Penn's Cave
| Penn's Cave
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 The entrance to the cave with the (unoccupied) jetty in the foreground |
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| Location: | Pennsylvania , United States | |
| Height : | 350 m | |
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Geographic location: |
40 ° 52 '55 " N , 77 ° 36' 27" W | |
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| Type: | Karst cave | |
| Discovery: | unknown | |
| Show cave since: | 1885 | |
| Lighting: | electric (since 1925) | |
| Website: | official page | |
The Penn's Cave is in Center County in the US state of Pennsylvania located cave and the only full horizontal stretch water-filled cave bigger the United States . It is named after John Penn, the nephew of the founder of the colony, William Penn , and is located on extensive farm land 7.6 kilometers northeast of Center Hall and 4.6 kilometers northwest of the village of Spring Mills . On Penns Cave Road, which branches off Pennsylvania Route 192 (called West Madison Avenue in that section), it is officially still on the common land that belongs to Center Hall.
The hydrological system of Penn's Cave is complicated and has not yet been fully deciphered. As a typical karst cave, it takes up numerous water veins in the region and feeds a stream as a powerful spring. White settlers have known the cave since at least 1773 - Native Americans have known it for much longer. The year 1885 is generally regarded as the beginning of the show cave operations , when boat trips were offered for the first time and admission was charged, which makes it the second oldest show cave in the state after the Crystal Cave (1872). The cave has been owned by the Campbell / Schleiden family since 1908, now in the third generation.
The cave
Hydrological situation
Penn's Cave is one of the major hydrological collection centers in the central area. It cannot be determined exactly which watercourses it will contain; What is certain, however, is that various streams on the nearby mountain slopes and the groundwater from the surrounding farms drain through the karst rock into the cave. The nearly four-meter-deep basin under the main portal acts as a spring pot . It unloads around 15,140 liters per minute. This pouring can increase with heavy precipitation. Following the course of the cave, the water flows underground before it ends up in a small lake. The water level is usually relatively constant; the average daily flow is just under 50 million liters. As Penn's Creek, the creek is a 5.8-kilometer tributary of the Susquehanna River . Until 1927 or 1929, when an artificial breakthrough in the grotto was created, Penn's Cave closed to the east on an abrupt rock wall and became so low that in a small area the water level reached the ceiling of the cave. At that time, the water left the cave immediately before the end of the cave and emerged as a surface source not far away. From there it flowed on as the already mentioned Penn's Creek. For several decades, until the connection between the source and the cave lake finally became apparent in the 1860s, this outlet was considered the only place of origin of the creek. The discharge of the spring pot varies between 56 and 6512 liters per second, with the annual discharge curve describing a gentle seasonal curve - with the maximum value in spring during times of heavy precipitation and snowmelt in the mountains and the lowest values in September and October when the The water table is already low. Several studies have shown that the water hardness and temperature inside the cave are also subject to considerable fluctuations depending on the seasons and weather conditions, such as storms or local storms. This implies that the cave's water comes from a system of underground crevices rather than the permanent water table. According to chemical, hydrological and geological analyzes, it is almost certain that upstream of the spring pot there are still unexplored parts of the grotto.
The catchment area of Penns Creek, in whose headwaters the cave lies, drains both the Brush Valley and the Penns Valley. The limestone valleys rise up to 370 meters. In this central Pennsylvanian landscape, most of the drainage occurs underground, with small rivulets collecting and penetrating the ground through cracks and crevices. Larger veins then transport the water from the limestone holes to the springs. The situation around Penn's Cave is a lot more complicated. The cave is the only climb in the region. The underground drainage system could therefore extend westward beyond Center Hall, where the watershed between the cave basin and the catchment area of Spring Creek lies. Eastward it would therefore stretch to the watershed with the Spring Bank. The topographical dividing line runs roughly in the middle between the two sources, 4.8 kilometers east of the cave. However, it is not possible to know with certainty whether the drainage conditions are the same underground as they are on the surface. For this reason, experiments with water colors (similar to glaciers ) have already been carried out on the seepage at Nittany Mountain - without any notable success. There is little doubt, however, that the clusters of seepage at Nittany Mountain drained into the cave for the first five kilometers east of Center Hall. How they overcome the anticline fold of the Brush Valley transversal, however, is still unclear. Anticline structures usually cause the water to sink further into deeper dolomitic layers in which no grottos are formed. Typically, an average karst cave spring pot discharges 5.66 liters per second per square mile of drainage area, which would imply that Penn's Cave has a drainage area of approximately 25.9 square kilometers (± 5.1).
