FOWKE] ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATTONS 45 



most of it the stratum forming the roof is 15 feet high; near the 

 front the successive overlying strata project in a hollow curve until 

 at the face of the bluff the drop from the ledge to the talus immedi- 

 ately beneath it is fully 50 feet. 



At one side, near the rear, is a passage 5 or 6 feet wide, not visible 

 from the front, extending back into the hill. Although the cave is 

 usually dry, clean gravel in this passage shows that sufficient water 

 flows through at times to prevent earth from accumulating; further 

 evidence of which fact is found in the mud cracks of the floor and 

 the ferns growing amid the rocks, large and small, which cover it. 



The place could never have been occupied except for temporary 

 shelter, and there is no evidence that even this use was made of it. 



SELL CAM2 (IS) 



Half a mile directly south of Waynesville, on the farm of Dr. 

 W. J. Sell, is a cave located in the northern end of a ridge entirely 

 detached from the surrounding hills. The entrance, facing north- 

 east, is halfway up the point of the ridge, overlooking a fertile bot- 

 tom along Roubidoux Creek. From the top of the ledge over the 

 entrance the hill has an easy upgrade for a fourth of a mile to the 

 summit, which is at an elevation of 250 feet above the creek. On 

 top of the hill is the site of an Indian village where some mortars, 

 grinding stones, and numerous flints have been found. 



The roof of the cave has partially fallen in at the entrance, form- 

 ing a re-entrant curve 30 feet across and extending 11 feet inward; 

 the large blocks from this, and from the stratum described later, were 

 lying on and in the talus at the present front but did not extend 

 to the red clay beneath. Some of the blocks could be reduced with a 

 heavy sledge hammer to an extent that made it possible to roll them 

 out of the way ; but 24 of them had to be broken up Avith dynamite. 



The talus at its thickest part has a depth of 6 feet ; it extends down 

 the hill on the outside and has washed back into the cave, gradually 

 decreasing in quantity, to a distance of 50 feet. The roof, at the 

 front, is 5 feet above the talus; the thickness of the ledge forming 

 it is only 8 feet, the slope of the hill starting from this line. Owing 

 to the restricted width of the ridge, on top, the entire area draining 

 over the ledge measures only 70 feet in width above the entrance, 

 and narrows irregidarly to a breadth of 30 feet at an outcrop 120 

 feet up the hill, or with an approximate space of 6,000 square feet. 

 On this small tract more than half the rock is bare, with scanty 

 patches of soil and humus in the crevices and on flat places. At the 

 present time the water which flows over the ledge during hard rains 

 is scarcely turbid; consequently a period of several centuries was 

 required for the debris to accumulate. 



