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Fun with
Roy(Charlton)&Earl(Thierry)
Part 2
So we went down to, Neber Connell's. He says, "Yea,there's a hole there. I don't think you can go anywhere. I put a little fence there to keep the sheep out. Earl and myself went down, and sure enough, you couldn't go anywhere. Earl stomped around on it. "Let's dig this thing out. There's not much to dig. "Earl pulled out a few sticks and down he went I was close behind. him. Well, we were in a little entrance room. Didn't look like much. Fissure there with a lot of chert, and we knocked that out. Got to a fairly decent passage. Earl was supposed to pick up his daughter back in Lewisburg. He ran along the passage a little bit further; the thing was getting bigger, and he was looking at his watch, and would take off and go again. When we got back to Lewisburg, they were putting his daughter in the car getting ready to take her back to Charleston. We were on slow time; they were on Daylight Saving. They waited about two or three hours for us. But Earl just couldn't stop in that cave; it was getting bigger and better all the time.
Another one right close to Hurt Cave was Eva Connell's Cave which we called Lemon Hole. An elderly lady across the highway used to be a cave over she was a girl, but she was stopped up. We got permission to go over and look at the place. There was a tremendous sink there and water going down into a pile of tin cans and trash, filled up with many a trailer truck. I was a bit tired. I'd been caving and caving all that weekend with Earl. Earl was still going. "Earl you will never find your way down through those tin cans. The cave is bound to be filled up.
I sat on a log in the sun whilst Earl poked around for a while. The first thing you know I saw him kick a few cans aside and stick his feet down wiggling. He wiggled down a little bit, and got down to his waist and disappeared. I waited around a little while then went down to look at the hole he had made. Heard him holler, "Come on. Come on." I slid in and didn't much like it. A few dead sheep there, in plastic bags; wasn't a very pleasant place to be. Got down into a crawly-hole, went crawling on back after Earl. He got into quite a bit of cave. Well, we left it, came out, and thought we would explore it some more on another trip. It wasn't a very inviting hole, all the rooms were covered with mud, being flooded out. We found several thousand feet of cave in there, best as I can remember. Took my brother Jim back on a subsequent trip.
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Acme Quarry Cave entrance, WV
Photo by P.C. Lucas |
One phenomenon there that we recognized had apparently been occurring on a number of trips. There were two large passages corrected by a nice little walking, passage, we went running down the walking passages and stopped. We noticed wind blowing back into our faces. And it stopped. Then came from. the other way. Oscillating. It dampened out finally, just stopped. We had noticed that in Acme mine, Hurt Cave, and several others. We always knew that when we hit an air like that, we were going to find some more cave. Dut we didn't realize what caused the air flow to oscillate. It was a ram effect. A party moving down
the passage shoving the air before 'em into the big room beyond, and when they stopped it flowed back in the room behind 'em. It oscillated. Back and forth till it stopped. I never heard this particular phenomenon described by anybody. I guess I should have written it up or reported on it. But we tried it out, tested it out, and sure enough, when we moved fast and then stopped, we had air movement. Oh, it's similar to freight train coming down a tunnel, you know; if you stand in front of a tunnel before the train comes out, a great rush of air comes out.
Earl and myself had heard about a cave back in Acme Mine, but we never did go out and look for it ourselves. Finally, Bill Stephenson carried us by the mine, and we got into the cave. It was a right beautiful cave, very photogenic.
Bill Stephenson After two or three trips into the cave, we found this real beautiful pit. Sides were all lined with formations; about 65 feet down you could see a reflection pool. Earl and Alan Boudreau and Tom McDaniel and myself; we went down the mit and explored. Tom and myself were together; all of a sudden the air just sorta went by "whooshai" We stood in amazement and wondered what in the world it could have been. Later, we got back with Earl and Bill; they were closer to the entrance at the time and said the wind blew their lights out.
When we got out of the cave early the next morning a car came roaring up and the man down in the office where we signed the releases came over and exclaimed, "Man" I'm glad to see you people. I went down to the mine foreman yesterday after 1 gave you permission to go in the cave and told him 'say, don't set off any dynamite today; we've got some cavers back, in there.' The mine foreman said, Good Lord, we just set off a face shot.' So I've been worried to death. Every hour I drove by here all night long and your car was still parked there. I didn't know what in the world to do. I am certainly glad to see you this morning."
On another trip to Acme Mine, I was caving with Bill Biggers and Earl. We came to a dome pit. Bill started to climb it. I thought I saw an easier way and raced him to the top. But I didn't quite beat him. Up at the top the dome pit had cut a stream passage. I straddled it. It was laying there half cut away by the dome pit. There, laying in the gravel, was a horse's tooth. Well, later I gave it to Alan Boudreau; he took it up to Harvard and it was identified as a prehistoric species.
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