description
Penn's Cave presents itself as a comparatively simply structured and spatially clear cave. The western part of the grotto, which runs from east to north, and the east-north-east facing east are connected by a short section that runs almost south. The number of entrances to the cave was controversial for a long time, as diffuse daylight can penetrate through some small, narrow crevices in the ceiling - provided these are not overgrown by vegetation on the surface. Nowadays, however, there is usually talk of two entrances. The main portal (see photo in the info box) is located in hilly terrain in a relatively steeply sloping depression and can be reached via a 48-step staircase. It is an approximately triangular opening in the diagonally layered rock, which has a width of about ten and a height of about five meters above the water level. Shoemaker described the portal as "the most imposing of any cave in the United States - maybe in the world" ( de .: "the most impressive of all caves in the United States - possibly worldwide"). The source pot under this gate has a maximum depth of 3.9 meters. In the former orchard of the farm, the second entrance is located 152 meters east of the portal directly next to the parking lot in a ditch under a tree. The hole, which is now closed off, was the most popular entry point in the early decades of exploring the cave, as it leads into the only small dry area of the cave.
What is striking about the geography of the cave is its composition of two partially overlapping levels. The lower one is the well-developed waterway, the upper one - according to presumptions - the only main level that has collapsed and was washed out over the course of millennia in the course of erosion. The upper level is therefore only preserved in individual sections, which extend like bulges in the rock wall to the cave tube or hang over the water as balconies. In the first section of the cave, about 45.7 meters long, are the stalactites "Elephant with Runny Trunk" and "Lobster Claw" before the 76 meter long First Room opens. Its main feature is a fragment of the upper level that emerges in a pile on the north side and on which the sinter formation "Statue of Liberty" stands. But the south side also has balconies and ledges, which are covered with numerous stalactites, such as "The Garden of the Gods" and "Boy Driving Cow Across Suspension Bridge". The first room merges into the dry room with a ceiling height between six and twelve meters, the latter representing the maximum height of the grotto. The "Rock of Gibraltar" is to be seen as the border between the two areas, an extraordinarily large rock that fell into the watercourse and blocks it almost across its entire width. Only an extremely narrow passage - just wide enough for one of the moving boats - is passable. The Dry Room owes its name to the fact that in this area the upper cave level slopes gently towards the water in a sandy-rocky slope and forms a bank. At the end of the funnel-shaped bulge in the rock is the aforementioned, non-public entrance from the orchard. At the beginning of the cave's history of discovery, this dry area was the only section that could be explored without a boat for a long time. The area is characterized by numerous smaller, fallen stones and the rock formations "Chinese Buddha" and "Nittany Lion"
Following the Dry Room , the course of the cave turns sharply to the south, directly towards another balcony, but bends in the aforementioned east-northeast direction immediately in front of it. This is followed by a long straight passage, in the area of which the ceiling height varies between 1.5 and 4.5 meters. While the south wall is almost completely smooth and free of deposits, on the north side, which is covered with orange-colored sinter, the stalactite "The Chimes" can be found immediately after the bend and then the "Niagara Falls" formation. This turns into the bulbous "Chinese Dragon", which hunts a turtle on a ledge. The cave tube then opens on the north side into the last room, which is called the Colored Lights Room and has a maximum height of 7.6 meters. The “Western Scenery” and the “Giant Pillar”, the highest stalagmite in Penn's Cave at 4.26 meters, are located on the embankment. In the northeast corner is the opening to the tiny and circular Circular Room with a ceiling height of 1.8 meters. Immediately to the east of this, a narrow, inconspicuous air shaft to the surface was created, which also accommodates various cables for the electrical supply. From the easternmost area of the Colored Lights Room you get into a narrow passage that winds around 12.1 meters to the north with a maximum height of only 0.7 meters. Behind some stalagnates , in the northwest corner of the Colored Lights Room, there is access to the small 40 foot room that runs parallel to the rear and is six meters wide and 12.1 meters long and 2.4 meters high. Approximately in the middle of its north side there is another narrow space that rises in a northerly direction and is initially very low at only 0.3 meters. At the northern end, however, it widens to 0.9 meters and there is also a hole in the cave floor in that area, through which there is access to the Seldom Seen Room , which also runs in north-south direction , the name of which is a reference to his Remoteness. It is 9.1 meters long, up to 7.6 meters wide and 1.8 meters high. The Colored Lights Room , with these side rooms, which can only be explored speleologically , is the most branched area of the cave. The last room goes to the east into a 2.4 meter high, but very narrow tunnel, which forms the end of the cave and opens it to Lake Nitanee.
