1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



861 



any rocks or hills or any thing to indicate any 

 thing of the kind? " 



While he was fitting the key to the lock he 

 replied, " Well, we shall see," and we did see. 

 Right in front of the door was an opening. It 

 looked something like a well, and some stairs 

 went down into this well. It was a very dry 

 time in July, and the weather was exceeding- 

 ly warm. The draft of cold air that came out 

 of the well seemed quite refreshing. Around 

 the edges the ground was muddy. The guide 

 remarked there would not be any mud a little 

 way down, and so it proved. Now, I knew just 

 what made that wet muddy place around the 

 entrance. In a large cavern in Missouri, dur- 

 ing hot days the moisture from the air would 

 be precipitated on the roof of the cavern until 

 it trickled down and filled tubs that the wo- 

 men used for washing, so I was told. This 

 water is soft, of course — in fact, it is distilled 

 water. Air at, say, 70 to 80 degrees, contains 

 a large quantity of moisture that it can not 

 possibly hold when cooled down to about 50 or 

 60. Most caves are about 50 — sometimes a lit- 

 tle lower. Well, this cave at Flat Rock has 

 only one opening, if I am correct ; therefore 

 to get ventilation a stream of warm air goes 

 down along the highest part of the cave, and 

 a stream of colder air runs out of the cave 

 along the floor on the lower side. Now, as 

 this hot air goes down it drops this moisture 

 near the entrance along the rocks overhead. 

 This moisture drips from the rock at the sides 

 and overhead, so as to make it muddy. It is 

 said this cave was discovered by a boy who 

 went to dig out a rabbit out in the field. He 

 chased the animal into a hole, and in digging 

 down a little he found the rabbit away off un- 

 der the rock. By digging the hole a little 

 larger he found he coidd get in also. This 

 was a good many years ago. Since then, cu- 

 rious people have at different times explored 

 the cave further and further. I followed my 

 guide down the stairway. Sure enough, as we 

 got down further the ground became dryer as 

 the air became cooler. The first stairway was, 

 perhaps, 20 feet long. When we turned on 

 a little landing and started to go down anoth- 

 er stairway I uttered an exclamation of sur- 

 prise. But we went down three such stair- 

 ways before we came to the bottom ; and then 

 we twisted around here and there, down hill 

 and up hill, until I lost all the points of the 

 compass, and should have been lost in the lab- 

 yrinths had I been without a guide. 



At one point there is a large cavern with an 

 arched or vaulted roof big enough to hold sev- 

 eral hundred people ; in fact, I was told that 

 addresses have been made lrom the high rock, 

 fragments of the smaller rock furnishing seats 

 for the audience. Most of the way you can 

 walk upright quite easily, and the path is 

 very good ; but there are some passages where 

 none but a small person can possibly squeeze 

 through ; and I believe there is a considerable 

 part of it that has never yet been explored. It 

 is a limestone cavern, and remarkably dry 

 everywhere. The guide said he had been told 

 there was a place in one of the lowest cham- 

 bers where a small boy could get down to 

 where they found water ; but as he was a rath- 



er large man he had not seen it himself. This 

 cave, like many others of this kind, was evi- 

 dently produced by something giving way un- 

 derneath ; then the rocks tumbled down to fill 

 this cavity. While in Missouri I noted several 

 " drops " of this kind, where great holes were 

 left ; but in this case it seems the caving-in 

 never extended clear to the surface of the 

 ground, but so near to it, however, that the 

 rabbit in its burrow "caught on " to the very 

 highest part of the cavern. 



" Why, you people around here must have 

 to go down a tremendous way to get drinking- 

 water. How deep is the well that I saw right 

 beside your house as we came down ? " 



"My well is 180 feet deep. Some of the 

 neighbors have had to go still deeper to get 

 water. It is supposed that this cavern or se- 

 ries of caverns underdrains this whole region, 

 for we have little or no trouble with surface 

 water. There are no' streams of any account 

 near here. All surface water very soon gets 

 down into these caverns and is gone." 



Our older readers will remember my account 

 of the wonderful springs at Castalia, O. Well, 

 there is said to be an underground river in 

 Seneca Co., and well-drillers have satisfied 

 themselves that its course is toward the Casta- 

 lia springs. In fact, I am told that a quantity 

 of chaff, emptied into one of these caverns, in 

 the course of a few days came up out of one of 

 the largest of the Castalia springs, the ground 

 being considerably higher here than at Castalia. 

 All the sewage from round about Bellevue 

 goes down into these caverns ; and it occurs 

 to me that in the course of time this way of 

 doing may endanger the well water in that vi- 

 cinity, and perhaps also spoil that beautiful 

 spring away off in Castalia. 



As I emerged from the cave and took my 

 wheel again it was with a strange feeling that, 

 when we travel over the surface of the earth, 

 little do we know what is underneath us. At 

 one point in clambering up and down the cave 

 the guide said if I was not in a hurry we might 

 hear some strange noises. So we sat down on 

 a rock and waited awhile. Pretty soon we 

 heard a low rumbling. It came nearer and 

 nearer, and then began to diminish, and final- 

 ly gave place to the intense silence that always 

 seems to strike one in any of these under- 

 ground caverns. He explained that this point 

 in the cave was pretty near the top of the 

 ground, and right under the roadway where 

 there was considerable travel. In the middle 

 of the day visitors may usually hear vehicles 

 passing overhead, without waiting very long. 



Toward night I brought up at Tiffin, the 

 county-seat of Seneca Co., where, I was told, 

 there was an electric line running to Fostoria, 

 12 miles. As I had ridden almost enough for 

 one day I concluded to take the electric cars 

 providing they would carry my wheel for me. 



"Oh! yes," said my informant; "they 

 will carry your wheel or any thing else you 

 want carried. Why, they are so accommodat- 

 ing they will even carry a hog-trough. I 

 know, because they carried one for me, with- 

 out a bit of objection." 



I found what the man said was true, and all 

 of the employees of the road seemed gl?d to 



