Sea cave

“ Outside, the water is Prussian blue in colour, and over a thousand feet deep, but within the arch of the cave the bottom shoots up till it is within a hundred feet of the glass-clear surface on which we float, hanging above the silver-coloured coral reefs of the deep sea-bed, like birds hanging in air. The roof and walls of the cave are brilliant verdigris green, the water-floor, that curves so. closely in and out of the numerous arches and recesses, where mysterious shadows creep, is sapphire shot with fire. At one side of the cave there is a dark winding corridor leading to depths unknown. ”

“ Thus storm waves little by little pry and suck the rock loose, and in this way, and by the blows which they strike with the stones of the beach, they quarry out about a joint, or wherever the rock may be weak, a recess known as a sea cave, provided that the rock above is coherent enough to form a roof. ”

“ The cave itself was about six feet deep, and very dank and dismal-looking. There was no sign of there ever having been treasure, for nobody could possibly have buried it, unless they’d hewn places in the living rock, like ancient Egyptians. We might have thought of that before, but of course we didn’t honestly believe that there was treasure. Somehow the Sea Monster didn’t seem nearly so jolly and exciting as it had from Wecanicut. It was so real and big, and whenever a wave came in, it boomed and echoed under the hanging-over rocks. ”

“ I have been busily making inquiries about disused smugglers' caves down west, with this result. A sailor named Butler came to me yesterday and said he could produce a man, a rather old man, who could furnish information of a curious cave striking from the roof of the cliff to the wash of the sea. It had not been used since 1807, but you can still at ebb walk from the lower orifice on to the beach, and from the next to the lower orifice you can use a boat whilst the tide is making. ”

“ No light enters the cavern by the low part of the entrance above water. Below the surface it widens and the strong Southern sun shines through the clear water and its light is reflected up into the cave from the bottom. It is blue, and everything in the cave above as well as below the water is suffused with a blue glow—a truly wonderful and fascinating spectacle. In order to get the best effect you must choose an hour when the sun is in a favourable position. Where there is a white bottom at a depth of fifty or a hundred feet, the sea has a fine ultra-marine colour, so long as it is clear. ”

“ After passing the low portal the cave widens to grand proportions, 125 feet long and 145 feet broad, and except a small landing-place on a projecting rock at the further end, its precipitous walls are on all sides bathed by the influx of the waters, which, in that sea, are so clear that the smallest objects may be distinctly seen on the bottom of the deep basin, the most beautiful bathing-place a mermaid might wish for. ”

“ Thousands of majestic columns of basalts support a lofty roof, under which the sea rolls its waves, while the vastness of the entrance allows the light of day to penetrate the various recesses of the cave. ”

“ Shaw, with the Honorable Cuthbert and Captain Magnus, made a preliminary voyage of discovery. This yielded the information above set down, plus, however, the thrilling and significant fact that a cave seemingly predestined to be the hiding-place of treasure, and moreover a cave with the specified two openings, ran under the point which protected the anchorage on the south, connecting the cove with the sea. ”

“ It is rock-bound, and the rock seems to be of varying hardness, so that the ocean, trying every square inch every minute of the day for thousands of years, has eaten out the softer parts, and worked out the strangest caverns and passages. You scarcely see a headland or projecting point through which the sea has not forced a passage, whose top exceeds a little the mark of high tide; and there are caves innumerable, some with extensive ramifications. I was shown one such cave at Mendocino City, into which a schooner, drifting from her anchors, was sucked during a heavy sea. ”

“ A huge rock, about 60 feet high, rises from the sea, with nothing to indicate that it is hollow; but at a considerable depth beneath low-water mark, there is an opening in the rock through which expert divers can enter, and find themselves in a cave about 40 feet wide and 40 in height—the roof forming rude Gothic arches of very rich and varied colour, and the whole incrusted with stalactites. ”

“ A little beyond Sand, in a cove on the sea-shore close below the road, [339] and accessible from it by a winding footpath, are two caves and some curious detached rocks. One rock is a sort of rugged pyramid, and another resembles a sphinx (see illustration) . This latter is particularly remarkable, and is overgrown with beautiful lichens. The larger cave is used for public worship, and the small one as a dwelling. The first hamlet or village after Sand is called First Coast, and the other, further on, is Second Coast. ”

“ It's dark after you get in a little way.'
The young people scrambled and slipped over the sea-weed at the mouth of the cave, and presently found themselves standing on a floor of light-coloured sand, strewn with shells and sea-drift. ”

“ Here and there in some softer part, as in some crevice of the cliff, these stones gather together, and when the sea runs high they are kept whirling and grinding at the base of the cliff till, in the end, a cave is actually bored by the sea in the solid rock, very much in the same way as holes are bored by a river in the bed of its channel. The stones of course are ground to sand in the process, but their place is supplied by others swept up by the waves. ”

“ Whereas in all other places rivers run from their channels into the sea, here a great river of fresh water runs out of the sea into a dark cave, whose entrance is very high and large. What is most remarkable in this place is that the stones of the mountain are of crystal, rubies, or other precious stones. ”

“ Physical History.—The most obvious agent in hollowing out caves is the sea. The set of the currents, the force of the breakers, the grinding of the shingle inevitably discover the weak places in the cliff, and leave caves as one of the results of their work, modified in each case by the local conditions of the rock. Those formed in this manner are easily recognized from their floors being rarely much out of the horizontal ”

“ This cave was discovered by two Englishmen, who went to swim under the cliffs, and penetrated by chance its narrow opening. It deserves the renown it has gained. I cannot explain from what effect of the laws of light this singular and beautiful hue proceeds. Partly it is the natural azure of the waves of this bright sea, which, entering, reflects the snow-white cavern, and is turned as it were into transparent milk; another cause may be, that the walls of the cavern do not reach deeper 269than the surface of the water; they just touch it—and the sea flows beneath. ”

