The lacework effect of clay “worms”
The lacework effect of clay “worms”
If the Indians of southwest Oregon knew of Oregon Caves they left no evidence of the fact. Possibly its remote and rugged setting was too far away from their normal haunts near the fertile valleys and salmon-rich rivers. Or they may have known of the cave, but superstitions forbade their entering it. To our knowledge, Elijah Davidson was the first person to penetrate its depths.
Other creatures used it regularly. Bears, mountain lions, coyotes, bobcats, skunks and other predators found the outer chambers ideal dens or resting places. Within the “twilight zone”—the galleries near the surface where some light penetrates—rodents of several kinds entered freely and even made nests. Today, we find the industrious woodrat still gathering mounds of sticks, leaves, flashbulbs, and hairpins to store near the 110-foot exit. Mice and rabbits are frequently seen in the cave. Occasionally the tracks of the ringtail betray his secretive hunting trips into the cave. In 1935, even a mountain beaver was found in the Ghost Room.
However, there is only one mammal truly adjusted to normal living inside the dark portions of the caves. This is the bat. (See illustration below). There are eight species of bats that use Oregon Caves. Most common is the long-eared myotis. None are abundant, and most visitors do not see them, for this is not a “bat cave” in the same sense as Carlsbad and other caves. Also, the bats prefer the undisturbed sections of the caves, where people seldom enter. In spite of this, they attract much interest and are the subject of much discussion. The only mammal capable of flight, bats are also unique in their ability to fly in total darkness deep within caves.
Hibernating bat in “dry” room
Hibernating bat in “dry” room
This latter skill puzzled scientists for many years until, in the 1930’s, it was learned that bats navigate in darkness by echo-location, a system similar to the Navy’s sonar. The animal emits high-pitched squeaks,above the threshold of human hearing. The echo of the squeaks bounces off nearby objects and the bat is able to decipher, from a flood of up to sixty echoes a second, the size, shape, and distance of objects before them. So precise is this system that the animal is able to locate and capture flying insects in pitch darkness. Not only can they navigate in the dark, they can also remember echo patterns that help them to return again and again to the same place deep inside a cave.
They feed at night, eating great numbers of insects. In winter a few of them hibernate in Oregon Caves and may be easily observed clinging head downward from the walls and ceilings for months at a time. During a bat-banding study a few years ago, 750 bats were fitted with tiny aluminum identification bands and released. To date, however, none of these bats have been found elsewhere, nor have any foreign bands turned up here. Some bats are migratory, for each year in late August or September there is an influx of several hundred that may be seen in the caves for only a few days. Then they are gone again.
Certain arthropods—millepedes, spiders, moths and small wingless insects called collemboles—are abundant in the “twilight zone” of the caves, where they feed on organic matter and upon each other. Thus animal life in the cave is more prominent than many people suspect.
When the cave lights were installed in 1932, conditions were established for the entrance of another type of life—plants. Carried into the cave by water or air currents, spores of primitive plants could now germinate and live. Near the light fixtures we find interesting colonies. The green coating several feet from the lights are clusters ofalgae. They have no leaves, stems or roots; in fact they are the simplest and most universal of the earth’s green plants. They require much less light energy than themosseswhich grow only a few inches from the lights. In one or two places we also find fleshy greenliverwortswhich look like blobs of spilled paint. And now and then we find the cave’s highest type of plants, thesword ferns. Diminutive in comparison with their kin outside the cave, these tiny ferns are nevertheless able to survive near the lights which burn at least part of every day during the year.
What next? Like lakes and waterfalls, caves are temporary features of the drainage pattern of an area. The same processes which produce them will eventually destroy them. At Paradise Lost we see that an appreciable part of the original room has already been filled with cave deposits. Many side passages in the caves have similarly been blocked off by the accumulation of flowstone.
On the outside, surface erosion will wear away the roof rock until the caverns collapse. The rooms will be filled with sunlight and exposed to rapid weathering. The calcium carbonate that was laid down in the Triassic sea, then lifted into mountains, then changed to calcite cave deposits, will again be dissolved by water and carried back to the sea. We know this because remnants of other caves reveal the pattern of creation and destruction common to all caves. The end will not come at Oregon Caves for thousands or millions of years. But it will come. The work of water and other erosive forces never ceases.
