Elephanta Caves

“ The fine grains of sharp sand, loosened from the lime rock and caught in the swift current of the small stream that at first found its way through a shrinkage crack of some particular bed of limestone, have undoubtedly given the water an uncommon erosive power, which, through the countless years of the cave’s history, has enabled that mountain torrent to carve out a mammoth channel in solid marble. ”

“ On turning the light of the magnesium lamp up the river, its rocky ledges are seen to be ornamented with stalactites and formation perfectly mirrored in the water, which is about 600 feet from the surface, and about 50 below the level of the Cave House in the centre of the valley. Never had river more romantic barriers. Human imagination could not conceive a freak of nature more wildly grand or mysteriously beautiful. There are large ornamented pillars near delicately-tinted formation, drooping from overhanging rocks, like pensile boughs of weeping willow. ”

“ And then again, partly perhaps the cause, partly the effect of the consecration of grottoes, began the caves of the hermits. There were the cave of S. Pelagia on Mount Olivet, the caves of S. Jerome, S. Paula, and S. Eustochium at Bethlehem, the cave of S. Saba in the ravine of Kedron, the remarkable cells hewn or found in the precipices of the Quarrantania or Mount of the Temptation above Jericho. ”

“ A great many small caverns have been thoroughly explored and are famous for their beauty. The Diamond Cave is one of the most splendid, for it is lined with walls and pillars of alabaster that sparkle in the torchlight with crystals that look like veritable diamonds. Beautiful springs and waterfalls are found in many caves, but the grandest of all is the Mammoth Cave, beside which no other is counted worthy to be compared. ”

“ Yes, men have lived, fought, and died in the great cave, and left their flint knives, their stone axes, and their bones to tell the tale. Women have lived and worked there; they left their necklaces, their anklets, their bone needles, their household pottery behind them. There have been feasts here, for amphoræ with traces of wine have been found. There were other caves—oh, many! sea caves and land caves; some “professors” say that the old name Calpe means caved mountain. Whether or not that is true, Scorp, of his own knowledge, assured us that the Rock is full of secret caverns. ”

“ A cave obviously may become dry, either by the drainage passing along a lower level, or by the elevation of the district by subterranean energy. After it has been forsaken by the stream, the particles brought down by the atmospheric water percolating through the joints, tend to fill it up on the surface, and these may be either of clay, loam, or sand.
These actions may be studied in this country in the well-known caves of Ingleborough, Buxton, Cheddar, Wookey Hole, and a great many others in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Durham, Cumberland, and Wales. ”

“ Ellis Cave.—On the estate of Dr. Ellis, 19 miles north of Fort Payne and 3 miles from Sulphur Springs, are two caves known locally as Big-mouth and Little-mouth. The smaller is closed by a locked gate. The larger has a rather imposing appearance from the outside. From a ledge of rock, in place, in front of it, one looks down a steep slope in which rocks up to 40 or 50 tons weight are imbedded. At a vertical depth of 30 feet is a level space not more than 8 or 10 square yards in area. ”

“ Without any great difficulty we can understand the process of cave excavation by the action of percolating acidulated water on the limestone, and its subsequent removal as the volume of surface drainage diverted to the new channel gradually increased. But it is not so easy to offer a reason for the varied forms with which the caves are afterwards decorated. Why is it the charmed waters do not leave the evidence of their slow passage only in plain surfaces of varying widths, and the stalactites and stalagmites whose formation we can readily account for? ”

“ The species so common in the alluvial formations, the elephants, rhinoceroses, horses, oxen or aurochs, and tapirs, are of very rare occurrence in the caves of Germany. There are even some in which no one is said to have found them, and the only bones of herbivora mentioned are remains of deer. In this point also, however, the Kirkdale cave differs much from the others, inasmuch as it abounds almost as much in bones of large and small herbivora, as in bones of carnivora. All the great pachydermata of the alluvial formations are seen in it: the elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotami. ”

“ In limestone caverns in Devon, Derbyshire, and Yorkshire, implements made by man are found in company with remains of the cave bear, cave hyæna, lion, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and other animals either extinct or no longer inhabitants of this country—remains which have been preserved under floors of stalagmite deposited in the caves. In caves of central France men have left carvings on bone and ivory, representing the wild animals of that day—carvings which show a remarkable artistic sense, and a keen observation of animal life. ”

“ In the next epoch fresh water work began and extensive marshes were formed, with an abundant growth of vegetation and reptiles. There was also much volcanic violence which resulted in the fine scenery in the north end of the Black Hills, and probably opened the fissures to form Wind Cave, the Onyx Caves in the southern hills and Crystal Cave near the eastern edge toward the north. ”

“ The result is extremely remarkable: instead of a large proportion of the existing species of animals, which, during the early periods of history, if not in later times, might have been expected to fall into fissures, retire into caves, or be dragged by wolves to their dens; we find the greater number of bones to belong to elephants, large feline animals, the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elk, hyaena, indiscriminately entombed with oxen, deer, and many smaller animals. The contents of the caves have a considerable general analogy in a given country, as England ”

“ At a point 22 yards north, on the passage to the Grotto Cave, at an angle, is a drop of 100 feet into the right-hand branch of the Imperial Cave.
Sitting on a thin shell of limestone, on the right-hand side, the visitor may pitch a stone into a hole 10 inches by 14 inches, and hear it strike the bottom of the black depth. He may thrust his candle down to arm's length underneath the mineral crust, and (if he be in a very cheerful vein) fancy he is peering into the Infernal Regions, over which he rests on a thin and fragile screen. ”