Research by the staff over the years has uncovered various side passages in the cave. The first is already in the main portal area. There a hole opens in the ceiling and the tiny tunnel winds up to just under the first room , where it is reintegrated into the grotto on the north wall. A few meters further, behind the embankment in the north wall, a path leads about 60.9 meters to the northwest. Furthermore, immediately behind the bend in the Dry Room , at the beginning of the long straight section towards the exit, there is a small corridor. It leads six meters south and ends at a mud plug.
Studies from the 1970s have shown the total volume of Penn's Cave to be around 600,000 cubic feet. The temperature inside the cave system is around 11 degrees Celsius (52 degrees Fahrenheit ). The maximum water depth of Penn's Cave is 12.19 meters, the water has a greenish color and due to its clarity allows good visibility. Heavy precipitation on the surface can, however, result in cloudiness via the source pot. What is unusual about the cave are the different shades of the limestone , which is why it is widely regarded as the most strikingly colored cave in the eastern United States. The shades range from white to delicate gray and strong pink and red tones to art nouveau- like gray-green tones in individual sections. The reddish cave painting "Indian Riding Pony" from Rhus is also famous .
If you look at other caves in the eastern United States such as the Wyandotte Caves in Corydon in Indiana or the Luray Caverns and Endless Caverns in northern Virginia , there are comparatively few stalactites and stalagmites in Penn's Cave. While the first explorers were still very enthusiastic about the formations, many were intentionally or accidentally broken off in the 19th century by visitors who toured the cave without a professional guide.
Flora and fauna
Skeletal finds prove that puma , red fox , lynx and smaller mammals lived in the dry areas of the cave well before 1770 . However, the animal population has changed drastically over the centuries. Around 1900 residents still regularly caught allis shad in the cave , but even then a change in the fauna structure became apparent: The wintering numbers of bats were already declining, which was generally explained by the increasing number of visitors and the associated unnatural noise environment. This effect only increased after the cave was electrified. Nowadays, Penn's Cave, unlike other caves, only serves as a habitat for a few larger animal species. This can be explained, among other things, by the absence of any flora within the cave tube, so that there is no source of food.
Small crayfish , various types of insects, rats and mice can be found in the cave, in addition to the still large bat populations, in which barn owls also retreat during the coldest periods of winter . Trout live in the water , but due to the lack of food, at least within Penn's Cave, they do not reproduce. The bats prefer the small entrance in the orchard leading to the dry area to the large main cave portal as an entrance opening. Other animal species, which otherwise typically inhabit cave systems, are not known in the grotto.
Geological formation
Penn's Cave is located in what is known as the Ridge and Valley region of the Appalachians and east of the Allegheny Layer, a topographical feature that runs from Alabama to Pennsylvania. The long, parallel folds contain mountain ranges covered with resistant sandstone (e.g. Nittany Mountain or Brush Mountain) and dividing valleys, which are often lined with slate and limestone (e.g. Penns Valley and Brush Valley). The limestone was stored in its original form as mud on the sea floor. Around 300 to 320 million years ago, enormous tectonic forces - caused by the collision of several lithospheric plates - caused both older rock and marine soil layers to fold in what is now the Ridge and Valley Province. This process created the anticlines and synclines that make up the Appalachians today. The Brush Valley, to which Penn's Cave is also counted, is - although valley-shaped - an anticline. As a rule, to put it simply, anticlines are bulges, while synclines denote valleys (inverse geometric structures). In the Penn's Cave region, however, a major fold compresses into several small folds and the major axis of the structure is irregular; the topography is interrupted by intermediate valleys. One of these ridges is Nittany Mountain, the southwestern end of which rests above State College. To the east extends the Penns Valley, which again combines three smaller anticlines. At the western end of the Brush Mountains, the main groups of cave limestone are mainly found in Cambrian - Ordovician carbonates . These include Gatesburg and Beekmantown dolomite as well as Warrior, Stonehenge and Champlainian limestone. In the latter (also known as Trenton Limestone) lies the cave - in the stratigraphic section of the Nealmont and Linden Hall Formations. The highest sections of Penn's Cave extend up to three meters into Rodman limestone.
