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A Description by the Late Rev. Julian Edmund Woods, F G.S., F.R.S.V., F.P.S., Etc.

The following graphic description of our Celebrated Caves is taken from the late Rev. Julian E. Woods' book entitled
"Geographical Observances in South Australia," published in 1862. The description is extracted from a lengthy general and
scientific account of our caves given in the book, and which is acknowledged to be one of the best descriptions of the caves
ever penned. It is all the more valuable seeing that the book is out of print and unobtainable. Year by year the Caves
are becoming more widely known, and the number of tourists and visitors who come to witness our natural museum of wonders
annually increases. They have been visited by hundreds of people from all parts, many of whom state that they are equal, if they do
not surpass, in beauty, the far-famed Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. As they are better known and
more widely advertised, we have no doubt that they will become one of the show sights of the Australian colonies :—

OF all the natural curiosities a country

can possess, none tend so much to

render it famous as the existence of
large caves. There is such an air of mystery
in the idea of long subterranean passages
and gloomy galleries shut out from light
and life - so little is known of their origin
and they are generally accompanied with

snch beautiful embellishments of nature—

that one is never tired of seeing them, or of
hearing the description of those that cannot
be visited. Thus, everyone, who may other-
wise never have heard of Adelsberg, has

heard of the Adelsberg Caves, with the
renowned pure white stalactite, which hang-
ing from the roof like an immense snowy
curtain, is so translucent as to show torches
placed on the inner side. In like manner,
everyone has heard of the caves in the Peak
of Derbyshire, where visitors are carried in
a boat, by a subtenaneous river, along

passage scarcely two feet high, before they
can inspect the inner portion. Persons who
have never read Humboldt's "Personal
Narrative" have at least heard of the
Guacharo caverns in South America, which
are tenanted by thousands of owls, whose
screeching makes the place like a den in-
fernal. Few are perhaps aware of the
existence of caves in New South Wales,
described by Sir Thomas Mitchell, and fewer

still know of those in Tasmania.

But wherever such natural curiosities

are known, they do not fail to give great
importance to the place, making it as noted

as if it possessed a burning volcano or a
geyser spring. I am not aware that any
attempt has been made to describe the
caves we possess in South Australia. Some
occasional tourist may have notified, in a
stray newspaper paragraph, the fact that
such things existed ; but as far as giving an
account of these rich and varied beauties, as
far as relating the extraordinary natural
curiosities that are to be met with in them,
nothing at all has been done. And yet in
point of magnitude, in point of splendour,
and in a scientific view, they do not yield in
importance to any of the wonderful pheno-
mena enumerated above. In this chapter I

propose to give an account of them, which
to do them justice must be rather lengthy
for to bring the description within small

limits would cause many things which are of
scientific importance to be omitted. About
twenty-five miles north of Penola [and
about eight miles south-east of Narra-
coorte] on the sheep-run of Mr. Robert
son [now known as the Cave Range Forest
Reserve], in the midst of a swampy,
sandy country, plentifully covered with
stringy bark, a series of caves are
found, whose internal beauty is at strange
variance with the wildness of the scenery
around. There is nothing outwardly to
show that any great subterranean excavation
might be expected. The entrance to them
is merely a round hole, situated on the top
of a hill ; and were it not for the existence
of temporary huts, and other unmistakable

signs of the former frequent visits of bush
excursionists, one might be inclined to pass
the place without noticing anything peculiar.
[Since this was written the Caves are sur-
rounded by a dense forest of pines, gums,
etc., which has been planted by the Forest
Department; and instead of huts there is a
caretaker's residence, substantially built of
stone, and outbuildings used in connection
with the raising of guano, from which the
Forest Department receives a considerable
revenue. Inside the "Big Cave," at the
openings, the rising mounds are prettily
laid out in garden plots, which are kept in
excellent trim, and the Caves have been
made much more easy of access.]