“ Those hanging from the ceiling are called stalactites and those on the floor are stalagmites. Where these two deposits are joined they are known as a column.
These cave formations are all composed of the mineral calcite, which forms all lime rock. If you will notice in the cave this mineral is crystalline, and it is remarkable that as calcite crystallizes from the many individual drops of water it is arranged always in a particular pattern. These crystal faces reflect light and form the many unusual and beautiful arrangements which you will see in a visit to the caves. ”

“ The caves were filled with detritus, lime, and a deposit of salt in cubes. They were perfectly dry, without stalactites or petrifactions of any kind except the cubes of salt. The largest cave could contain twenty or thirty men, and has a long, low, narrow gallery running from one side, which would be invisible when the sun does not shine through the entrance. This is in the wilderness of Engaddi, and the fountain is just beyond the next ravine. ”

“ It contains stalactites and stalagmites, white and coloured—variegated shawls—sombre marble and sparkling rocks, clusters of formation, and elephantine masses of carbonate of lime in shapes which prove how much more subtle than professors of art is Nature herself. At the south end a cave slopes down, and there are boulders and débris stained with iron, as well as other indications of great soakage and percolation. ”

“ When the water no longer reaches the formations, they "die", i.e., they no longer continue to grow. They lose their sheen and lustre and take on a powdery appearance.
Geologists differentiate the two primary effects of seeping water in the creation of the formations in caves. Those that are created by water dripping from above, as in the case with stalactites and stalagmites, are referred to as dripstone formations. Those created by the- 63 - flowing of water over a surface are called flowstone formations. In some rooms of the cave, formations made of flowstone are quite abundant. ”

“ ALTHOUGH the caves at Ellora do not possess that unity and completeness which characterises those of Ajunta, their variety, and the exceptional magnificence of some of them, renders them perhaps even more interesting: but it must be confessed they are in consequence far more difficult to understand. It is only, indeed, after having become familiar with all the other forms of Cave architecture, that their history becomes at all intelligible. ”

“ The caves are on a hill about two miles or more from the travellers' bungalow. We entered seemingly into the heart of the mountain, and found ourselves in the body of the temple or cave, which is separated from the side-aisles by fifteen columns of magnificent design and workmanship; on each side, on the upper part of each of these columns, are two kneeling elephants, and on each elephant are two seated human figures, sometimes a male and female, with their arms around each other's shoulders sometimes the figures are both female. ”

“ All sense of time and direction are lost in the myriad of decoration, light and shadow, gigantic, often grotesque formations, and the serenity of this underground heaven.
Passing quietly ahead the traveler pauses at the largest "living" stalagmite within the known part of the Caverns, the Crystal Spring Dome. Generally dry, this part of the Big Cave is moist, and water, dripping slowly from the ceiling above, is still depositing its minute quantities of calcium on the mighty Crystal Spring Dome as it has been doing for countless centuries. ”

“ But the country is not only rugged and mountain-spurred; it possesses curiosities even greater beneath the surface than those which diversify the sun-kissed landscape over which we have just passed. On Elk Creek, and entered from the cañon wall, is Keith’s Crystal Cave, a colossal rent in the mountain bowels, with passages fifteen miles in length. It is beautifully chambered, from which depend the most exquisite crystallizations in the form of stalactites and stalagmites that reflect the torchlight in glorious colors, dancing from column of onyx to pools of pellucid water. ”

“ It is difficult to say which set of caves are most worth seeing; differing in many respects, they may be said to afford equal attraction to the traveller. Ellora can boast of the wonderful “Kylas;” Ajunta of those most interesting frescoes which carry the art of painting back to an unknown period, but which at Ellora have been almost totally obliterated by the ruthless and fanatical zeal of Aurungzebe. ”

“ Returning to the main passage, the tourist descends 41 steps, and enters the Shawl Cave, a magnificent chamber, the roof of which slopes at an angle of about 43 degrees. Into one side the "formation" of carbonate of lime has floated like lava in volumes, and presents the appearance of a suddenly congealed cascade. All the adjacent rocks are covered with fine sheets of formation, white and coloured, and hanging in graceful folds. On a far-off wall is more formation of a similar kind, projecting from a perpendicular rock, and variegated with superb tracery and colouring. ”

“ It is thought that what is now the North Sea was, at the time the elephants lived there, a swamp in which the animals went to drink and bathe, and in which, at times, they became mired; and that this is why so many of their bones are found along that coast.
Mammoths were very like big elephants, with tusks that turned up. There are none on earth now. Neither are there any cave tigers. And the two-horned rhinoceros has gone, and the great snowy owl.
Caverns and rock shelters in which men of the Stone Age lived have been found in many places in our own country and in other lands. ”

“ Bower. To reach the Lucinda Cave from the junction, the visitor passes over a level floor, like cement, about 12 feet in length. This cave is remarkable for its scenic grandeur. The spectator stands in mute admiration, and gazes upon the magnificent sight like one who is spellbound. The beauty is Brobdignagian in its proportions. The figures are all colossal. There are immense stalactites and stalagmites of every hue. An enormous mass of formation droops from the ceiling to the summit of a stalagmitic mound upon which it rests. ”

“ Among their contents have been found the remains of almost every quadruped elsewhere found fossil in British caves: in some places the Elephas primigenius, accompanied by its usual companion the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, in others Elephas antiquus associated with Rhinoceros hemitœchus Falconer; the extinct animals being often embedded, as in the Belgian caves, in the same matrix with species now living in Europe, such as the common badger (Melee taxus) , the common wolf, and the fox. ”

“ Of its contemporaneous existence with man in Europe, we have evidence not only in the discovery of stone implements along with its remains, but a few years since a fragment of the tusk of a Mammoth was found in the cave of La Madelaine in the Dordogne, on which was a rude but faithful representation of this hairy Elephant, etched by means of the stone implement of some cave dweller of the period, when, together with the Reindeer and the Bear, it roamed over Southern France. ”