing with subterranean fires, and now the seat of

perpetual darkness.

Footnote 17:

‘The Polar World,’ p. 58.

CHAPTER XIII.

CAVE RIVERS.

The Fountain of Vaucluse—The Fontaine-sans-fond—The Katabothra in Morea—

Subterranean Rivers in Carniola—Subterranean Navigation of the Poik in

the Cave of Planina—‘The Stalactital Paradise’—The Piuka Jama.

Wherever large bodies of water gush forth in a rapid stream from the

bowels of the earth, they must either have flowed through wide

underground channels, or they must come from extensive lake-like

reservoirs, for the mere drainage of a porous stratum is evidently

incapable of accounting for their production.

Thus the celebrated fountain of Vaucluse, near Avignon, which has the

volume and power of a river at its very source, is undoubtedly fed by a

subterranean sheet of water of considerable extent. Even when least

abundant, it pours forth upwards of 13,000 cubic feet of water in a

minute; and after the country has been flooded with abundant rains, this

volume is increased fourfold. The environs of the fountain are extremely

picturesque, and justify the praises which have been lavished upon it in

the immortal strains of Petrarch. It fills a large oval basin, vaulted

by a spacious cave, and its waters, which, when low, escape through

subterranean channels into the deep bed of the Sorgue, rise, when high,

over the rock-wall at the mouth of the grotto, and form a broad

cataract, rushing down with a dreadful noise.

Near Sable in Anjou, a source, or rather a pit from eighteen to twenty-

four feet in diameter, well known in the country under the name of the

Bottomless Fountain (_Fontaine-sans-fond_) sometimes overflows its

brink, and then casts forth a large quantity of fish, so that it is

evidently a mere aperture in the vault of a large subterranean pool.

In the department of the Haute Saône, another pit, called the Frais

Puits, presents a similar phenomenon. After abundant rains, the water

gushing forth from its mouth inundates the neighbourhood, and on its

retiring, pikes are not seldom found scattered over the surface of the

flooded fields or meadows, a sure proof that the Puits must communicate

with a large subterranean cavity.

Nothing is more common in limestone districts than the engulfment of

rivers, which, after holding a subterranean course of many miles, escape

again by some new outlet. The Guadiana loses itself in a flat country in

the midst of an immense savannah, and hence the Spaniards, when the

magnificent bridges of London or Paris are mentioned to them, boastfully

reply that they have one in Estramadura on which more than a hundred

thousand oxen graze at a time.

In the vast limestone formation which, under various names, extends

through Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, and Greece, the

whole country is perforated like a sponge by an intricate system of

subterranean water-courses. In the more elevated districts of the Morea

there are many deep land-locked valleys or basins inclosed on all sides

by mountains of cavernous limestone. When the torrents are swollen by

the rains, they rush from the surrounding heights into these basins;

but, instead of forming temporary lakes, as would be the case in most

other countries, they are swallowed by chasms, which are sometimes

situated in the middle of the plain, constituting the bottom of the

closed basin, but more commonly at the foot of the surrounding

escarpment of limestone. During the dry season, which in Greece

alternates almost as distinctly as between the tropics with a period of

rain, these chasms are the favourite retreats of wild animals.

Sometimes, in the limestone formation, the same stream repeatedly gushes

forth from some cavernous recess, and then again disappears. The caves

of Adelsberg, Planina, and Upper Laibach in Carniola are traversed by

the same river, which, losing its name every time it plunges into a new

subterranean channel, is called, first, the Poik, then the Unz, and

finally the Laibach. In the same manner the Temenitz, an affluent of the

Save, thrice disappears under the earth, and thrice emerges as a new-

born river with another name.

As far as these subterranean streams have been explored, their course

exhibits a wonderful variety of interesting underground scenery.

Sometimes they form high cataracts, leaping over rocks so picturesquely

grouped that, were they illumined by the sun, and of more easy access,

they would be admired by numberless tourists; and not seldom they expand

into dark and melancholy lakes. Sometimes they with difficulty force a

passage through a chaos of rocks, and then again they flow gently in a

deep and even channel, so as to be navigable to a considerable distance.