On going to the ledge of a hole a small
sloping path is observed, which leads under
a shelf of rock, and on descending this for a
depth of about twenty-five feet, then it is
one gets the first glimpse of the magnificence

enshrined below. The observer finds himself
at the entrance of a large oblong square
chamber, low, but perfectly lighted by an
aperture at the opposite end, and all around,
above and below, the eye is bewildered by a
profusion of ornaments and decoration of
Nature's own devising. It is like an
immense Gothic cathedral, and the numbers
of half-finished stalagmites, which rise from
the ground like kneeling or prostrate forms,
seem worshipped in that silent and solemn
place. The walls are pretty equal in out
line, generally unbroken nearly to the floor,
and then for the most part they shelve in as

far as the eye can reach, leaving a wedged
shaped aperture nearly all round. This
seems devised by Nature to add to the
embellishinent of the place ; for in the
space thus left droppings of limestone have
formed the most fanciful tracery, where
pillars of every shape wind into small
groups like garlands of flowers, or stand out
like the portico of a Grecian temple, the
supports becoming smaller and smaller till
they join like a mass of carved marble.

At the farther end there is an immense

stalactite, which appears like a support to

the whole roof. This shuts from the view

the aperture in the roof behind it, so that
the light steals in with a subdued radiance,
which mellows or softens the aspect of the
whole chamber. The pillar is about ten feet
in diameter, and being formed of the drip-
ping of limestone from above, in successive
layers, seems as though it owed its elabo-

rate appearance to the hand of Art, not the  
least beautiful part of it being that it is

tinted by almost every variety of color, one
side being a delicate azure, with passages of
blue and green and pink intermingled ; and

again it is snowy white, finally merging into
a golden yellow. It stands upon a raised
platform of stalagmite, which extends some
way down the chamber, about three feet  
high, at the end of which is the pillar.

This platform has been a mass of small

stalagmites, which are now joined together
by successive droppings, that have covered  
them over in a manner not unlike the

spreading of a linen cloth. At the south
end (the entrance), the cave looks as if pro-
longed behind each side of the narrow open-
ing. But this is not the case. There is
merely the same continuance of columns,
like those found all round ; somewhat larger,  
indeed, and joined together so closely as to
make the spaces look like the pointed arches
of a mediaeval crypt. The whole length of
the cavern, as near as I could ascertain, is
about 190 feet, the width about 45 feet, and
the height 20 feet. The floor is deeper to-
wards the middle, so that the latter measure-
ment varies. Its length would be much
greater, and it would run into the next cave,
but that it is blocked up by the large stalac-
tite I have described above.

On going round this, and observing,
still on every side, the stalactite pillars, the
opening which lets in the light to the north
end is seen. There was evidently no aper-
ture here formerly, as a pile of broken lime-
stone shows the roof to have fallen in ; and
by the manner in which the damp has
rounded the sharp fragmentary outlines, by
the way the heap is covered by creeping
plants, it declares itself to have happened a
long time since. This inlet is larger than the

one at the entrance.

The second cave that now meets the view

is different in tnany particulars from the
former. It is smaller, and so thickly stud-
ded with stalactites as to render a clear
glance through it impossible. These are
not like those of the former cavern, differ-
ing inasmuch as they are very white, and
mostly broader at the top than at the base,
giving them the appearance of groined

arches. Some are thin, and look, from the
manner in which they are deposited, as if

they were gracefully festooned in honor of
some festival ; some are mere delicate shafts,
and every now and then some large unfini-
shed stalagmite appears in the form of a
veiled statue, mysteriously enshrouded in
heavy white drapery.

When this chamber has been nearly tra-
versed, on looking back it is surprising what
a different aspect it bears ; one would think
a dense avenue of statuary before some
palace had been passed, so solemn, so great,
and yet so life-like are the curious wreathed
and twisted columns, with their numerous
groupings and strange varieties of form. At
the end of this cave (it is not half the length
of the first), there is another aperture open
to the light, caused also by the falling in of
rock, which once arched it over. It is a

large circular hole, whose sides are precipit-
ous, with a smaller pile of broken stones in
the middle, as in the one last mentioned. It

was here that many years ago some natives
destroyed 300 sheep, by throwing them from
above on the hard rock below. This was
about the time they were committing many
outrages, including the murder of Mr.
Brown. How the settlers revenged them-
selves is shown by something further in the
cave, which will be presently noticed. This
opening is the last through which light