Oregon Caves have been known since a day in 1874 when Elijah J. Davidson went hunting in the Siskiyou Mountains. The story goes that, after killing a deer, he followed his dog to a large hole in the mountain. Here he heard sounds of fighting coming from within. Being undecided as to what to do, he stood waiting—then his dog gave vent to a weird howl, as if in great pain. Hesitating no longer, Davidson rushed into the opening. He soon found the chase difficult to pursue without a light, whereupon he resorted to a few matches that he had in his shot-pouch. Striking match after match, he expected that he would soon be at the scene of the struggle.
Before arriving there, however, his supply of matches gave out, leaving him in the dark. Davidson finally found his way back to a running stream of water, and following it, came to the mouth of the cave. Soon after, the dog came splashing down the creek, unhurt. As it was well on in the evening, Davidson decided to go back to camp and return the next day. Before leaving, however, he placed near the entrance to the cave the buck he had recently killed. He anticipated that a bear would come out for food, eat all it could and then lie down by the remaining part. Returning early the next morning, Davidson found a monstrous black bear lying near the carcass of the deer.
Davidson told others of his discovery, and the cave soon became an attraction for the adventuresome, portions of it being explored and opened. Early interest in commercializing the cave were thwarted by its remote location, far from roads and populous communities.
In 1907, Joaquin Miller, the “Poet of the Sierra,” and Chandler B. Watson, author ofPrehistoric Siskiyou Islandand theMarble Halls of Oregon, visited the cave. They were highly impressed and promoted the cave as the “Marble Halls of Oregon.” Public attention was aroused and the cave was established as Oregon Caves National Monument on July 12, 1909. (See illustration onpage 32).
Appreciable public use was not attained until 1922, when an automobile road was completed to the caves. The next year, 1923, the Forest Service granted a concession to the Oregon Caves Company, which has provided public accommodations and cave guide service since then.
In 1933, the Monument was transferred to the National Park System. Concurrently, the completion of the 512-foot exit tunnel that same year greatly improved cave tour circulation. The public use pattern, relatively unchanged for the next three decades, was established after the opening of the concessioner’s chateau building in 1934. The chateau is noted for its charming architecture, complementing the steep, forested setting.
Oregon Caves have been set aside as a national monument because of their outstanding natural features. The National Park Service is charged by Congress to provide for the public use and enjoyment of the area “in such manner and by such means as will leave it unimpaired for ... future generations.”
A visit to Oregon Caves in 1912
A visit to Oregon Caves in 1912
Natural things and natural processes are paramount. Manmade facilities such as trails, lights and steps are necessary to allow visitors to enjoy the cave. But they are kept at a minimum. Your guide will ask you not to touch any of the cave formations. This is to keep them from being stained or broken. Prior to the establishment of the National Monument in 1909, fragile formations were the object of severe vandalism and thoughtless destruction by souvenir hunters (see illustrationpage 33). It is doubly important to preserve the remaining features for the benefit of those who will come here tomorrow and in later years.
Vandalism: Nature required many thousands of years to create these stalactites. A thoughtless person needed only a few moments to destroy them.
Vandalism: Nature required many thousands of years to create these stalactites. A thoughtless person needed only a few moments to destroy them.
Outside the cave, the Monument is a place where flowers are enjoyed in their natural state and not picked, where birds and wild animals are unmolested by hunters or trappers. The forest is undisturbed. On the trails away from the cave area, the hiker may see animals and plants fulfilling their existence as they did centuries ago. It is to this philosophy that the national parks and monuments are dedicated.
Bacon
A thin sheet of calcite drapery having alternating dark and light bands which give it the appearance of a strip of bacon. The dark, reddish bands are usually caused by an iron oxide stain.
Bedding plane
The stratification or meeting place of two different layers of sedimentary rock.
Blade
A calcite sheet originally deposited in a crack, then later exposed.
Breakdown
Heaps of rubble on a cavern floor caused by the collapse of walls or ceiling.
