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Charlton and the Critters |
We got into a virgin cave at Blue Spring Run in Allegheny County. Well, almost virgin. A little bit of it had been entered by the Persingers who owned it when they were young. We caved in it, Earl, myself and Bill Cuddington. Bill went up to check a corner lead in the entrance room, and said he didn't see anything.
On a subsequent trip. I was in there with people from New Jersey showing them the cave. We found a fissure that continued on, opened up a little bit, and finally the bottom dropped out of it. Tossed some rocks in; and decided it was about 65 feet. It had a pretty good air stream coming out of it.
Well, when I got out, I contacted Bill Cuddington. He was rarin' to go. We got back there, and Bill rappelled in. First thing you know I heard Bill's voice down at the bottom of the original exploration and dropped down into it. I just took some time to realize the mechanism of the air flow. Here we had a single entrance air flow. The cold air dropped down into the bottom of the cave, warmed up, rose up against the ceiling into this passage we were in, and flowed out against the ceiling of the cave to the entrance. Since then I have noticed single entrance air currents in a number of other caves, some of them even practically horizontal. I've noticed it in several caves there in West Virginia.
Another tale about Persinger's Cave: we went back to it, stopped down at the farmhouse and were talking to Mrs. Persinger. She said, "You guys be careful, we've got a mountain lion." I said, "Oh you mean a bobcat, don't you?" ''No, its got a long tail with a white tip on it. Jumped the fence and been around the house here several times." Mr. Persingercame round the corner, and said, "Yes, he's got a long tail. He jumped out of the hog pen and his tail flew right straight up in the air. I kept teasing them a little bit about its being a bobcat, and they were getting a bit angry about it. About that time a Persinger boy came around the house. "I got a new cave to show you; come on." So we started up the mountain and got up in this old brushy area, half grown up, weeds up to our knees. We were marching single file, Persinger in the lead. He threw up his arms, yelling, "There it goes". All I could see was a tawny streak six inches high in the weeds. Split the weeds open, just like a knife. Zipppp! Right to this hole we were going to. We went up and looked. The grass was beaten down flat around the hole; there were feathers and a dead mole that had been played with until it was just a bag of water.
I said, "Oh, oh. This old cat's got kittens in this hole. We gotta watch out-" Persinger said, "Well, I'll go back and get some rifles. You all get a couple of big sticks, and keep the animal in the hole." So we sat down; brother Jim was standing over the hole with a stick and slipped. He fell in and cut himself. Just lucky the cat didn't decide to come out. Persinger got back with the rifle; but the cat never showed her face. We went on to rig Persinger's Cave which was about a hundred yards away. We went on in and did our exploring. Came out in the middle of the night, and started off down the hill. Got to a little clearing, and all of a sudden, right in front of us ---- WOWWW! Half a second later, ninety degrees to the left --- WOWW! I mean, to say we stopped dead in our tracks with our hair standing on end! Stood there for awhile wondering what in the Sam Hill to do; flashing our lights trying to see the gleam of an eye, and couldn't see anything. Then I remembered we hadn't pulled the ladder out of the entrance. No one would volunteer to go back with me so I said I would go back and get it myself. I took a rifle and went back up, rolled the ladder tip, got a feeling real brave, and said, "Oh. I can see the eyes of that cat and I'll plug him right between the eyes." I started over toward the cat's den and got into a briar patch. I got to thinking, what good in the world this rifle was doing me in the briar patch. I couldn't use it if I had to. About that time the old cat cut loose with a yowl, sounded like it was right on top of me. Scared the living heck out of me. I did the worst possible thing; I bolted and ran. I reckon I ran down that Mountain side in forty foot jumps! Later I talked with foresters, and they verified that there were mountain lions in Allegheny County.
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previous--Breathing and Easter Pig pg171
next--Virginia Cave Survey pg173
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