gains admission to the vaults, and the en-
trance to the last cave is on one side in a
line with that just quitted.
This one is so thickly studded with
stalactites, and these, sometimes, so very
wide at the base, that from the outside it
seems like a carefully arranged scene, which
from the interminable variety of form, or
magic effect of light and shade, might easily
be thought intended to represent a fairy
palace. On proceeding a little way the
ground becomes painfully uneven. You
have to climb over boulders, whose summits
almost reach the roof, or you have to
descend into what might almost be called
pits, the more rough and uneven because of
their natural ornaments.
Very soon the cavern becomes as dark
as night, so that no further exploration can
be made without candles, and even with
these, the utmost caution is necessary, as
there are pits, caverns, and holes in all
directions, some of them leading to other
small subterranean passages. There is one,
in particular, which is a great fissure, ex-
tending nearly from side to side. It is very
deep. The sides are smooth and slippery,
and, as light is thrown into its gloomy
depths, the sides are seen to be divided in
some places into columns and pillars, making
even that dark place elaborate with natural
architecture.
Further into the cave the roof becomes
lower and lower still, surmounted with the
ghostly white stalactites, and at last the
passage onward is so small that one must
stoop very low in order to proceed. It is
not without a shudder that one goes through
this passage. Far away from the light of
day, this groping along a small vault makes
one dread to be bent down between stone
walls, unable to stand straight or breathe
freely. The passage widens, however, when
the last chamber is reached. There are few
stalactites here, but the number of boulders
increases, so that to explore the place is to
climb and scramble from rock to rock. At
the upper end there is an immense mass of
stone, by scaling which, the cave is seen to
narrow, so that human beings can hardly go
farther. There are, however, many passages
at either side of this and the other chamber,
some of which have been explored, and it
would appear that they are continuous to an
immense depth underground. This, there-
fore, may be called the last chamber, though
filled to bewilderment with fissures and
galleries, which may lead into as many
more.
A painful stillness reigns in this last
cavern, which becomes positively unbearable
after remaining a little time. Humboldt, in
his account of the caves in Guacharo, com-
plains that the noise of the birds dwelling
there gives an awful addition to the horror
of those underground vaults; but any noise
would be less dreary than the dead silence
which reigns here. Whether it is that the
air is hot and close, or whether the depth
compresses the atmosphere beyond its usual
density, I cannot say, but certainly the
quiet presses painfully upon the sense of
hearing, and the closeness gives a feeling of
smothering which adds to the horror of a
place deep in the earth and far from the
light of heaven.
At the side of one of the boulders on
the right hand side in entering, in a crevice
between it and the wall where Nature
seems to have made a natural couch, lies, in
a position of one asleep, with the head rest-
ing on the hand and the other limbs reclin-
ing, the dried and shrivelled corpse of a
native, but slightly decayed, and almost
petrified by the droppings of the limestone.
It is known to have been there for many
years without decomposition, though the
fingers and feet became annually more en-
crusted with the stalactite. The history of
his coming there is a sad one. The blacks,
in addition to the destruction of the sheep
spoken of above, committed murder and so
many acts of violence, that the settlers
resolved to be avenged. They assembled, and
set out with the significant motto, " Let
not your light hand know what your left
hand doeth." The natives resisted des-
perately ; some were shot in every part of
the country. One, wandering near these
caves, was seen, and brought to the ground
by a rifle ball. Badly wounded he man-
aged to crawl away unobserved, and, think-
ing that he would he sought for as long as
life was in him, crept down into the lowest
and darkest recess of the cavern, where he
rightly judged few would venture to follow.
There he lay down and died. Time went
on. Not a tear was shed over him as he
lay there uueoffined, but drops of water fell
upon him from the rocks above : and when
a long time after, his remains were dis-
covered, the limestone had incased him in a
stony shroud, which to this day preserves
his remains from decay. [An enterprising
showman has since stolen this body. It was
once recovered from his hands, but was
finally carried off. The whole history of
the larceny, and the attempts of the Govern-
ment to recover the body, form a very
amusing incident in colonist history. It is
said that the remains of this aboriginal have
found a resting place in the British Museum.
The iron cage which the Government
erected around the petrified body, to
prevent it being taken away, is still to
be seen in the Cave.] On leaving this
