ort. The bridge is tubular with twenty
feet between the walls, and is one hundred feet long."

"At J.P. Fisher's on Spencer Creek, Ralls County, there is a cave having
an entrance of ninety feet wide by twenty feet high. The Lower Trenton
beds occupy the floor, with the upper cavernous beds above. On the
bluff, at a distance of one hundred and fifty yards back, there is a
sink-hole which communicates with the cave. Within the cave is a cool,
clear spring of water, and Mr. F. said he could keep meat fresh there
for six weeks during midsummer."

"The Third Magnesian Limestone which occupies such a large portion of
Southwest Missouri, often contains very large caves. One of them, known
as Friede's cave, is six or eight miles Northwest of Rolla, on Cave
Spring Creek."

"It is said to have been explored for several miles, but I only passed
in a few hundred yards. The stalactites here are very beautiful,
assuming the structure of satin spar. A very clear stream of water
issues out. West of the Gasconade, on Clifty Creek, is a remarkable
Natural Bridge which I have elsewhere described in Geological Survey of
Missouri, 1855-71, page 16."

"Mr. Meek speaks of a large and interesting cave on Tavern Creek, in
Miller County. Dr. Shumard estimates a cave on Bryant's Fork, in Ozark
County, to be a mile and a half long."

This description of Dr. Shumard's is in the Geological Survey of
Missouri, 1855-71, page 196, where he says:

"The entrance is thirty-five feet wide and thirty feet high, and is
situated at the foot of a perpendicular cliff, and far above the
water-level of Bryant. Just within the entrance it expands to sixty or
seventy feet, with a height of about fifty feet; and this part of the
cave has been used by the citizens of the county as a place for holding
camp-meeting. I estimated its length at not far short of one mile and a
half. The main passage is in general quite spacious, the roof elevated,
and the floor tolerably level, but often wet and miry. For some distance
beyond the entrance there is not much to attract attention; but as we
proceed, at the far extremity the chambers are quite as picturesque as
the most noted of the well-known Mammoth Cave. The ceilings, sides and
floor are adorned with a multitude of stalactites and stalagmites
arranged in fanciful combinations, and assuming a variety of fantastic
and beautiful forms."

Many of these caves contain niter, which occurs as a mineral and not as
evidence