Stalagmite

“ In some cases the points of inverted cones of stalactite rested on the centres of pillars of stalagmite. The process of solidification and the architecture were alike beautiful.
We followed our guide through various branches and arms of the cave, climbed and descended steps, halted at the edges of dark shafts and apertures, squeezed ourselves through narrow passages, where the sober grey of my coat suffered less than the black of my companions’. ”

“ He had also contrived to catch a few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick—a dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. ”

“ Stalagmite, sta-lag′mīt, n. a deposit of carbonate of lime, &c., on the floor of a cavern, usually cylindrical or conical in form, caused by the dripping from the roof of water holding some substance in solution; it is the counterpart to a Stalactite, and both are often fused together, forming a Stalactitic column.—adjs. ”

“ What was found beneath the stalagmite belonged to a long anterior period, where it had lain sealed up for, at the very least, two thousand years. In this deposit of the cave earth were found a large number of chips, flakes, and implements of flint and chert, stones that had served as pounders, and some pins, needles, and harpoons of bone. ”

“ On the walls were folds and ridges of snowy stalagmite, and from the roof hung stalactites of all shapes and sizes, myriads of threadlike growths hanging in a lacy fringe. Onwards the arcading and the array of pillars extended into a roomy vault, the end of which struck upwards, as already explained, south-eastwards, toward Dry Gill. Though a perceptible draught comes through from the open air, and the heaps of clay-coated blocks show that a swallet is not far off above, no way can be forced through without excavation. ”

“ Behind this, in turn, nearly shut off by a large column of stalagmite, is a third room, 8 feet wide, whose earth floor rises rapidly. Were the stalagmite removed, there would be ample light for 20 or 30 feet farther, or about 90 feet in all.
Refuse, mostly shell, shows for 100 feet down the hill. There is some shell in the cave, along the walls; but most of the floor is a comparatively recent accumulation of roof dust and small fragments of rock, and is quite dry as far as light penetrates.
The entrance is much more easily reached from the top of the hill than from the foot of the bluff. ”

“ It is, of course, clear that the bones incrusted with or enclosed in stalagmite must have lain exposed for a considerable time; and the loam itself had no appearance of being washed or drifted into the fissure except very gradually, and then being rather the result of the disintegration of the rocks immediately around than from the washings of any rocks further away. All the included rocks were limestone and angular, and bore no signs of rolling; they must have fallen from time to time from the rock round the basin. ”

“ Lower down, the bones were much better-preserved. Lowest of all, near to the encircling rocks, the bones were incrusted with stalagmite, and sometimes welded together into a mass by it. This was particularly the case in the fissure and near the walls of the basin; further from the rock no such bones appeared.
This stalagmite confirms my opinion that the place was filled from the subaerial disintegration of the limestone alone, as it could only have arisen from water dripping from the rocks above and charged with carbonate of lime. The limestone rises just to the south ”

“ When the limelight is brought in, and its fierce beams play upon the wild arcades and groining of this fantastic vault, we are astounded by the wealth and brilliance and extraordinary variety of the incrustations: not a rib, not a corner of bare rock remains visible; every inch of floor and walls and roof has been thickly coated with the calcareous enamel. The Beehive itself, 12 feet high and enormous in girth, is not more astonishing for its size than for the regularity of its shape. It is probably the largest boss of stalagmite in England. ”

“ In this cave there is not anything in the shape of a stalagmite, except an empty brandy bottle on a little shelving rock, and that would be generally regarded as a bad substitute. For æsthetic as well as for other reasons, it would be better to keep such "stalagmites" out of the caves. On the top of a large rock is a mass of "washdirt," 14 inches deep, with "headings" of about the same dimensions. Some experienced diggers say they never saw more promising stuff. ”

“ Godwin-Austen, declared that he had obtained in the same cave (Kent's Hole) works of man from undisturbed loam or clay, under stalagmite, mingled with the remains of extinct animals, and that all these must have been introduced 'before the stalagmite flooring had been formed.' He maintained that such facts could not be explained away by the hypothesis of sepulture, as in Dr. Buckland's well-known case of the human skeleton of Paviland, because in the Devon cave the flint implements were widely distributed through the loam, and lay beneath the stalagmite. ”

“ Rock Ledge Quarry.—Early in 1903 periodicals mentioned an interesting discovery made at this place. According to the report, workmen in excavating a cut for a railway found an old cave entirely filled with stalagmite matter. In this, 10 feet below the former top of the cave—the cut did not extend to the bottom of the stalagmite—were discovered some bones which were pronounced by "several physicians" to be those of a human being. ”

“ Here we have the proof that man inhabited these caves for ages before the Drift; that he perished with the great mammals and disappeared; and that the twelve feet of stalagmite were formed while no men and few animals dwelt in Europe. But some fragment of the human race had escaped elsewhere, in some other region; there it multiplied and replenished the earth, and gradually extended and spread again over Europe, and reappeared in the cave-deposits above the stalagmite. And, in like manner, the animals gradually came in from the regions on which the Drift had not fallen. ”

“ The calcareous deposits which spread over the ground of the caverns are called stalagmite, and the name of stalactite is given to those which hang down from the roof, forming pendants, natural decorations, and ornaments as of alabaster or marble, producing sometimes the most magnificent effects.
Under the stalagmite the largest number of animal bones have been found. This crust, which has been to them a preservatory grave, is so thick and hard that a pick-axe is required in order to break it. ”

“ Again, if an implement of human workmanship is found in close proximity to the leg of a bear, or the horn of a reindeer, of extinct species, in an ancient cavern, and all covered by a floor of stalagmite, we see not how the conclusion is to be avoided that they were introduced into the cave before the stalagmite was formed ”

