140 BUREAU OF AMERICAi^ ETHKOLOGY [bull. 73 



the lower end of a steep bluff which forms the river front of a 

 high hill or mountain, as such elevations are called here. A few 

 feet above high- water mark a narrow ledge or shelf projects, which 

 can be reached only from a point on the side of the hill just above 

 the ferry. About 100 yards from here the ledge reaches a cave, 

 which has a high and wide entrance, with ample space for several 

 families to live on a fairly level, well lighted floor. If the cave 

 were dry, it would be an ideal primitive home. But water continu- 

 ally seeps down the hill aboA'e and falls over the roof at the en- 

 trance, while a gully through the cave and several minor washes, 

 as well as the mud spread over the floor, show that a large amount 

 of water flows through the cave in wet seasons and covers all the 

 floor except an area some 15 feet in diameter. This is dry on top, 

 but would be muddy at a depth of 3 or 4 feet, the level of the bot- 

 tom of the gully, so no exploration was attempted. 



Welburn's Ca\^. — Six miles northeast of Guntersville is a cave in 

 which many human bones have been found. It is only a burial 

 place and could never have been used as a dwelling. The entrance, 

 barely large enough to crawl into, is at one side of the bottom of a 

 large sink hole due to the falling in of a cave roof. It receives all 

 the rainfall of more than an acre and is nearly choked with mud and 

 driftwood. It may have been somewhat larger at one time, as there 

 is a tradition that a deer was chased through the cave, coming out 

 at Bailey's Cave, a mile away. Within a few rods the water sinks 

 into the earth, and the floor of the cave, rising beyond this point, is 

 dry. It was on this dry earth, not in it, that the skeletons were 

 found. The floor is uneven, at some places permitting a man to 

 stand, and at others rising to within 3 feet of the roof. Explora- 

 tions can not be made, as there is no method of disposing of the 

 removed earth. 



Bailey's Cave. — This cave is 7 miles northeast of Guntersville. 

 The entrance is high and wide and there is a large, well-liglited area 

 within; but the cave is flooded every time Town Creek gets out of 

 its banks. Bailey's Cave is the other end of Welburn's Cave, as 

 persons haA'e gone through the hill from one to the other. 



Barnard Caye. — This cave, which is also called Alford's and is 

 still more commonly known as Saltpeter Cave, is on the left bank of 

 the Tennessee 10 miles below Guntersville and opposite the Fearin 

 property. The entrance is at the foot of a bluff overlooking a strip 

 of bottom land a fourth of a mile wide, but the opening is above any 

 flood that has occurred since the country was settled. At the foot 

 of the slope is a bayou filled with Tupelo gums. Between this and 

 the river the ground can be cultivated. 



The cave is so straight and the walls so smooth as to look like an 

 artificial tunnel. The entrance is in plain view from a point 380 