last and lonely chamber to return to the
light, a narrow fissure, richly wreathed with
limestone, is observable on the right hand
going out. Proceeding a little way down,
a large vaulted chamber is reached, so per-
fectly dark and obscure that even torches
can do but faint justice to its beauty.
Here, above all other portions of the
caves, has Nature been prodigal of
the fantastic ornament with which the
whole place abounds. There are pillars so
finely formed and covered with such delicate
trelliswork, there are droppings of lime
making such scroll work that the eye is
bewildered with the extent and variety of
the adornment ; it is like a palace of ice, with
frozen cascades and fountains all around.
At one side there is a stalactite like a huge
candle that has guttered down at the side,
At another there is a group of pillars which
were originally like a series of hour-glasses,
set one upon another from the roof to the
ground, and the parts bulging out are con-
nected by droppings like icicles, making
them appear most elaborately carved. In
addition to this, there is above and below—
so that the roof glistens, and the ground
crackles as you walk, - a multitude of small
stalactites, which fill the whole scene with
frosting that sparkle like gems in the torch
light. In one of the passages leading away
from this chamber there is an opening,
which, after being followed for some distance
(on all-fours, for it is exceedingly small),
leads into another spacious chamber, full of
stalactites, open to the sky at one end by a
wide aperture. This latter cave was known
for a long time by the name of the Deep
Cave, and was thought to be quite discon-
nected with the ones just described. Indeed,
it was one time believed to be almost inac-
cessible, as there is a clear descent of about
thirty feet from the roof to the floor of the
cavern, but quite lately there was a com-
munication found between the two. There
is nothing peculiar in this chamber making
it differ much from the last. Of course the
festooning of the stalactites is as fanciful
and as full of beauty here as elsewhere, ex-
cept that they are rather less numerous, and
there is a little less light to view them by.
At the side of this cave there is another
cave, probably also communicating ; the pas-
sage has been discovered at the same time.
This is exceedingly deep, probably over sixty
feet, and only a wide spacious chamber. As
there is no possibility of descent except by a
rope, and as I was informed that the cave
possesses little that is interesting, I pre-
ferred to wait for its exploration until a
more practicable passage should be found
between it and its neighbours.
This is the last of the subterranean
beauties, and, on emerging towards the
opening, the fresh air and more luminous
aspect come gratefully upon the senses.
Amazed and stupified as you may be with
the beauties left behind, one feels, as the
eyes become dazzled by the approaching
light, that the greatest beauties of the earth
lose half their charms when shut out from
the heavenly radiance of the sky.
Geologists have been accused of requir-
ing too much time for the operation of the
mutations they have helped to disclose, but
look upon this architecture - this glorious
tracery of Nature - remembering that it has
been formed atom by atom, and line by line,
consider how long it must have taken a mere
drop of water to take down from above the
marvellous columns which adorn this palace
of stone, and ask, will years, even counted
by hundreds, cover the period it includes ?
Man, in his busy speculations among the
stars, has told of wondrous things. He has
pointed out orbs whose distance from us he
has discovered, but his numbers have an
unmeaning sound, which his own mind can
not reach. He has traced dim clouds to
universes whose existence may have finished
since the radiance which now shines upon
him proceeded from them. All his dis-
coveries enlarge our small ideas of the
immensity of Omnipotence. And does not
Geology do the same? Beneath the soil,
carpeted by various flowers which herald
forth the beauty of a world to come, are
secrets which are only known to man in
part.
But these revelations, small as they are,
stretch far beyond his comprehension. He
learns that the dust he treads upon was once
alive, that the rock on which he takes his
stand has lived and died - has been a thing
of life, and is now a stone : and this is a
time which reaches so far back as only to be
understood by Him who was from eternity.
He sees that a cavity (but an atom in the
world) has, by the small dropping of water,
created itself into a palace, and then has it
stood a silent witness to the earth's history,
become a cemetery of a creation swept
away in one of its changes. But this is
not all, nor even a part. It requires now a
laborious man to learn all which, little by
little, has been revealed to those who have
looked into the past, history of creation ;
and man, pausing in his vain endeavor to
stretch his mind to the capacity of that
which has no bounds, is obliged to rest
himself from the thought of the Infinite,
and, to confess that, whether he searches in
earth, or sky, or sea, he is everywhere met
by the visions of the Illimitable.

