Still lingering regretfully among the fern-decked rocks before quite
finishing the ascent to the actual outside world, the mercury lost
little time in registering eighty degrees.
Since no official, or even approximately correct map of Marble Cave has
yet been published, and the desirability of maps is particularly urged
by Monsieur E.A. Martel, a special effort was made to secure one, which
was accompanied by the following remarks from Mr. Prince in regard to
its incompleteness:
"There are several passages and rooms which do not appear on the map,
though some of them are well known, but have not been surveyed and
platted.
"Much further exploration is possible in this great cavern. Lost River
Canon ends abruptly in a bank of red clay, the volume of water being
undiminished. The water from the Great Fall flows by a small serpentine
into a passage which has never been followed up; its entrance being
several hundred feet higher than the nearest water level."
Unfortunately the quantity of water in the cave at the time of the
visit just described was so unusually great as to render the Lost River
Canon trip impossible.
During the previous season the cave and its surroundings were visited by
a prominent naturalist who appears to have been delightfully liberal in
the diffusion of scientific knowledge and the explanations of methods of
pursuing investigations.
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