Generally, not the least breath of air sweeps over their placid waters,

but sometimes their surface is rippled by the wind pouring in through

some unseen chasm.

Among the bold explorers who have launched forth their barques on

unknown subterranean rivers, the late Adolph Schmidl, of Vienna, holds a

conspicuous rank. In a canoe specially constructed for the purpose he

trusted himself to the dark streams of Carniola, which rewarded his

adventurous zeal with many a scene of incomparable beauty, where the

water-spirits and the gnomes seemed to have rivalled each other in the

work of decoration. To give an idea of the difficulties and of the

enjoyments of these subterranean explorations, we will follow the

intrepid naturalist on his voyages of discovery through the famous Cave

of Planina, through which flows the Poik, a river which is at all times

deep enough to carry a boat. The course of the navigation is stream-

upwards, and consequently much safer than would otherwise have been the

case; but in many places the rapidity of the current calls for great

caution, and considerable strength is needed to overcome its violence;

while at the same time great care must be taken to avoid striking

against the rocks that lie hidden under the water. As far as the end of

a magnificent dome, situated about 600 feet from its entrance, the cave

can be traversed on foot; but here the sullen stream, completely filling

its whole width, compels the explorer to trust to his canoe. When he has

passed a portal about eight fathoms high and half as broad, with

proportions as symmetrical as if it had been sculptured by the hand of

man, the thundering roar of a distant cataract announces still grander

scenes. The portal widens, and the astonished explorer suddenly emerges

on a lake 250 feet long and 150 feet broad, beyond which the cave is

seen to divide into two arms, giving passage to two streams, whose

confluent waters form the lake. This broad sheet of water affords an

imposing but melancholy sight. The walls of the cave rise everywhere

abruptly out of the water, with the exception of one small landing-place

opposite to the portal at the foot of a projecting rock or promontory.

Here and there large masses of stalactite hang like petrified cascades

from the rocks, which are generally naked and black. The vault is so

high that the light of a few torches fails to pierce its gloom, which is

rendered still more impressive by the roar of the waterfall in the left

branch of the cavern.

As far as the lake, the cave is of comparatively easy access, and has

been repeatedly visited, but the subterranean course of the two brooks

beyond was first explored by Dr. Schmidl. In the left or western branch

of the cave, into which he penetrated to a distance of more than a mile,

his boat had to be unloaded no less than eleven times on account of the

reefs that obstructed its passage, while the explorers, wading through

the water, dragged it over the shallows. Once even, where the navigation

was interrupted by large masses of rock, under which the tumultuous

waters disappear with a dreadful roar, they were obliged to take the

little shallop to pieces, and to reconstruct it on the opposite side of

the mound. The navigable part of this western branch ends in a circular

dome, the floor of which is entirely filled with a lake 180 feet long,

and from 40 to 45 feet deep. On the western bank of this lake, a chasm

opens at the top of a mound of rubbish, the only place where it is

possible to land. A violent gust of wind descends from this chasm,

which, sloping upwards, soon narrows to a small crevice, through which

the current of air sets in.

To a lateral gallery, opening beyond the mouth of the chasm, Dr. Schmidl

gave the name of ‘The Stalactital Paradise,’ on account of the uncommon

beauty of the spar-crystals with which its walls were incrusted. It was

the first time that the foot of man had ever penetrated into this

charming laboratory of nature; no torch had ever soiled its brilliant

decorations; no profane hand had ever damaged its gem-like tapestry.

Here whole groups of stalagmitic cones, of all shapes and sizes, some

like tiny icicles, others six feet high and as thick as a man’s waist,

rose from the ground, while further on the brown wall formed a dark

background, from which projected in bold relief the colossal statue of a

sceptered king. Near the entrance stood a magnificent white figure,

which fancy might have supposed to be a cherub with a flaming sword,

menacing all those who should dare to injure the wonders which he

guarded.

‘“The Stalactical Paradise” remained intact,’ says Dr. Schmidl.[18] ‘I

begged my companions not to strike off the smallest piece of spar as a

memorial of our visit, and they all joyfully consented. Our feet

carefully avoided trampling down any of its delicate ornaments; we left

it with no other memorial than our admiration of its beauty. The nymphs

of the grot will no doubt have pardoned us for having intruded upon the

sanctuary, where for countless centuries they had reigned in undisturbed

solitude and silence.’

