3^ NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Shelter cave is the name given to a small cavern in the cliff 

 back of the horse of Mr Samuel Clark on the same side of the creek. 

 It is excavated from the basal beds of the Becraft limestone, is dry 

 except in the spring and after exceptionally heavy rains and can 

 be penetrated for some 25 feet by a small person lying flat. 



The Schoharie valley does not occupy a position favoring the 

 supposition that a large cavern may open into it. Cut off from the 

 plateaus to the north by the Cobleskill and Fox creeks, the terraces 

 bordering it succeed one another too rapidly to afford any very 

 extensive gathering ground for surface waters. The only oppor- 

 tunity offered would be where a stream coursing down the hillside 

 had found access to the soluble limestones through heavily jointed 

 beds. This is said to be the case where the brook flowing down the 

 north face of Sunset hill at East Cobleskill crosses the Onondaga. - 



Section II 

 Caverns of the Cobleskill valley 



The Cobleskill valley receives underground drainage from the 

 region north and west of it. All caves indicated by " rock holes " 

 or streams disappearing in the limestones of this area as far as the 

 Mohawk river undoubtedly open into this valley. Between Central 

 Bridge and Braymanville the mouths of those of the Manlius zone 

 are to be looked for. Only two were found but the existence of 

 several others is indicated by springs. 



Howe's cave is the largest cavern thus far discovered in the 

 State. It is located 40 miles from Albany on the line of the 

 Delaware and Hudson Railroad. The entrance is at the base of 

 the cliff back of the hotel. The accessible part of the axial cavity 

 extends for 44 11 feet in a generally northwest direction and through- 

 out its length the true floor, though for the most part covered by 

 clay and fallen blocks of limestone, lies near the bottom of the 

 Manlius where a series of resistant beds has formed what may be 

 called a base level of ready solution above which the original 

 channel was made. Ten side passages enter the cave from the 

 north and the existence of six others coming from the same direc- 

 tion is to be inferred. Only one is of any considerable length 

 and all the smaller ones are filled with clay or calcite. A fair- 

 sized stream coming from a pool which fills the continuation of the 

 cavern flows through the main cave to within 1160 feet of the en- 



'Grabau. A. W. N. Y. State Miis. Bui. 92, p. 193. 