“ Daylight shews through it, and, in calm weather, boats can sail from the one side to the other. We observe a succession of sea-caves in the rocks as we sail along, the action of the waves having evidently scooped out the softer strata, and left the columnar trap-rock hanging like a pent-house over each entrance. These caves are tenanted by innumerable sea-birds. On the brink of the water stand restless glossy cormorants; along the horizontal rock-ledges above them, sit skua-gulls, kittiwakes, auks, guillemots, and puffins, in rows ”

“ The cave is not far from the sea; a small and insignificant looking opening in the cliffs conducts you in; when you are entered, a wonderfully high roof spreads above you, and large chambers open out one beyond another, nor does it lack either water or light, for a very pleasant and wholesome spring runs at the foot of the cliffs, and natural chinks, in the most advantageous place, let in the light all day long ”

“ Those whose imaginations are aided by statistics may form a more real conception of this great natural structure by reflecting that the archway at the entrance is forty-two feet in width, and its height nearly seventy above the level of the sea, and that these vast proportions are preserved to the farther extremity of the cave, as distance of some two hundred and thirty feet. ”

“ Such a formation is not rare in water caverns; but in such beauty of shape and hue it is rare indeed, for these tender little crystal flowers took all [109] manner of forms, blossoming ofttimes into wreaths and clusters like a miniature coral. One of the most exquisite and most puzzling features was that the dots and spicules were often arranged in set patterns, symmetrical and even geometrical, in tiny circles, squares, and triangles, by the rhythmic action of the waters that had left this beautiful record of their passage. We named the cave the Coral Cavern. ”

“ The weather was very quiet; the breeze off the island, as its bearings then were at this time of sighting the cave, and the water within the natural harbor was as sheet-calm as polished steel. I said to the mate:
“‘We must find time to examine what is inside that cave. Call away four hands and get the boat over. Keep a bright lookout as you approach. There is nothing living that is visible outside, but who knows what may be astir within the darkness of that tremendous yawn? ”

“ Bare-legged and bare-armed you wade into the icy water and slip your hands gently under the big stones at bottom, wherever there are crevices into which a fish might enter. If you have the requisite fineness of touch, experience will soon tell you what it is you feel beneath in the darkness of the watery cave. ”

“ Life Enters the Caverns
At the time the limestone beds were beginning to crack, which we noted was some 60,000,000 million years ago, the huge reptiles and other prehistoric animals were playing hide and seek on the surface above the site of the developing Caverns. At that time the cave hadn't yet been formed—the underground seepage of water was just beginning to find the crevices below the gypsum and rock salt and begin its erosion which was to continue slowly for so many centuries. ”

“ Vivid colors gleamed from wall and column with a pristine freshness suggesting that this part of the cave belonged to a far more distant period than the great rock chamber in which they had stopped to take their luncheon. Finally, they were surrounded at every hand by those spear-like formations, thrust upwards from the floor or depending from the roof, that give to the interiors of most caves their fantastic appearance—the stalactites and stalagmites about whose origin in the workshop of Nature there can be no doubt. ”

“ The superior stratum of rock is of so hard and tenacious a quality that it holds together with very few piers to support it. When a citizen wants to enlarge his premises, he merely digs deeper into the hill; he has no ground-rent to pay. Some caves open a hundred feet wide without a support.
[Illustration: GRIOTEAUX. A hamlet under overhanging rocks and with chambers excavated in the rock. Above is a cave used as a place of refuge, and notches that indicate where was a gallery reached by a rope or ladder.] ”

“ There was one cave, an especial favourite with us, in which our fires used to blaze day after day for weeks together. It is deeply hollowed in the base of a steep ivy-mantled precipice of granitic gneiss, a full hundred feet in height; and bears on its smoothed sides and roof, and along its uneven bottom,—fretted into pot-like cavities, with large rounded pebbles in them,—unequivocal evidence that the excavating agent to which it owed its existence had been the wild surf of this exposed shore. ”

“ The bottom of the cavern was found to be encumbered with huge blocks of limestone that had become detached from the roof, between and under which was a layer of vegetable mold of varying depths up to a foot or more. In this layer were found objects of various periods, running back as far as the times of the Roman occupation of the island. Below this came a floor, a stalagmite of an average thickness of sixteen to twenty inches, and underneath it a layer of cave-earth four feet deep, in which were found objects of man's fabrication. ”

“ The boatmen entertained us with many a curious legend respecting the enchanted cave. Some of the older inhabitants of the island still believe in the evil influence that a visit to the cave exercises over the ill-fated person who is so rash as to penetrate into the witches’ domain. There is a very curious fish to be found in the beautiful silvery water, very small, and with an odd, square-shaped head ”

“ The walls of the chasm are almost perpendicular, except where a small ravine, overgrown with shrubs, leads to an enormous rock, on which it is possible to stand, and, if perfectly free from giddiness, to look down into the gulf below, where the huge portal of a cave is seen to open. ”

“ The whole of the earth displaced by this process, being of a different color from that an the surface, is handed up in a vessel, and heaped into a skin or cloth, in which it is conveyed to the stream and thrown into the midst of the current, that it may be entirely carried off. Should the cache not be formed in the vicinity of a stream, the earth thus thrown up is carried to a distance, and scattered in such manner as not to leave the minutest trace. The cave, being formed, is well lined with dry grass, bark, sticks, and poles, and occasionally a dried hide. ”