During the early part of this year
(1894) explorations were made on the Caves
Range Forest Reserve for new caves by the
Forester (Mr. W. Reddan) at the instiga-
tion of the Government, who placed £100
at his disposa for that purpose. The re-
sult of the explorations was that a new cave
was discovered, and the Conservator of
Forests (in whose department the Cave
Reserve is vested), in a letter addressed to
the Narracoorte District Council, asked that
body to inspect it and report to him.
Invitations were issued to a number of lead-

ing men of the town and district by
the Council to make an inspection of the
new cave; and on Thursday, July 19, 1894,
a party of 19 gentlemen explored the new
cave. We extract the following description
of the cave from the report of the party's
inspection, which appeared in the Narra-
coorte Herald of Friday, July 20 :—

"The approach to the new cave is a
precipitous one, and the explorers were as-
sisted in reaching the entrance to the caves
proper by a ladder and rope. The troubles
here began, and by continuous hard graft,
which was made up of crawling, stooping,
and clambering over a rocky and rough
surface, a halt was made in a fairly large
cave which had nothing to recommend it but
its size. Proceeding onward with difficulty
the party succeeded about fifty yards further
on in entering a beautiful chamber thickly
interspersed with stalactites and stalag-
mites. Here the magnesium light was

brought to bear and elicited expressions of
approval from the whole party. It was
indeed a fairy scene and brought back
visions of the "Arabian Knight's" en-
chanted case of diamonds. It was sug-
gested that this be called Edward Albert's
Chamber, which met with the approval of
those present. Proceeding onwards

much the same rugged path another cham-
ber was entered, which was named after
Mr Krichauff, who was instrumental in
getting the vote to pursue the exploration.
This chamber, though not so large as the
Edward Albert, is very beautiful. Still
pursuing a forward course the party came
across very many objects of considerable
interest. Deviating to the side a short
distance another small chamber was en-
tered, and though not so large as the two
previous chambers, was much in the same
style, and was named Laurie's grotto. The
party still continued their arduous task in
different directions, and one section more
venturesome than the rest essayed to ex-
plore a portion which had not come under
the attention of the Forester, and had a
very hard task before them. However,
they did not find anything so good as what

they had seen previously. Taking the
visit of inspection as a whole the caves
were pronounced a decided success, and a
magnificent addition to the museum of
natural wonders on the Caves' Range Forest
Reserve, and the party acknowledged they
were amply repaid for the hard work they

had to undergo in seeing what Mr. Reddan
had prepared for them. The caves are
situated about three-quarters of a mile from
the old caves on the track to Struan House,
which is distant about three and a half
miles. As there were only two Councillors
present, the Chairman and the District
Clerk asked an opinion from those present
as to the caves. They were unanimous in
acknowledging the beauty of the caves, and
the desirableness of steps being taken to
obtain a Government grant of £150 to make
them accessible to the public. At present
they are in a very rough state, it being quite
impossible for ladies to see any portion of

them. The Forest Reserve is in the hands
of the Department, and it is only by and

with the consent of that body that any-
thing can be done with them. The time
taken in going through the caves occupied
about two hours, and the length of them
as opened up about 200 yards in a straight
line, while there are many side openings
which lead to scenes of varied beauty.
Before the party dispersed a vote of thanks
was accorded to Mr. Reddan (Forester) and
his assistants for their courtesy in showing the
party through the caves, which, when properly
opened up, promise to he a great attraction
to visitors. It will be a necessity in order
to keep these beautiful caves intact to
formulate a plan by which vandalism can
be suppressed.

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