Footnote 18:

‘Die Höhlenkunde des Karstes.’ Wien, 1854.

The eastern branch of the cave, through which the main stream flows, is

much larger than the branch above described; it is also easily

navigated, as it contains but two reefs and a small number of cliffs. On

first ascending the stream, the continually increasing roar of waters

announces a considerable waterfall. Enormous masses of stone, piled up

by the falling in of the roof, have blocked up and narrowed the bed of

the river to fifteen feet, and cause the stream to shoot down in a broad

sheet ten feet high. The cataract, madly rushing over the jet-black

rocks and casting up flakes of milk-white foam, is very beautiful, and,

when brightly illuminated, must produce a truly magical effect.

Beyond the cataract the river flows for a short space in an invisible

channel, as its waters are completely hidden under rocks. It was no easy

task to carry the planks of the dismembered boat over these rugged

blocks of stone, but after reconstructing it on the opposite side of the

mound, and overcoming the minor obstacles of a couple of reefs, the

river was found to flow in a deep channel between steep walls, and a

free navigation opened to a distance of at least a league and a half.

‘No description,’ said Dr. Schmidl, ‘can do justice to the fascination

of this subterranean voyage. In some parts the roof is adorned with

coral-shaped draperies of snow-white stalactites, but generally the

walls are mere black, naked stone. Here and there sources gurgle down

their sides, and, along with the melancholy trickling of single drops of

water from the vault, alone break the silence of the dark interminable

cave. The breathless attention we bestowed on the guidance of our boat

and on the wonders that surrounded us sealed our lips, and we glided

silently along through the dark waters, that now, for the first time

since they began to flow, reflected the glare of a torch.’

Throughout the whole distance of 1,140 fathoms beyond the second reef,

there is but one landing-place; everywhere else the walls rise

precipitously from the water. In some parts the roof descends so low

that the explorers were obliged to lie down in the boat and to shove it

along by holding to the projections of the vault, which finally left but

a few inches’ space above the water, and thus opposed an invincible

obstacle to all further progress.

In another grotto—called the Piuka Jama—the Poik again flows in the

midst of the grandest subterranean scenery. About a league to the north

of Adelsberg, the wanderer, after traversing a thicket of underwood,

suddenly finds himself on the brink of a yawning precipice, from the

bottom of which is heard distinctly the noise of a rushing stream. The

walls of the chasm are almost perpendicular, except where a small

ravine, overgrown with shrubs, leads to an enormous rock, on which it is

possible to stand, and, if perfectly free from giddiness, to look down

into the gulf below, where the huge portal of a cave is seen to open.

From this rock, which projects over the abyss, the only descent is by

means of a rope or a rope-ladder. The bottom of the pit is covered with

large blocks of stone irregularly piled up, and here one first sees the

river rushing through the cave from right to left. The Piuka Jama may

thus be compared to a window pierced through a vault overspanning a

subterranean stream. Clambering down a heap of rubbish, the explorer at

length stands upon the floor of the cave, and reaches the bank of the

Poik. Stream-upwards, about 300 fathoms from the aperture, he meets with

a rock gate, through which the river rushes so violently that a boat can

master the current only when the water is unusually low.

After crossing this broad portal, the last faint traces of daylight

glimmering from the distant aperture in the Piuka entirely disappear,

and the scene suddenly changes. The expanding cavern assumes the

proportions of an imposing dome. On its left side a mound has been

formed by the falling in of the roof; but every block of stone is

completely covered with calcareous incrustations of the purest white.

From the floor to the centre of the vault millions upon millions of

brilliant spars reflect the light: every hollow in the walls is a

cabinet of gems. The background of the dome completes the beauty of the

scene, and exhibits one of the most imposing cavern decorations it is

possible to imagine. A monstrous pillar rises from its centre, forming

two colossal ogival portals. The larger one is on the left, and at its

entrance a mighty stalagmite, above twelve feet high, seems to forbid

intrusion. The pillar itself and the vaults of both the portals are

ornamented with the richest stalactital drapery.

