A Jasper Cave
A correspondent of the Boston Transcript, who is the Topographical Engineer of New Hampshire, states that one of the most wonderful geological discoveries ever made round the White Mountains, has just been brought to the notice of scientific men. Two young men of Berlin Falls, in sliding down the cliffs of a rugged mountain, two miles from that town, found the entrance to an enormous cave, the existence of which was unknown before. William D. Sanborn, a noted guide in that region, made a thorough exploration of it, using candles to light his way. Finding in it a beautiful mineral of bright color, he reported the fact, and the cave was visited by Mr. E. S. Brown, a mineralogist, who found the entire cave was made of jasper, of magnificent color and quality.
The entrance is so small that a man can barely enter it on his hands and knees. About ten feet from the entrance it is nine feet high and fifteen wide, opening into a fine apartment sixty feet in length, formed of jasper of a delicate blue ash color, striped with fire red, so exquisitely beautiful as to draw exclamations of surprise and admiration from the dullest student of nature.
But the wonders of the cave do not lie in the fact that it is formed, but in the fact that the long-disputed question is now settled where the Indians of New-England got their jasper to make their arrow heads. It has never been known until now where this jasper of a blue color which they used came from. There can be no doubt that the Indians, hundreds of years since, commenced the work of chipping off pieces, and continued their work until a cavern sixty feet in extent was cut out of the rock, for the top and sides of the cave all show it has been chipped in many thousand places. In many places the vein of jasper has been cut to its intersection with the granite and there the work stopped. An Indian axe and tomhawk were found in the bottom of the cave, such as were used during the French and Indian wars, when the Pequawhet, Pennaeooks, and Androscoggins wandered in this beautiful region—in which their savage implements are now found in abundance. Berlin Falls is in Coos county, New Hampshire, within an hour's ride of Gorham.
-Published in the Country Gentlemen Journal, New York City, 1862
The entrance is so small that a man can barely enter it on his hands and knees. About ten feet from the entrance it is nine feet high and fifteen wide, opening into a fine apartment sixty feet in length, formed of jasper of a delicate blue ash color, striped with fire red, so exquisitely beautiful as to draw exclamations of surprise and admiration from the dullest student of nature.
But the wonders of the cave do not lie in the fact that it is formed, but in the fact that the long-disputed question is now settled where the Indians of New-England got their jasper to make their arrow heads. It has never been known until now where this jasper of a blue color which they used came from. There can be no doubt that the Indians, hundreds of years since, commenced the work of chipping off pieces, and continued their work until a cavern sixty feet in extent was cut out of the rock, for the top and sides of the cave all show it has been chipped in many thousand places. In many places the vein of jasper has been cut to its intersection with the granite and there the work stopped. An Indian axe and tomhawk were found in the bottom of the cave, such as were used during the French and Indian wars, when the Pequawhet, Pennaeooks, and Androscoggins wandered in this beautiful region—in which their savage implements are now found in abundance. Berlin Falls is in Coos county, New Hampshire, within an hour's ride of Gorham.
-Published in the Country Gentlemen Journal, New York City, 1862
