Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/319



EXPLORATION OF THE OREGON CAVES 271

from Grayback to the milk ranch of Messrs. Goodwin and Davidson. Here we camped for the night and partook of the kind hospitalities of these certainly highly elevated and obliging dairymen. The next morning our party was in- creased by the addition to our numbers of Mrs. Julius Goodwin, Mr. Frank Rose and E. J. Davidson. Of our party were also two young lads named David Johns Jr. and Ira Sparlin.

To the place we wished to reach was only about IVs miles from the milk ranch, but owing to the ruggedness of the route and the course we took to get there, we were fully three hours in reaching it with our riding animals. Soon after we reached the scene of operation, however, the work of exploration began and was entered upon by each member of our party with a zeal and enthusiasm that meant business. From the mouth of the cave emerges a branch of water, and it is up the bed of this stream we first begin our underground perambulations. The moun- tain is of limestone formation and the caverns and cross caverns, in almost every form imaginable and unimagin- able, which we beheld with delightful amazement, were evidently the result of the action of water. After pene- trating perhaps 100 yards, we leave the stream to examine upper and side rooms that do not require so much exposure of the feet to water. Every successive department reached evoked from each and every member such vociferative ex- pressions as "Oh ! Oh ! ! Oh ! ! ! Isn't it nice, isn't it beau- tiful," etc.; and one of the earliest convictions that over- came us most completely was that it v/ould be impossible for us in the short period of our stay to do anything like justice to the examination of these diversified, fantastic and indescribable realms of the underworld. Prentice's Ode to Mammoth Cave has now a much clearer meaning:

"Crystal founts,

Almost invisible in their serene And pure transparency high pillared domes With stars and flowers all fretted like the halls Of Oriental monarchs"