When the river is swollen it rushes tumultuously through both the gates,

where now Dr. Schmidl found but a scanty rill whispering and babbling

among the stones.

CHAPTER XIV.

SUBTERRANEAN LIFE.

Subterranean Vegetation—Fungi—Enormous Fungus in a Tunnel near

Doncaster—Artificial Mushroom-beds near Paris—Subterranean Animals—The

Guacharo—Wholesale Slaughter—Insects in the Cave of Adelsberg—The

Leptodirus and the Blothrus—The Stalita tænaria—The Olm or Proteus—The

Lake of Cirknitz—The Archduke Ferdinand and Charon—The Blind Rat and

the Blind Fish of the Mammoth Cave.

Of all the phenomena which attract the naturalist’s attention, as he

wanders over the surface of the earth, there is none which makes a

deeper impression on his mind than the omnipresence of life. On the

snow-clad cone of Chimborazo, 18,000 feet above the level of the sea,

Humboldt found butterflies and other winged insects, while, high over

his head, the condor was soaring in solitary majesty. At the still

greater elevation of 18,460 feet, at the Doonkiah Pass in the Himalaya

Mountains, Dr. Hooker plucked flowering plants, and saw large flocks of

wild geese winging their flight above Kunchinjinga (22,750 feet) towards

the unknown regions of Central Asia. Thus man meets with life as far as

he is able to ascend, or as far as his sight plunges into the

atmospheric ocean. Besides the objects visible to his eye, innumerable

microscopical organisms pervade the realms of air. According to

Ehrenberg’s brilliant discovery, the impalpably fine dust which, wafted

by the Harmattan, often falls on ships when hundreds of miles from the

coast of Africa, consists of agglomerations of silica-coated diatoms,

individually so small as to be invisible to the naked eye; and

everywhere numberless minute germs of future life—eggs of insects and

sporules of cryptogamic plants—well fitted by cilia and feathery crowns

for an aërial journey, float up and down in the atmosphere; while the

waters of ocean are found, in like manner, filled with myriads of

animated atoms. But organic life not only occupies those parts of our

globe which are accessible to solar light; it also dives profoundly into

the subterranean world, wherever rain, or the melted snow, filtering

through the porous earth, or through vents and crevices, is able to

penetrate into natural caverns or artificial mines. For the combination

of moisture, warmth, and air is able to develop organic life even

thousands of feet below the surface of the earth; while light, though

indispensable to most creatures, would blight and destroy the

inhabitants of the subterranean vaults.

On surveying the flora of these dismal recesses, we find it consisting

exclusively of mushrooms or fungi, the lowest forms of vegetation,

which, shunning the light, love darkness and damp. Their appearance in

the caves is, as everywhere else, dependent upon the existence of an

organic basis, and thus they are most commonly found germinating on

pieces of wood, particularly in a state of decomposition, which have

been conveyed into the caverns either through the agency of man or by

the influx of water. Species of a peculiarly luxuriant growth are

sometimes seen to spread over the neighbouring stones, or apparently to

spring from the rocky ground, where, however, on closer inspection,

vestiges of decayed organic substances will generally be detected.

