12 On the Caves Perforating Marble 



The entrance to this cave is fully twenty feet above the 

 level of the Limestone Creek, and is exceedingly narrow. 

 The difficulty encountered on entering is, however, amply 

 recompensed for by the pleasure experienced when the 

 interior beauties are brought into view — pendeDt crystalline 

 stalactites of innumerable forms of beauty stud the ceiling, 

 while the floors and sides, in addition to numerous stalag- 

 mital pillars, are here and there fretted with a rich deposit 

 of glittering calcitic crystals. The rough sketch is a faint 

 endeavour to portray the characteristic cave scenery. 



In many places the floor is made up of thick deposits of 

 silt, covered by a thin stalagmital coating ; while in others 

 the original silt has been removed, leaving a thin floor of 

 stalagmite. 



In many places where fissures exist to the surface from 

 the uppermost cavern, the sides of the latter are covered 

 with a mass of soft, milky- white substance, fully three 

 inches thick, which I cannot describe better than by calling 

 it calcareous froth. The substance hardens upon exposure 

 to the external air, and is most abundant after a heavy rain- 

 fall, when the interior of the cave is in a moist condition. 

 The marble, where examined on the sides and roof of the 

 cave, although the bedding was more obscure and apparently 

 of greater thickness than seen on the weathered surface, 

 yet still retained the objectionable yellow seams discernible 

 at the surface. The only fossils obtained in the vicinity 

 of this cave were impressions of encrinites, too obscure for 

 palaeontological identification. A section through the caves, 

 and the deposit in which they are situated, gives the features 

 shown in Diagram No. 4, and in following the deposit along 

 the line of strike the beds are seen to be flexured to a 

 considerable extent, and narrow at their extremities to thin 

 bands of corrugated calcareous shale, as in Diagram 4. 



Cave No. 2. — Sheean's Cave. 



This is, perhaps, the largest cave in the series, and is 

 situate at the base of an extensive bluff of marble on the 

 western side of Limestone Creek, about half-a-mile below 

 Pendergast's Cave (see sketch). The general direction of 

 the cave conforms to the existing drainage system of the 

 Limestone Creek, and is nearly parallel with the strike of the 

 beds themselves. Where the ramifications are rectangular 

 to the general direction, they are, I think, produced by the 