While most of the other caves in the region are estimated to be no more than 10 million years old, the geological formation of Penn's Cave began around 30 million years ago. It resembles the pattern according to which other limestone caves were created and ran in two cycles: First, the rock was washed out by penetrating water and then the groundwater level was lowered with the associated (partial) drainage of the cave. The limestone in its original form is usually seal-proof and impenetrable. It takes small fractures and cracks for meltwater or rainwater to seep into the ground. As soon as this happens and the water penetrates decaying organic material, it absorbs carbon dioxide (CO ² ), which leads to the formation of carbonic acid . On the following path through cracks in the rock and crevices into the groundwater, this dissolves calcite and other minerals from the limestone, so that the already weakly acidic water is enriched with further minerals. Over the millennia, the rock was washed out in this way, as small crevices widened to form passages and the rooms were finally filled with water. This process can drag on for millions of years and can only be stopped by two events: a lowering of the groundwater level or a supply of air to the grotto through surface erosion. If the mineral-rich water comes into contact with air, excess carbon dioxide escapes and the lower acid content allows the other minerals that oversaturate the water to settle in the cave. Typically, it takes several years to deposit a cubic centimeter. The duration is influenced by various factors - the most important are the amount of precipitation and the outside temperature, which determines the rate of decomposition of dead organic substances and thus the CO ² saturation of the soil. The color of the individual deposits depends on their individually different mineral compositions. For example, pure calcite leaves white traces, while iron can oxidize and turn the formations brown-orange. The fine cracks in the rock through which the surface water penetrates into the body of the Penn's Cave can be localized in part by means of thin rows of stalactite growing from the ceiling.
Speleologists assume that Penn's Cave was completely filled with water during the Wisconsin glaciation a good 100,000 years ago. The speleothems on the north side of the long passage to the Colored Lights Room - including the “Niagara Falls” - give an indication of this . These formations were created by the deposition of minerals on a mud and silt bank, which was subsequently washed away by the water, so that only the stone curtains remained. Such processes indicate a period of flooding with high water levels and little current. Since then, the water level has never fallen below today's level. In general, the formation of caves in the region can be divided into four different patterns: Linear caves have a straight passage, which mostly correlates with the limestone. Angled caves zigzag through the rock, have several sections (mostly the longer ones) that run parallel to the field, while others cross the structure. So-called network caves have a self-contained duct system and the respective duct arches are usually aligned at right angles. The mostly rather small branch caves have several small corridors that feed a larger one, similar to a water hierarchy. Penn's Cave is a typical linear cave, as both main sections developed along the line of the rock and the short connecting section has a much smaller cross-section.
history
Various finds of arrowheads and pottery indicate that the cave was used or at least visited in modern times by various Native American peoples - most likely by Seneca .