Thus vegetation in caves most commonly keeps pace with the quantity of

mouldering wood which they contain, and flourishes not only near their

entrance but in their deepest recesses, as, for instance, in the Cave of

Adelsberg, where, at a distance of more than a thousand fathoms from its

entrance, the pegs which have been driven into the stalactital walls for

the purpose of measuring its length are covered with a rich coat of

fungi. Nothing can be more curious than to see these plants, thriving

and luxuriating in deep stillness and gloom, under circumstances so

alien to the ordinary conditions of life. Among the fungi found in

caves, many also vegetate upon the surface of the earth exposed to the

influence of light, and not seldom degenerate into monstrous forms in

their less congenial subterranean abodes; but many are the exclusive

children of darkness. The Austrian naturalist Scopoli published in 1772

the first exact description of more than seventy subterranean fungi,

collected chiefly in the mines of Schemnitz and Idria; and about twenty

years later Humboldt wrote his celebrated treatise on the same

subject.[19] Since then G. F. Hoffmann has described the subterranean

flora of the Harz Mountains;[20] and latterly the botanists Welwitsch

and Pokorny have examined the caves of Carinthia, where they discovered

no less than eighteen species of fungi, among others the mouse-tail

mushroom (_Agaricus myurus_, Hoffm.), which is also found in the Harz,

and bears on a slender hairy stalk, more than a foot long, a small hat,

scarcely a quarter of an inch in diameter. Some of these fungi are

remarkable for their size (_Thelephora rubiginosa sanguinolenta_),

others for their elegance (_Diderma nigripes_).

Footnote 19:

‘Flora Fribergensis Plantas Cryptogamicas præsertim subterraneas

exhibens.’

Footnote 20:

‘Vegetabilia in Hercyniæ Subterraneis collecta Norinbergæ.’ 1811.

Some years ago a gigantic fungus, found growing from the woodwork of a

tunnel near Doncaster, afforded a striking proof of the luxuriancy of

subterranean vegetation. It measured no less than fifteen feet in

diameter, and was, in its way, as great a curiosity as one of the

colossal trees of California.

Even the plants that flourish in the darkness of caves have been

rendered subservient to our use. The cultivation of the edible mushroom

in spacious caverns or ancient quarries is practised to a great extent

in the environs of Paris, at Arcueil, Moulin de la Roche, and St.

Germain, but particularly at Montrouge, on the southern side of the

city. The mushroom-beds are entirely underground, seventy or eighty feet

below the surface, at a depth where the temperature is nearly uniform

all the year round. These extensive catacombs, formed by long burrowing

galleries, have no opening but by a circular shaft, to be descended by

clambering down a perpendicular pole or mast, into the sides of which

large wooden pegs are fixed, at intervals of ten or twelve inches, to

rest the feet upon.

The baskets containing the ripe mushrooms are hoisted from below by a

pulley and rope. The compost in which they grow consists of a white

gritty earth, mixed with good stable manure, and is moulded into narrow

beds about twenty inches high, ranged along the sides of the passages or

galleries, and kept exquisitely neat and smooth. The mushroom sporules

are introduced to the beds either by flakes of earth taken from an old

bed, or else from a heap of decomposing stable manure in which mushrooms

have naturally been engendered. The beds are covered with a layer of

earth an inch thick, the earth being merely the white rubbish left by

the stone-cutters above. They must be well watered, and removed after

two or three months, when their bearing qualities are exhausted. In one

of the caves at Montrouge alone there are six or seven miles of

mushroom-bedding, a proof that this branch of industry is by no means

unimportant.

While subterranean vegetation is exclusively confined to mushrooms,

animal life of almost every class has far more abundant representatives,

for plants are in general much more dependent on the vivifying influence

of light.

The various animals which are found dwelling in caves may be subdivided

into two groups; one, which, though preferring darkness, and spending a

great part of its existence under the earth, yet often voluntarily seeks

the light of day, or at least wanders forth at night; while the other is

_exclusively_ subterranean, and is never seen above the surface of the

earth, unless by chance or when driven up by violence.

To the first group belong most of the insectivorous and rodent

quadrupeds that dwell in self-made burrows, or pursue a subterranean

prey, such as the armadilloes and the moles. The large family of the

bats likewise love to sleep by day, or to hibernate in warm and solitary

caves, where they are sometimes found in numbers as countless as the

sea-birds which flock round some rocky island of the north. When

Professor Silliman visited the Mammoth Cave (October 16, 1822), he

everywhere saw them suspended in dense clusters from the roofs, though a

large number had not yet retired into winter-quarters. In a small space,

scarcely four or five inches square, he counted no less than forty bats,

and convinced himself that at least one hundred and twenty find room on

a square foot, as they held not only by the surface of the walls of

their retreat, but by each other, one closely crowding over another.

