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^[[12.]]

This was the largest Cavern we had yet seen. It was [[strikethrough]] nigh [[/strikethrough]] ^[[nearly]] 200 feet long, about 60 feet high, and had been eroded to a depth of 40 or more feet. It was at the head of the gorge, and the level ground above came to the edge of the precipice - it was in the form of a horse-shoe as shown by the plan, and the stream which had eroded it or the gorge, now so diminished as that it barely trickled over the precipice, fell by drops to the little pool below which it had made, and which formed the stream that slowly meandered at the bottom of the gorge. The crossmarks indicate the soundings we made, which required only a few inches, or a foot or more to come the bed-rock. The little cavern high up, to the right-hand upper corner of the page, was higher up the hill and some distance further down the gorge than the great horse-shoe cave mentioned. It was not filled with sand, but with soil and earth. It looked much more promising than did the others, and I made a transverse trench across it as indicated, but with the same results as with the others. The Saltpetre diggings were as indicated, and had been carried on by the early pioneers. Our landlord told us that, as a boy, he had seen the remains of the old leach-

Transcription Notes:
The last word (leach-) may be continued on the next page.