
CAVES 115 
the Open Cut, in the early eighty’s and a great block of malachite and 
azurite weighing about four tons taken from the Mine in 1892 and 
exhibited in the Arizona mining exhibit at the Columbian Exposition 
in 1893. 
The northwest corner of the hall contains a display of caves and cave 
material including a reproduction of part of a beautiful 
cave that was discovered early in 1910 in mining opera- 
tions at the Copper Queen mine. The cave was formed by the dissolv- 
ing action of water traversing joints in limestone, and its walls, roof 
and bottom were afterward coated with calcite (cale spar) incrustations, 
stalactites and stalagmites, some of which are dazzling white while 
others are ‘colored green with copper salts or pink with manganese 
compounds. 
Alongside the Copper Queen cave is a reproduction of a chamber in 
Weyer’s Cave, Virginia. Weyer’s Cave is in a region of much heavier 
rainfallthan Bisbee, which is probably the principal factor in producing 
a greater wealth of regular stalactite and stalagmite growth than adorns 
the Copper Queen cave, and this exhibit illustrates not only their great 
variety in form but the reasons for this extraordinary diversity. 
Among the cave material shown nearby is a series of tumblers into 
which water from the stalactites was allowed to drip for stated periods, 
the thickness of the deposit giving some measures of the length of time 
necessary for the formation of stalactites and stalagmites. 
Particularly attractive are the marvelously beautiful specimens 
of calcite, aragonite and gypsum from the famous silver- 
and-lead mines near Santa Eulalia in the vicinity of 
Chihuahua, Mexico. These specimens are remarkable 
for the perfection of their crystalline form or the delicacy of their fibrous 
developments and for their colors. 
[Return to the Hall of Mastodons and Mammoths and turning to the 
right enter the West Corridor or Gem Hall.] 
Caves 
Chihuahua 
Cave Material 