Such clusters are found in the interior of the cavern, which branches

out in many directions as far as two miles from the entrance, so that a

very superficial survey allows them to be counted by millions. Who, in

these dismal regions, where no change of temperature or of light

announces the various seasons, tells them that the reign of winter is

past? who awakes them at the proper time out of the deep sleep in which

they remain plunged for months? The same mysterious voice of instinct

which regulates the migrations of the birds and the wanderings of the

fishes, and which in this case, as in every other, is equally wonderful

and incomprehensible.

In the class of birds we find many cave-haunting species. The pigeons

like to nestle in grottoes, which also serve as welcome retreats to the

moping owl; and various swallows and swifts breed chiefly in the

darkness of caverns. One of the most remarkable of these troglodytic

birds is the Guacharo, which inhabits a large cave in the Valley of

Caripe, near the town of Cumana, and of which an interesting account has

been given by Humboldt, who first introduced it to the notice of Europe.

The _Gueva del Guacharo_ is pierced in the vertical profile of a rock,

and the entrance is towards the south, forming a noble vault eighty feet

broad and seventy-two feet high. The rock surmounting the cavern is

covered with trees of gigantic growth, and all the luxuriant profusion

of an inter-tropical vegetation. Plantain-leaved heliconias, and

wondrous orchids, the Praga palm, and tree arums, grow along the banks

of a river that flows out of the cave, while lianas, and a variety of

creeping plants, rocked to and fro by the wind, form elegant festoons

before its entrance. What a contrast between this magnificently

decorated portal and the gloomy mouth of the Surtshellir, imbedded in

the lava wildernesses of Iceland? As the cave at first penetrates into

the mountain in a straight direction, the light of day does not

disappear for a considerable distance from the entrance, so that

visitors are able to go forward for about four hundred and thirty feet

without being obliged to light their torches; and here, where light

begins to fail, the hoarse cries of the nocturnal birds are heard from

afar.

The guacharo is of the size of the common fowl. Its hooked bill is wide,

like that of the goat-sucker, and furnished at the base with stiff hairs

directed forwards. The plumage, like that of most nocturnal birds, is

sombre brownish grey, mixed with black stripes and large white spots.

The eyes are incapable of bearing the light of day, and the wings are

disproportionately large, measuring not less than four feet and a half

from tip to tip. It quits the cavern only at nightfall, especially when

there is moonlight; and Humboldt remarks that it is almost the only

frugivorous nocturnal bird yet known, for it does not prey upon insects

like the goatsucker, but feeds on very hard fruits, which its strong

hooked beak is well fitted to crack. The horrible noise made by

thousands of these birds in the dark recesses of the cavern can be

compared only to the wild shrieks of the sea-mews round a solitary bird

mountain, or to the deafening uproar of the crows when assembled in vast

flocks in the dark fir-forests of the North. The clamour increases on

advancing deeper into the cave, the birds being disturbed by the torch-

light; and as those nestling in the side avenues of the cave begin to

utter their mournful cries when the first sink into silence, it seems as

if their troops were alternately complaining to each other of the

intruders. By fixing torches to the end of long poles, the Indians, who

serve as guides into the cavern, show the nests of these birds, fifty or

sixty feet above the heads of the explorers, in funnel-shaped holes with

which the cavern roof is pierced like a sieve.

Once a year, about midsummer, the Guacharo Cavern is entered by the

Indians. Armed with poles they ransack the greater part of the nests,

while the old birds, uttering lamentable cries, hover over the heads of

the robbers. The young which fall down are opened on the spot. The

peritonæum is found loaded with fat, and a layer of the same substance

reaches from the abdomen to the vent, forming a kind of cushion between

the birds’ legs. The European nocturnal birds are meagre, as, instead of

feasting on fruits and oily kernels, they live upon the scanty produce

of the chase; while in the guacharo, as in our fattened geese, the

accumulation of fat is promoted by darkness and abundant food. At the

period above mentioned, which is known at Caripe as the ‘oil harvest,’

huts are erected by the Indians with palm leaves near the entrance, and

even in the very porch of the cavern. There the fat of the young birds

just killed is melted in clay pots over a brushwood fire, and is said to

be very pure and of a good taste. Its small quantity, however, is quite

out of proportion to the numbers killed, as not more than 150 or 160

jars of perfectly clear oil are collected from the massacre of

thousands.

