130 BUREAU or AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 76 



entrance through Avhich one must crawl. After driving until the 

 horses were tired out and being assured at several scattered cabins 

 that it was "jest a leetle mite furder up thar," search for it was 

 abandoned 



GRUNDY COUNTY 



Hublin's or Bat Cave. — Xumerous caves and rock-shelters are 

 reported in the region about Beersheba Springs. The shelters seem 

 to be shallow with comparatively little earth on the floor. Of the 

 caves, the description given of all but the one named was such as to 

 show them not worth visiting. It is about 10 miles northwest of the 

 springs. Its course is approximately parallel with the mountain 

 ridge, passing under two low foothills or spurs separated by a ravine. 

 When the stream flowing through the latter had cut its channel 

 down to the top of the cave it poured into the hole it had worn. 

 Frost and the natural erosion have made an opening more than 60 

 feet long. Both parts of the cave remain open, being too large at this 

 point to become choked by the small amount of material which the 

 brook had left as a roof. In some places, so far as it was examined, 

 the ceiling is 50 feet or more above the rocks covering the floor ; and 

 one end, that into which the ravine drains, has a continuous and 

 rather steep descent, along the natural dip, as far as it could be fol- 

 lowed. A^Hiere the exploration ended logs, drift, brush, etc., piled 

 10 or 12 feet high against huge rocks that had tumbled down, proved 

 a current strong enough to wash away any deposits that may ever 

 have existed; consequently the only earth in this end was that 

 brought by floods. 



The other end of the cave is large, with an entrance of such size 

 that small print could easily be read 100 feet from the front if the 

 broad fence across it were removed. This fence was made to close the 

 cave against changes of temperature and also against marauders, it 

 having been used until lately as a storage room for fruit, pota- 

 toes, etc. 



During the Civil War it was worked for saltpeter. All the earth, 

 down to the rock floor, was removed, even in crevices only wide 

 enough for a man to squeeze through. An incline was built so that 

 horses could be brought into the cave, and no earth now remains 

 w^ithin reach of daylight. The rock floor is almost as clean as if 

 swept. 



Their exhaustive digging extended for about 200 yards from the 

 entrance. The " face " of the earth is here about 15 feet high ; for 

 some reason, which could not be learned, the miners continued their 

 work from here by means of a tunnel 4 or 5 feet high and wide, leav- 

 ing a floor of earth, and a covering of the same nearly 6 feet thick. 

 This tunnel was not followed. 



