Page:Excavations at the Kesslerloch.djvu/18

Rh chief opening, on the east side, in the perpendicular rock is now visible from a distance; formerly it was hidden by the brushwood. It is 41 feet wide and 11$1⁄2$ feet high. This entrance is level, and dry underfoot, so that there is no difficulty in making use of it.

The length of the cave is about 51 feet, but inside both the breadth and height lessen rapidly, so that at 25 feet from the opening the breadth is only about 31 feet, and the height hardly 6 feet. In the middle there is a pillar of weather-worn limestone about 20 feet in circumference, which, together with a kind of screen or partition hardly a foot thick and 30 inches high, divide the back part of the cave into two smaller portions. Between the pillar and the screen there is a roundish opening. The northern portion of the cave is about 21 feet long and 19 feet broad, but it is hardly 39 inches high, so that the excavation here was attended with some difficulties. The southern part has nearly the same dimensions, but it contracts towards the southern opening, which can only be entered when stooping down. The sides and roof are covered with numerous little cracks or fissures, and have a number of niches or small projections of different sizes; these, together with the number of stalactites of various sizes in the hinder or northern portion of the cave, give to it a decidedly picturesque appearance. The superficies of the ground actually covered over by the cave is about 2,000 square feet, and the cubical contents of the whole cave about 10,500 cubic feet, so that the Kesslerloch in superficial extent is about seven times as large, and in its cubical contents more than four times as great, as a room 19 feet 8 inches long, 14 feet 9 inches broad, and 8 feet 10 inches high. The great agreeableness of the situation, the picturesque appearance, the convenient space, and the excellent supply of light in the cave rendered it a desirable abode even for men of the nineteenth century, accustomed as they are to so many conveniences. How much more would this have been the case thousands of years ago as a place of refuge and a permanent abode for these Troglodytes!

We will now refer to the succession and character of the different beds in the cave; and first we may mention as the uppermost bed a mass of rubbish formed both of small and large angular stones of white Jura limestone, like the rocks on either side. There can be no doubt that these fragments of limestone, not having been rounded or worn by water, have been derived from the rocky walls of the cave, which