THIRD REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I906 47 



Section III 

 Caverns of the Fox Creek valley 



The valley of the Fox creek receives underground drainage from 

 the region lying north of it. Cut nearly along the strike in its 

 lower course, it offers conditions favorable for the excavation of 

 a number of small caves but a large one is hardly to be looked for. 

 Without exception the mouths of these were found to be choked by 

 deposits of the cavern streams or buried by glacial material. 



There is one on the Martin Spateholts farm at Shutter Corners, 

 another near the head of the Louse kill, and a third farther down 

 the same stream above the sawmill on ground owned by Wesley 

 Wilbur. 



Ball's cave is the only one of the group which is accessible.- 

 The entrance is a vertical shaft in the Coeymans limestone located 

 on the north side of Barton hill, ^ mile southeast of the point 

 where the road tO' Quaker Street crosses the county line. It is 

 reached by a wood road from the house of Edwin Dietz and admits 

 one to a cavern which, as far as- can be seen, has been dissolved out 

 of the basal Manlius beds. 



A steep descent from the bottom of the shaft leads to a point in 

 the cave about midway between the limits of exploration in either 

 direction. At some seasons the whole cavern is full of water but 

 usually the downstream (southwestern) half can be traversed 

 without a boat. This part extends for 200 feet to a mass of fallen 

 fragments which must be climbed in order to reach what has been 

 spoken of in the meager literature of the cave, as its chief attrac- 

 tion, a large room named the ''Rotunda" or "Amphitheater." 

 Nothing remarkable was found in the chamber and published 

 descriptions which have pictured it as " rich in stalactitic decora- 

 tions " have been drawn from perfervid imaginings rather than 

 from facts. 



This room and the passages beyond it lie at a level higher than 

 that of the principal channel which is buried by clay and fragments. 

 The cave stream appears as a spring in the last chamber reached 

 and disappears again almost immediately beneath a mass of lime- 

 stone precipitated from the roof. 



The upstream (northeastern) end of the cavern always contains 

 water which in places is as much as 7 feet deep. The stream is 

 retained as a series of pools behind natural dams of tufa formed 

 apparently as deposits from flowing water. Three hundred and 



