356 Dr Davy's Account of Golems Cave, Barbadoes, 



the hilly part of the island, in a northerly direction. There 

 is a stream on each side, which may be adduced in favour of 

 either hypothesis ; but the course the chasm takes, so far as 

 it has been penetrated, favours most the latter. The cavern 

 occurs in a calcareous rock, — an aggregate exceedingly va- 

 rious in different situations, — often abounding in shells and 

 coral, often having the character of freestone. This applies 

 to the formation generally. 



"Water is plentiful in the cavern; there are few places 

 where there is not a dropping of it from the roof, and, as al- 

 ready mentioned, a spring of water rises in it. This occurs, 

 it may be, about fifty yards from the mouth. It is copious. 

 Its temperature, when I tried it about noon on the 11th July, 

 was 77° Fahr., which, probably, is about the mean annual 

 temperature of the spot. It gushes from the rock with force, 

 and immediately forms a pretty and clear rivulet, which, af- 

 ter flowing some way, is lost, and a little farther reappears, 

 and continues sometimes running sluggishly, forming pools, 

 sometimes rapidly, as far as this the main chasm has been 

 traced. It may be mentioned, that another chasm, communi- 

 cating with this, is without a running stream. In its bed, 

 however, are some pools of water, and large deposits of clay, 

 which also occur in the first mentioned at intervals ; clearly 

 indicating that during floods, the consequence of heavy rains, 

 the cave is liable to be inundated, the clay suspended in the 

 water subsiding on rest ; and thus farther indicating, that 

 the outlet of these chasms is very narrow, so as to admit 

 of a small stream only flowing out, and, consequently, of 

 accumulation and rising of the water and of a partial rest 

 within. The clay or mud traces on the walls of the cavern 

 shew that the depth of the collected water, when highest, is 

 many feet. 



Though so moist, and though all the other circumstances 

 of the cavern seem favourable to vegetation, excepting one — 

 the exclusion of light, — there is a total absence in it of vege- 

 tation, even of the lowest kind ; not even a mucor is to be de- 

 tected, at least I sought for such in vain. The only living 

 things known to be found in its recesses are a few of the fresh- 

 water crayfish of Barbadoes in the stream, some insects of the 