The way into the interior of the cavern leads along the banks of the

small river which flows through its dark recesses; but sometimes large

masses of stalactites obstruct the passage, and force the visitor to

wade through the water, which is, however, not more than two feet deep.

As far as 1,458 feet from the entrance the cave maintains the same

direction, width, and height of sixty or seventy feet, so that it would

be difficult to find another mountain cavern of so regular a formation.

Humboldt had great difficulty in persuading the natives to pass beyond

the part of the cave which they usually visit to collect the oil, as

they believed its deeper penetralia to be the abode of their ancestors’

spirits; but since the great naturalist’s visit, they seem to have

abandoned their ancient superstitions, or to have acquired a greater

courage in facing the mysteries of the grotto, for, while they would

only accompany Humboldt as far as 236 fathoms into the interior of the

cave, later travellers, such as Codazzi and Beaupertuis, have advanced

with their guides to double the distance, though without reaching its

end. They found that beyond the furthest point explored by Humboldt the

cave loses its regularity, and has its walls covered with stalactites.

In the embranchments of the grotto Codazzi found innumerable birds. It

was formerly supposed that the guacharo was exclusively confined to this

cave; latterly, however, it has also been found in the province of

Bogota.

The discovery of animals adapted for perpetual darkness is but of modern

date, and as the vast majority of caves have not yet been thoroughly

explored by zoologists, the number of genera and species already known

gives us reason to believe that future investigations will add

considerably to their number. In the Adelsberg, Lueg, and Magdalena

grottoes, which form but an inconsiderable part of the extensive

cavernous regions of Carniola, seven exclusively subterranean insects,

one spider, two scorpionides, one millepede, two crustaceans, one snail,

and one reptile—in all fifteen different species of animals, belonging

to no less than six different classes—have been found.

[Illustration: LEPTODIRUS HOCHENWARTII.]

Among these dwellers of the dark, warfare is as rife as in the regions

of light. Thus, in the recesses of the Grotto of Adelsberg, the cavern

beetle (_Leptodirus Hochenwartii_) is persecuted and devoured by the

scorpioniform _Blothrus spelæus_, and by the eyeless spider (_Stalita

tænaria_). The black and brown Leptodirus discovered in the Grotto of

Adelsberg in 1831, by Count Hochenwart, is distinguished by long and

delicate antennæ and legs, and comparatively small translucent and

smooth elytra. The unique specimen found at the time was unfortunately

lost, and although twenty-five florins were offered to the cavern guides

for one of these beetles, fourteen years passed before it was re-

discovered in the same cave. Since then other collectors have been more

fortunate, particularly Prince Robert Khevenhüller, who, during his

repeated visits to the Cave of Adelsberg, captured no less than twenty

specimens of the Leptodirus.

Cautiously feeling its way with its long antennæ, the beetle slowly

ascends the damp stalactital columns, and accelerates its movements at

the approach of a light. The greater number were found in the evening,

thus giving reason for supposing that the Leptodirus is a noctural

beetle, although it is hardly possible to conceive how the alternating

influence of night and day can still be felt in these regions of

darkness. The manner in which it is pursued by the eyeless Blothrus

(discovered in 1833, by Mr. F. Schmidt), has been several times observed

by Prince Khevenhüller. He once saw one of these cavern scorpions slowly

crawling along, stretching out its palpi in all directions, and

evidently on the search. He immediately guessed that the animal was

engaged in a hunting expedition, and soon found that he was not

mistaken, for a fine Leptodirus was crawling about four feet higher on

the opposite wall. For a long time the Prince left the two insects

undisturbed, until he had thoroughly convinced himself that the

movements of the Blothrus were evidently regulated by those of the

Leptodirus, and that the former was, beyond all doubt, in pursuit of the

beetle. A Leptodirus having been thrown along with a Blothrus into a

phial, was immediately cut to pieces and devoured.

