DESCRIPTION OF MARBLE CAVE, MISSOURI. 619 



tortuous, monotonous, has no water formations on walls or roof, descends with 

 the rapid current of the stream, and has in some places a rough, and in others, a 

 sHppery floor. The rock is granite of beautiful colors and of a high degree of 

 fineness. The emery rock already mentioned also shows itself in some places. 

 The passage might be followed farther ; but has not been yet from lack of time. 

 Bats are still occasionally found. Some guano, but not in beds ; probably the water 

 has mostly carried it off. Following from the bottom of the shaft the same passage 

 in an opposite direction, one descends more than when moving the other way. 

 It winds round, and while it continues (about which more anon) soon therefrom 

 branches off another passage. This traverses four rooms in succession, and ends 

 by reaching the bottom of the precipice, first seen from the great gap in the wall 

 of the Blow Room. The four rooms average about twenty feet in height, and 

 vary in width from ten to twenty-five feet and in length from thirty to sixty feet. 

 Three have projecting ledges running all around along the sides, interrupted only 

 by the openings of the passage. One can walk over those ledges as in a gallery. 

 The floors slant and are, as well as the walls and roof, of granite and yellow and 

 variegated marble. Very little guano. Here and there are holes in the floor, 

 showing underneath similar rooms of less height. In these lower rooms are sev- 

 eral small, swift streams of very clear water, running in different directions. 



The room constituting the precipice is 230 feet high, nearly circular, and 

 seventy-five feet in diameter. It is called the Voice Room, because frequently 

 sounds are heard there, so strikingly resembling human voices that an explorer, 

 on first entering it drew a revolver in self-defense. Probably they are echoes of 

 falling water, and depend on the rush. The lower part of the Voice Room is 

 emery rock, the upper part granite, between which two the top of the precipice, 

 or level of the Blow Room, is about the dividing line. Opposite the passage 

 through which one has entered, is a kite-shaped crack in the wall. This crack 

 runs up about twenty feet. Near the top it is about twenty feet wide, and at the 

 bottom the sides close together in a point. It is the entrance of an almost 

 straight passage which retains that shape, and first descends, at an angle of 45°, 

 but later becomes a little less steep. The crack grows larger at the top and 

 higher, till it reaches sixty-five feet in height and, near the top, forty feet in 

 width ; but at the bottom it always remains, coming to a point. Here and there 

 in that bottom are holes affording a view of rooms below, to a depth of about 

 thirty feet. It is all emery rock ; no other rock is any longer met with. It leads 

 into what is called the Waterfall Room. This room is crescent-shaped, and 

 about 100 feet high. One enters it at one of the corners of the crescent. From 

 there to the opposite corner is about 200 feet. About the center it is thirty feet 

 feet wide. Near this center, about the middle of the outer line of the crescent, 

 is a recess in the shape of a horse shoe. The two points of the horse shoe are 

 fifty feet apart, and the curved line between 125 feet. The wall of this recess is 

 perpendicular and sixty feet high. Down it falls, with great force, a large body 

 of water coming from rooms above. One can pass behind the fall; between it 

 and the wall. The spray is such as to extinguish, anywhere in front, a light not 



