FowKE] ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 35 



mite occurs in it. It has a number of branches, some of which ha\e 

 been explored for several hundred yards without coming to the end. 

 The entrance is 90 feet in width. A pile of talus at the front, lyinp; 

 partly inside the cavern, reaches nearly to the roof ; it has a height of 

 26 to 28 feet above the level of the wet, muddy floor. Drainage is 

 through a small aperture in the north wall, whose outlet is not known. 

 Apparently the bedrock lies at a considerable depth • it is not visible 

 at any point in the steep ravine leading from the mouth of the cave to 

 the river. Formerly a large quantity of ashes covered much of the 

 inner slope of the talus, where it is protected from the weather ; but 

 most of them have been hauled away to scatter over the fields. They 

 extend to a greater depth than any digging* was ever carried. The 

 cavern has long been a refuge for stock, and this, with the trampling 

 of many visitors, has mingled all the superficial deposits, so that, 

 while ashes maj^ be seen mixed with the debris, no ash beds are now 

 to be found. 



There must be a very pronounced cavernous condition in this 

 vicinity. At a number of places, even extending to a distance of 

 2 miles from Onyx Cave, the passage of a wagon produces a rumbling 

 sound, indicative of a cavity at no great depth. There are also many 

 sink holes, some closed, forming ponds, others with free openings. 

 They are so numerous that no one of them drains any considerable 

 area. Tlie largest of these sinks measures from top to top of its slopes 

 about three- fourths of a mile long and half a mile wide. Around 

 much of its margin are vertical cliffs; there are few places where 

 descent is practicable. It is 300 feet deep, perhaps more ; for when 

 the Gasconade, more than a mile away, is at flood stage the water 

 from it, backing through an underground passage, breaks in at two 

 different points not at the same elevation, and covers the nearly 

 level floor of the depression, about 15 acres in area, to a depth oi" 

 15 to 20 feet. 



Another sink, near this, is conical in form, a fourth of a mile 

 across and more than 200 feet deep. 



C;0AT RLT^FF CAVE (10) 



Goat Bluff Cave, 4 miles west of Arlington, on the left bank of 

 the Gasconade, is at the foot of a vertical cliff 50 feet high, the slope 

 above rising about as much higher to the crest of the ridge. A few 

 yards to the west is a slight ravine through which, with a little 

 effort, the top of tlie hill may be reached. In front, the declivity, 

 while steep as earth will lie, furnishes fairly easy passage to and 

 from the river wdiich lies 200 feet below. 



The entrance to the cave is an arch 30 feet high and 75 feet wide, 

 facing a little east of south. The width holds nearly the same for 