The eyeless cavern spider (_Stalita tænaria_), with brownish palpæ and a

snow-white abdomen, is not seldom found in the hollows of the

stalactites, lying in wait for the unfortunate Leptodirus. On the

surface of the earth spiders are frequently obliged to fast for a very

long time; but in caverns where life is so sparingly distributed, the

patience of the Stalita must be exemplary, even among spiders. Her

appearance on the snow-white stalactital columns, where she only becomes

visible when illumined by the full light of a taper,[21] is very

striking. Like a vision, she sweeps away in her ivory robe, accompanied

by her increasing shadow, until she finally disappears in the darkness.

Footnote 21:

Torches are not allowed to be carried in the Grotto of Adelsberg, that

the whiteness of the stalactites may not be tarnished by the smoke.

[Illustration: THE PROTEUS AGUINUS.]

But the largest and most interesting of all the European cave animals is

undoubtedly the Olm (_Proteus anguinus; Hypochthon_). This enigmatic

reptile was first found in the famous Lake of Cirknitz, which,

communicating with numerous subterranean caves, alternately receives and

loses its waters through openings in the rock. After long and heavy

rains the floods, which the hidden vaults are no longer able to contain,

gush forth in foaming cataracts, and the lake, which generally forms but

a long and narrow channel, then swells to at least three times its

ordinary width. Sometimes, after a long drought, the contrary takes

place, and the whole lake disappears under ground. Thus, from December

1833 to October 1834, not a trace of it was visible, so thoroughly had

it concealed itself in its subterranean reservoirs, where its fishes,

secure from the persecutions of man, multiplied in a remarkable manner.

The Olm, which only casually comes to the light of day, along with the

overflowing waters of the Cirknitz Lake, was first discovered in 1814,

in one of its permanent subterranean abodes. The Magdalena or ‘Black

Grotto’ situated about a league to the north of Adelsberg, slants

abruptly into the bowels of the mountain. After a long and difficult

passage over blocks of stone or through soft mud, a tranquil pool is at

length reached, which rises or falls simultaneously with the waters of

the Poik, and proves, by this reciprocal action, that, in all

probability, all the numerous grottoes and subterranean river channels

of this so strangely undermined country form but one vast and intricate

network. It was in this pool, which no light illumines and no wind ever

stirs, that numerous Protei were first discovered; but as hundreds of

specimens have since found their way to the cabinets of naturalists, to

be observed, dissected, or bottled up in spirits, their number has very

much decreased, and the time is perhaps not far distant when they will

be entirely extirpated in the grotto, where from time immemorial they

had enjoyed an undisturbed security. The Proteus is one of those

remarkable reptiles which breathe at the same time through lungs and

gills, having on each side of the neck three rose-red branchiæ, which it

retains through life, as its lungs are but imperfectly developed. It has

a long, eel-like body with an elongated head, a compressed tail, and

four very short and thin legs. The skin is flesh-coloured, and so

translucent that the liver and the heart, which beats about fifty times

in a minute, can be distinctly seen underneath. In spite of its apparent

weakness, it is able to glide rapidly through the water. Its four little

legs remain immovable while swimming; they are only used for creeping,

and then in a very imperfect manner. During rapid movements the gills

swell and assume a lively scarlet colour; when quiet, they collapse and

become white like the rest of the body. Sometimes the animal raises its

head above the water to breathe, but pulmonary respiration evidently

plays but a secondary part in its economy, as it can only live a very

short time out of the water. The skeleton consists almost entirely of

cartilage. The eyes, two little black spots, lie buried under the skin,

and, as may well be imagined, are very imperfectly developed. Although

more than a thousand specimens have been observed, yet but little is

known about its mode of life, nor has it been ascertained whether it is

oviparous or brings forth live young. In a captive state the Proteus is

able to live for several years without any apparent food; but on

fastening a small worm to the extremity of a thin stick, and holding it

under the water close to the head of the reptile, it shoots rapidly

towards it, swallows it with the same velocity, then ejects it again,

and repeats this manœuvre several times, until it finally retains the

morsel. The untiring zeal of the German naturalists has discovered the

Proteus in thirty-one different caverns, and ascertained seven distinct

species, varying by their size, the form of the head, the position of

the eyes, and the colour of the skin. Six of these species belong to the

caverns of Carniola, and the seventh to those of Dalmatia. Two different

species never inhabit the same cavern.