The first recorded owner of Penn's Cave is now James Poe, a distant relative of the famous writer Edgar Allan Poe . Poe was a border settler and wrested a piece of land measuring 800 acres (about 3,237,520 m²) from the Indians , which he examined for the first time in 1773 after two guarantees promised to him on January 5 and November 3, 1773. From then on, he managed the property on which the cave was located as a farm. Documentary confirmation of his possession Poe received on April 9, 1789 from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Most of the time, however, he lived on his original homestead (the valley was later named after him; this is how Poe Valley State Park exists) and lived only briefly on the farm. There he erected a large log house, the first building in that section of the valley. During that time, in the early summer of 1795, James Martin was the first white man to descend into the grotto. Born in Ireland and an honorary graduate from Trinity College in Dublin, he pastored the first Presbyterian congregation in the Penns Valley. According to reports, the elderly Martin caught a cold in the cave from which he no longer recovered. He died on June 20, 1795. James Poe bequeathed the land to his daughter Susanna M. Poe, who married Samuel Vantries. Although the couple lived in nearby Linden Hall and leased the farm to Jacob Harshbarger in 1855, it was known as "Vantries Place". Between 1845 and 1860, numerous people - residents, travelers and adventure seekers - descended into the small dry area of the cave via the access in the orchard. One of them was Isaac Paxton, a young Quaker from Chester County who had found a job as a teacher in Spring Mills. He was a nature lover and studied flora , fauna and geological formations of the region on long walks . Together with his friend, the farmer Albert Woods, he also visited the small accessible area of Penn's Cave in June 1860. In the sand there, they dug up the skeletons of two pumas . They noticed a distant light at one end of the watercourse and correctly thought it was penetrating daylight. Paxton and Woods got wood from a nearby sawmill , built a raft, and used it to go down the stream. In the light of the torch, they discovered the other rooms of the cave and found that the watercourse that delimits the dry area and the well-known spring pot visible from the surface - today's cave entrance - are the same body of water and are connected and that it is a coherent grotto system acts. The two succeeded in crossing the full length of Penn's Cave for the first time. News of their discovery spread quickly, and in the months and years that followed, numerous picnics were held around the cave entrance . However, very few visitors were interested in the interior of the cave, which was partly due to the fact that the main portal, in which one could have put a boat in water, was almost inaccessible and overgrown below steep slopes. Despite the performance Paxton and Woods' and the excavations popular interest waned in subsequent years due to the furious at Penn's Cave Civil War noticeably.
Samuel Vantries sold the farm in 1868 to George Long, who lived in the log cabin. Long used the water of Penn's Creek for his own needs and was considered a relatively strict landowner. He had realized that the water from the spring was the same as that on which boats or rafts traveled, albeit sporadically. He carefully monitored his land and visitors to the grotto, fearing that the day trippers might contaminate his water. For this reason, the number of cave hikers to Penn's Cave was reduced to a minimum at that time. In 1876, however, he received prominent visitors: three Russian dignitaries had traveled to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and then visited the governor , who had just left office and was appointed Minister for Russia, Andrew Curtin in his home town of Bellefonte not far from the cave. Curtin drove to the cave with the men they were touring together. Then they stopped at the Longs' house. George Long died in 1884 and his sons Jesse and Samuel inherited the farm. Both were considered world-wide, had already made several journeys and quickly recognized the useful economic potential of the cave. As a result, they made it accessible to visitors for the first time. They constructed a boat and organized the first tourist tours for a fee. According to plans by the architect Daniel F. Luse from Center Hall, the brothers built the four-story, L-shaped Penn's Cave Hotel with 30 rooms in 1885. After initially great success with several hundred guests annually, they were confronted with financial ruin in the late 1890s. The reason for this could be the fact that, although they went down the stairs to the cave entrance and built the wooden pier there and gave some rock formations popular names, they hardly made any efforts or took advertising measures to make the cave known nationwide. This inaction was criticized in 1895 by the publisher of the Public Ledger and avid angler, William E. Meehan. He noted that the grotto may be one of the most popular vacation spots east of the Mississippi and will make a financial fortune to its owners, but that it is “owned by one of the slow natives of the county who either does not have the means or concern to decorate the area and to make it the place it should be ”. One advantage that the Long brothers apparently left unused was the ongoing expansion of the railway network. While in her father's time the nearest train station was 22 kilometers west of the cave in Bellefonte, in 1885 rails had been brought up to five kilometers to her. The railway companies also praised Penn's Cave in brochures and tourist guides. In 1905 the property with all buildings was up for auction . The contract was awarded to John A. Herman from Pleasant Gap.
