No. 6. — Cave Animals from Southwestern Missouri. By Samuel 



Gakman. 



Though a kuowledge of their inhabitants would appear to be of the 

 greatest importance in connection with the study of the cave life of 

 Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and elsewhere, up to tlie present time 

 the caverns of Missouri have received little or no attention from the 

 zoologist. The existence of numerous and extensive caves west of the 

 Mississippi has been well known to geologists for a long time. There is 

 frequent mention of them in the various Geological Eeports ; but among 

 the notices only a single one touches on their animal occupants. The 

 cavernous belt of Missouri is a hundred and fifty miles or more in width, 

 and extends diagonally quite across the State from northeast to south- 

 west. On the Mississippi, roughly estimated, it reaches from Clark to 

 St. Louis County, and at the opposite extremity it stretches at the least 

 from Vernon to Howell County. The geological positions of the caves 

 range from the St. Louis limestone of the Lower Carbohiferous to the 

 third Magnesian limestone of the Lower Silurian. To the northward 

 the formations lie in a plane that nearly coincides with that of the 

 horizon. In Clark County the Keokuk limestone is at the surface ; in 

 St. Louis, it is that known by the name St. Louis ; and between these 

 points it is mainly the Burlington group that appears at the top. In 

 the southwest a section across the belt cuts from the Carboniferous 

 to the Silurian, as if toward a centre of upheaval in the southeastern 

 portion of the State. 



Caves have been reported from some twenty different counties, and 

 in a number of instances particular ones have been described at length. 

 Among the better known are those of Ralls, Boone, Phelps, Greene, 

 Christian, Ozark, and McDonald. Whatever the causes, vhether dif- 

 ferences in the strata, the inclinations, the amount of fall iri the water- 

 courses, or in the water itself, the caves appear to become more extensive 

 and more numerous toward the southwestern portion of the State. 

 Fisher's Cave, in Ealls County, has an opening of ninety feet in width 

 by twenty in height, and more than four hundred feet from the entrance 



VOL. XVII. — NO. 6. 15 