Calcium bicarbonate
An unstable compound occurring when carbonic acid contacts calcium carbonate.
Calcium carbonate
A mineral with the chemical formula CaCO₃.
Calcite
A crystalline form of calcium carbonate.
Carbonic acid
A weak acid occurring as a liquid, having the formula H₂CO₃, a mixture of carbon dioxide and water.
Clastic dike
A dike made up of fragments of pre-existing rocks.
Column
A speleothem formed when a stalactite and a stalagmite meet.
Deposit
A natural occurrence of mineral material, such as an iron ore deposit; or in the vocabulary of the speleologist, any cave formation originating from deposition.
Drapery
Hanging speleothem in the form of a curtain or drape.
Dripstone
A calcite deposit left by dripping water.
Flowstone
A calcite deposit left by flowing water along a cave wall or floor.
Fracture
A break in rock.
Gallery
An underground passage.
Ground water
Water within the earth, such as feeds wells.
Helictite
A variant form of stalactite which does not hang vertically or which has side growths resembling twisted roots.
Joint
A crack, which in limestone forms at an angle to a bedding plane. A series of joints often intersect each other in a four-sided pattern.
Limestone
A rock consisting chiefly of calcium carbonate, usually an accumulation of organic remains such as shells.
Marble
Limestone crystallized by metamorphism.
Metamorphose
To change into a different form, such as changing sedimentary rock (limestone) into a metamorphic rock (marble).
Moonmilk
A rare form of hydromagnesite or calcium carbonate which is semisolid.
Phreatic zone
The region, below the water table, in which rock is saturated with water.
Popcorn
Nodules of mineral deposits formed in such a way as to resemble popcorn.
Rimstone
A calcite deposit around the edge of a pool of water.
Sedimentary rock
Formed from deposits of sediments or from fragments of other minerals.
Shale
A sedimentary rock formed from deposits of clay or silt.
Solution
The process by which a substance is chemically combined with a liquid. Also, the state of being chemically so combined.
Soda straw
A small, hollow stalactite inside which drops of water descend.
Speleogen
A cave feature produced by solution of base rock.
Speleologist
One who makes a scientific study of caves.
Speleology
The scientific study of caves in all their aspects.
Speleothem
A cave feature produced by deposition of mineral.
Spelunker
One who explores caves as a sportsman or amateur speleologist.
Stalactite
A calcite speleothem which grows downward, icicle-fashion, as a result of deposition by dripping water.
Stalagmite
A calcite speleothem which grows upward from a cave floor as a result of deposition by dripping water.
Vadose zone
The region lying between the surface of the earth and the water table. Water which seeps or flows through this region under the pull of gravity is called vadose water.
Water table
The meeting place of the phreatic and vadose zones. Below it, the rock is saturated with water; above it, water under the pull of gravity is continuously flowing downward.
Davidson, E. J., “History of the Discovery of the Marble Halls of Oregon.”Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, pp. 274-276 (1922).
Folsom, Franklin,Exploring American Caves. New York, Crown Publishers, Inc., 1956.
Halliday, William R.,Adventure Is Underground. New York, Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1959.
Mohr, Charles E., andHoward N. Sloane,Celebrated American Caves. New Jersey, Rutgers University Press, 1955.
Wells, Francis G., Preliminary geological map of southwest Oregon. U.S.G.S. Mineral Investigation Map, MF 38, 1955.
1. No person shall enter Oregon Caves unless accompanied by an authorized guide.
2. Children under 6 years of age are not permitted in the caves. A nursery is provided.
3. The destruction, injury, defacement or removal of any of the natural features, rocks, plants, or animals in the caves or Monument is prohibited.
4. No canes, umbrellas or sticks of any kind may be taken into the caves.
5. Dogs and cats must be kept under physical control and are not allowed on trails or in the buildings.
6. Careless disposal of trash is prohibited; please use the containers placed nearby.
THIS ISYOURNATIONAL MONUMENTPlease help keep it clean and undamaged for those who follow you.
Oregon Caves National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service. Inquiries should be addressed to the Park Manager, Oregon Caves National Monument, P.O. Box 377, Cave Junction, Oregon 97523.
Cave entrance