l.URAY CAVERN, PAGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 451 



rock stratum out of which the cavity has been excavated appears fre- 

 quently on the surface throughout the neighborhood. The cave, there- 

 fore, is not in the side of a mountain, as most of the party had supposed, 

 but at least four or five miles from the mountain ranges on either side. 

 It has no obvious relation with them, except that its origin was partly 

 coincident with their origin, and with the excavation of the valley by 

 erosion. Indeed, it must be remembered that this gnawing away of ma- 

 terial has produced not only the valleys, but the mountains themselves 

 as they now exist, although they have such a considerable elevation 

 above the lowlands. 



The rocks throughout the whole of this region have been much dis- 

 placed, having been flexed into great folds, the direction of which coin- 

 cides with that of the Appalachian mountain range. In fact, these 

 folds are a remnant of the results of that series of movements in which 

 the whole system primarily originated. 



The rock out of which Luray Cavern has been excavated is a compact, 

 bluish limestone, not very evenly bedded, and weathering ruggedly on 

 account of its heterogeneous texture. The few fossils discovered indi- 

 cate that this limestone stratum is of Lower Silurian, probably belong- 

 ing to the Trenton period. 



The position of the cav^e in the middle of an open valley, distant from 

 the mountains, and so much below their crests, shows that it was hollowed 

 out toward the close of the epoch within which the formation of the vaUey 

 took i^Iace. The charac^ter of the erosion leads to the conviction that 

 the excavation was effected subsequently to the formation of the great 

 folds referred to above. It is also plain that the foldings took place 

 after the close of the Carboniferous period, because the strata of that 

 period and those of later date are known to have been involved. 



It is thus evident that the geological date of the origination of Luray 

 Cave, although it is carved out of Silurian limestone, is considerably 

 later than the close of the Carboniferous period. None of the facts yet 

 ascertained warrant a more definite conclusion concerning the limits of 

 the antiquity of the souterraiu, and the most recent epoch at which it 

 might have been formed is the Tertiary. It is highly probable that the 

 date of its origination is not more ancient than that of the Mammoth 

 Cave or the Wyandotte. 



The history of its i^roduction is, of course, divided into two periods, 

 namely, its excavation and ornamentation. The latter was wholly pro- 

 duced after, and perhaps long after, the chasm was finished. The 

 cavity was wrought by the same agencies that produce all such effects 

 in limestone formations, namely, by the erosion and by the dissolving 

 action of water holding carbonic acid in solution, and coursing through 

 previously formed fissures in the rocks. These cavities gradually be- 

 come enlarged into chambers by the falling and removal of loose mate- 

 rial to lower levels, and even through open outlets to the general drain- 

 age of the country. 



