increases the deposit. Te height of the lower vase is about fve feet, which is inferable by our standing by it, and looking over the rim into the limpid basin. Te rim is about two and a half inches thick. Etruscan artists could not have formed a more singular set of capacious vases. Te stream of water that supplies these curious tanks, rushes with velocity from the upper part of the cavern. (Schoolcraf 1853:107)
Te very same rimstone dams and small lakes that Schoolcraf saw and described in detail are still present in the Smallin Civil War Cave streambed. He mentions standing by the lower vase to peer into the water. Modern visitors Schoolcraft would have seen these stalactites at the mouth of the cave. can stand in the same location and see what Schoolcraf saw. geologic features he encountered, Schoolcraf wrote,
Flowstone and Stalactite Stalactites are also found in a very large cave on Finley’s Fork,…Tey are in In his journal, Schoolcraf makes note of the enormous columns, and the foor of other calcite formations in the cave, “Large the cave is covered by stalagmites, from masses of stalagmite, and several columns of the size of a pea to many tons of weight. stalactite, pendant from the roof, are also found...” (Schoolcraf 1819:204) (Park 1955:110; Raferty 1996:80) Upon refecting on his journey through Missouri and the many Schoolcraf also applied the term “pendant” to describe them and later writers use the term “beehive” or “mammary” formations. (Bright 2013:27) Te “large masses of stalagmite” is Schoolcraf’s description of the beautiful wall fowstone found throughout Smallin Civil War Cave. Te most massive piece, known as the Indian Ladder, has captivated humans long before and long afer Schoolcraf’s visit.
Cave Pearls
In his journal, Schoolcraf documents a type of cave formation that was unusual to him:
In that part of the cave which is dry, and in the bottom of the brook which runs across The Indian Ladder is a massive fowstone formation located near the it, is found a singular calcareous formation, opening of the cave. This photo illustrates what it might have looked like in the shape of small globules from the size when Schoolcraft was in the cave. of a grain of sand to that of a musket-bullet,
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