Renfro Valley Bugle
Volume 20 – Number 6
March 1967
New Discovery Made In Cave
Latest discovery among the hidden wonders of Great Saltpetre Cave was made recently by Mr. Renner, a stonemason working on building the stone pillars at each side of the huge iron gate protecting the South entrance to the cave.
Noticing a round opening in the ceiling over the main waterfall in a side passage, he decided to go through it and see what lay beyond it. He reports finding a small room, about twelve feet square, with its walls covered by the most beautiful flowstone formation he has ever seen. As soon as we can get a photographer to ascend into this room, we will try to get pictures for use in the Bugle.
This discovery verifies Dr. Brown's original description of the cave written in 1802 and printed in the February Bugle. This, without question, was the Russian Dome in which workmen in the cave formerly took sweat baths instead of the section of the cave which we had tried to identify as the Russian Dome.
Other passages of the cave remain to be explored but there is little likelihood that they will reveal anything of much interest. Being a very dry cave, stalactite and stalagmite were never very extensive and those which had formed in the main cave had been broken up and carried away by souvenir hunters through the years. This makes the discovery above the waterfall and Frozen Cascades of special interest if we can make the room more accessible to visitors to the cave.
Scanning and OCR work done by Andy Niekamp
Article Courtesy of Renfro Valley Entertainment Center