“ It is needless to say that the proprietor of each cave affirms his to be the better—as a matter of fact, both are well worth seeing. One looks with something like awe on the fantastic shapes of the stalagmites and stalactites in these huge caverns, where the moisture, percolating through the earth, has been dripping in the darkness for countless centuries, each lime-laden drop lengthening imperceptibly the stalactite overhead and the stalagmite beneath, while the consequent splashings, and, in some parts, more sluggish dripping, make hundreds of quaint and suggestive forms above and below. ”

“ At the end of the Lady's Finger Cave is a charming grotto, and, above, the rocks are like fine coral in various shades of red and grey. Inside the grotto are stalagmites thick at the base and with elegant stalactites resting on them. Some are pure white, and others are covered with fine tracery. In front is a perfect stalactite which descends to within an inch of a perfect stalagmite just underneath it, and aptly illustrates the process of their growth. ”

“ Water will sometimes drip through a crack in winter until that crack freezes up, when the water may then find some other crack to drip through; at this second place a stalagmite may then grow, while at the first place the stalagmite may stop growing and even begin to diminish from evaporation. ”

“ When, however, we penetrate still deeper through the dense layer of stalagmite beneath the black mould into the red earth, which, of course, itself once formed the pavement of the retreat, things assume a very different aspect. ”

“ One of the most noble is about four feet in diameter at the base, and from 12 to 14 feet high, covered with curiously-shaped ornamentation, and having minute stalactites projecting from the sides. All about it are nodules of delicate fretwork, as lovely as the coral of the ancient sea out of which this mountain was made millions of years ago. On the apex is a gracefully-tapered cone; and hard by is a small stalagmite covered with prickles as sharply defined as those of the echinus. All around are limestone pictures of surpassing loveliness. ”

“ Not only do they embrace the remains of animals not now existing in England, but they embrace the remains of animals long since lost to the globe. With these are mingled the products of human intelligence, the weapons of the savage. The cave-earth which, as well as the stalagmite, contains these relics of a most remote110 antiquity, is itself permeated with films of stalagmite, a conclusive proof of its gradual introduction. ”

“ When, as occasionally happens, the water percolating through the rock finds its way into the cave by the walls rather than the roof, we find stalagmite only, exhibiting its greatest thickness round the edges of the cave and cementing its contents into a breccia. ”

“ The older growth is essentially of a stalactitic type, and the stalactites are remarkably thick, though in one or two cases a huge stalagmite is to be seen. The newer growth exhibits every fantastic and beautiful form known, from the thin hollow reed and transparent veil to the snow-white dome stalagmites, the crystal-fringed pool, the wave-lined floor, and the crooked-fringed shapes that are turned in all directions. ”

“ These more ancient remains are, according to Prof. Boyd Dawkins, much more crystalline, much heavier, and of a darker colour than the ordinary teeth and bones. Still, nearly the whole of the bones in the cave-earth beneath the stalagmite appear beyond doubt to belong to one and the same period, though that period may have been of long duration, and the breccia which contained implements of River-drift types is of still earlier date. ”

“ A bed of hard, solid stalagmite, from one to four feet thick, is spread over the ossiferous loam, and covered with a thin layer of earth, with here and there patches of charcoal mixed with human bones, and coarse earthen vessels.
On breaking through the sparry floor, the red loam, containing teeth and bones, is brought to view; and imbedded in it, and at a depth of several feet, and intermingled with remains of extinct hears and carnivora, there have been discovered several flint knives, arrow and spear-heads, and fragments of pottery. ”

“ Below this is a stalagmite floor, varying in thickness from 1 to 3 ft., and covering (3) the red earth which contained bones of the hyaena, lion, mammoth, rhinoceros and other animals, in association with flint implements and an engraved antler, which proved man to have been an inhabitant of the cavern during its deposition. Above this and below the stalagmite there is in one part of the cave a black band from 2 to 6 in. thick, formed of soil like No. ”

“ Cave deposits are collectively termed speleothems. Their variety is infinite: Those left by dripping water are called dripstone, and take on two basic forms—if they hang down from the ceiling they are called Stalactites, if they grow up from the floor they are stalagmites. The two may join together to form a column. Where the water drips rapidly and the loss of carbon dioxide is slow, stalagmite growth is favored because little deposition can take place on the ceiling. ”

“ But in all cases of human occupancy of caves we find, and it could not well be otherwise, the refuse of man's food, in the shape of the bones of the animals whose flesh he consumed, or the shells of the edible molluscs with which his meals were varied. We have seen that in the black mould above the stalagmite, the implements of bronze and stone are associated with a fauna essentially the same as that of the present day. But the bulk of the mammals which are found above the stalagmite do not occur below it ”

“ Thus it would appear that traces remain in these caverns: First, of an aqueous deposit in the red earth found below the stalagmite in one cavern, and beneath breccia in the other. Secondly, of a long dry period, as appears in the thick crust of stalagmite covering the lowest deposit in the largest cavern, and during which some cavities were filled with breccia, even with the external surface. Thirdly, of a subsidence in the breccia and associated rocks and, lastly, of a deposit of red earth similar to the first. ”

“ They are inclined at angles of 30 and 40 degrees, their walls being generally coated with stalactite, pieces of which have here and there been broken off and mingled with the contents of the rents, thus helping to explain why we so often meet with detached pieces of that substance in the mud and breccia of the Belgian caves. It is not easy to conceive that a solid horizontal floor of hard stalagmite should, after its formation, be broken up by running water ”