LIMESTONE CAVERN

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1577, 22 November 1924, Page 6

LIMESTONE CAVERN

The Lewis and CU:!c Cavern of Montana was discovered in 1895 by D. A. Morrison, of Whitehall, and was established as a National Monument in 1908 by President Roosevelt. It takes its name from the fact that it overlooks, for a distance of 50 miles, the trail of Lewis and Clark along the Jefferson River. Vandalism and lack of funds to put in a proper lighting system keep the cave closed to ■the public at present. The entrance to the cavern (says a correspondent of the New York Times) is about 300 feet above the river and about 500 feet below the rim of Cave Mountain. The general shape of the cave is that of a fissure in a steeply inclined bed of limestone. Its maximum measurements are—length 600 feet, depth* 400 feet. Its numerous passages and rooms make it appear miles in extent. The walls of the cave are decorated with marvellous stalacities and the' floor with corresponding stalagmites. Huge fragments of limestone, sometimes as big as the room of a house, have fallen from the roof in many places. Here and there the stalactities are found in terraces. A fringe of delicately carved forms, swelling at different levels, of the stalagmite columns, encircled by horizontal rings with pendent stalactities, are superbly beautiful. All manner of curious drip formations add to the wild beauty of the cave. Eight of 10 chambers have been explored, the largest of these being 105 ft by 135 ft and 100 ft high. From the main entrance a stairway leads irregularly down about 175 ft, and then small tortuous passages opening into the chambers carry the venturesome visitor into the depths. The Lewis and Clark Cavern is about 45 miles norm-east of Butte, Mont., and about 60 miles, as the crow flies, north-west of Yellowstone National Park. It is situated at a point about five miles from the popular transcontinental highway known as the “Yellowstone Trail,” near Cardwell, and 14 miles from Whitehall on the Northern Pacific Railroad.