DESCRIPTION OF MARBLE CAVE, MISSOURI. 617 



thirty feet long and forty feet high. This room, during cool weather, is so filled 

 with bats that they completely cover and hide the wall all around, giving it the 

 appearance of black velvet. Whenever disturbed they fly about in such numbers 

 as to put out any light not protected by a lantern, and incessantly flap against 

 one's face. Hence the room is called The Battery. A very thick layer of guano 

 covers the floor. At the further end is a small stream of water, about three 

 inches deep and three feet wide, all saturated with guano, and running onward 

 between rocks. A boy, Dick Powell, son of a member of the cave company, 

 followed the stream for a distance of loo feet and then, coming to a precipice, 

 turned back. Through the passage from the Battery to the Mother Hubbard 

 Room, a strong inward current of air constantly forces itself. Therefore this 

 passage has been designated as the Inward Wind Passage. 



2. A second passage, about three and a half feet high and the same in 

 width, is called the Outward Wind Passage, by reason of a current of air rushing 

 from the cave with such force as to extinguish any light not in a lantern. It has 

 been explored only about 150 feet, at which point progress is stopped by cross 

 stratum of onyx, dividing the passage and rendering it too narrow. A large fire of 

 pine knots once was kindled in it, and the draft carried the smoke off without 

 hindrance. Probably it leads to an opening in the side of the mountain. 



3. A third passage, slanting with an incline of 45°, and circular like a hole, 

 three and a half feet in diameter, leads to a room about thirty feet long, ten feet 

 wide and fifteen feet high. This room is called Powell's Room, after T. S. 

 Powell, vice-president of the company, who discovered it. A short straight pas- 

 sage, also a creepway, leads from this to a similar room, in size half of the former. 

 Another creepway connects this second room with a third still smaller, in size 

 about one-third of the first. The floors of these three rooms are vast deposits of 

 guano, depth unknown. A fourth passage leads farther on but has not been 

 explored, because it has been greatly stopped up with guano. The walls of 

 these three rooms are smooth blocks of white onyx and dove-colored and red 

 marble piled up. 



4. A fourth passage, in size similar to the former, runs down at an angle 

 of 45°, to an almost circular room about fifteen feet in diameter and ten feet high. 

 This room seems to have been a den of bears, as the ground, also a guano bot- 

 tom, is strewn with bones of bears. Waste water, from the spring in the cave, 

 runs through this room and into a farther room, visible but not accessible along 

 the stream. The guano is partly spoilt by the water. Rock, marble and onyx. 



5. A fifth passage, the most tortuous of all, circular in shape, about 190 

 feet long, and at some points only two and a half feet high, leads to a room of 

 serpentine shape, not over three and a half feet in height. The floor of this room 

 is brilliant red clay, very strongly impregnated with saltpetre. Here neither bat 

 nor guano is found. But the room, the length and width of which has not been 

 accurately ascertained, is filled with mummified animals. There are bears, pan- 

 thers, otters, racoons, opossums, wolves, foxes, lynxes, etc., and one specimen 

 of what seems to be an antediluvian animal of the genus pterodactylus.~ Also 