Just three years later, however, there was another foreclosure auction in 1908. The brothers Henry Clay and Robert Pearly Campbell († 1932) bought the farm for 12,000 US dollars . Henry taught at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, but Robert lived with his wife Edith and their children on the acquired property on the third floor of the hotel. However, its use soon became unprofitable. This was due to the increasing popularity of the automobile , which made faster arrival and departure possible and overnight stays superfluous. The house accommodated guests until 1919. Subsequently, up to and including 1929, it was only used as a ticket sales point, souvenir shop and restaurant. Its most famous guest was the British inventor and major entrepreneur Alexander Graham Bell . In 1923 there was a new visitor record. The remaining seven years of the decade were marked by serious redesigns in the outdoor area and technical innovations. In 1925, the Campbell Brothers built a dam on Penn's Creek. A few meters after its surface source, the structure dammed the stream. The water power generated energy that was used to illuminate the cave. Before that, the only illumination had been in the boats' headlights. The watercourse on which the tourists frequented now produced the electricity that illuminated the cave - this revolutionary principle, new for the time, caused a sensation beyond the county boundaries. The resulting small artificial lake was called Lake Nitanee. It is precisely this body of water, picturesquely embedded in deciduous forests and pastures , that opened up the possibility of adding an aspect worth seeing to the boat trips. However, this required a passage from the grotto, which is why a 22.8 meter long tunnel was blasted into the limestone in 1927 or 1929 and the end section of the cave was opened to the east. The area that was blown away is not completely underground, but extends as a gorge-like continuation through a low limestone plateau to the lake. Since Robert worked as a civil engineer, he planned and supervised the work on the breakthrough himself. He died in 1932, whereupon Edith bought the shares of his brother Henry and from then on ran the cave together with her son William (* 1913) until 1963. The crisis of the Great Depression hit Penn's Cave in the years that followed. In addition, it had lost its unique position. In the early 1920s, the grotto was the only show cave in Pennsylvania, along with Crystal Cave near Kutztown , but in the early 1930s, five other caves competed within a radius of just 30 miles - one of which also offered boat trips. In 1938 the north wing of the main building was torn down. A new visitor record in Penn's Cave could not be reached until 1949. As early as 1943, the cave was connected to the power grid of a local energy supplier, so that the generation of its own water energy at the creek was superfluous. From 1963, William Campbell continued to run the cave and the property under his sole responsibility. The following year, his daughter Jeanne C. married Russell E. Schleiden, who was employed by the United States Air Force . On his initiative, the Penn's Cave Airpark (today's Penn's Cave Airport) opened in 1968, where the operators offered sightseeing and sport flights. In other areas, too, the offer for visitors was expanded beyond the normal cave visit. Fishing meetings were offered, campsites set up and snowmobile tours organized in winter . Among other things, these innovations led to a new visitor record in 1969. In the 1960s, today's separate visitor center was built, which in the course of time meant that only the administration offices and event rooms remained on the first two floors of the main building, while the third floor - still completely in its original state - serves as private living space. In 1976, both the cave and this former hotel, today's Penn's Cave House, were added to the National Register of Historic Places . In 1983 Jeanne took over the management of the cave, which was now run as a cooperation, from her father. She has held it to this day (July 2011), while her son William Schleiden is her deputy.
The official owners of the cave since it was occupied by James Poe have been:
- 1773 - ???: James Poe
- ??? - 1868: Susanna M. Poe and Samuel Vantries
- 1868-1884: George Long
- 1884–1905: Jesse and Samuel Long
- 1905-1908: John A. Herman
- 1908-1932: Henry C. and Robert P. Campbell
- 1932–1963: Edith and William Campbell
- 1963-1983: William Campbell
- 1983 – today: Jeanne C. Schleiden
legend
As with many caves, there are various myths and legends for Penn's Cave . Most of them go back to the wealthy newspaper editor and historian Henry Wharton Shoemaker (* 1880; † 1958). The most famous of them is still widespread, especially in central Pennsylvania. Shoemaker always stated that he learned the story in 1892, at the age of twelve, from Isaac Steele, an old member of the Seneca people. The saga was first published in the Center County Reporter in 1902, and a year later it appeared in Wild Life magazine in Western Pennsylvania . Finally, in 1907 , the Pennsylvania Mountain Stories launched a corresponding report.
The legend tells of a young Frenchman named Malachi Boyer from Lancaster County who once set out to explore the wilderness of Pennsylvania and reached the banks of Spring Creek near Bellefonte in April. There he met O-Ko-Cho, the chief of a nearby Indian settlement, with whom he quickly made friends. The chief had seven sons and a daughter named Nita-nee. The French soon fell in love with them, but the indigenous conventions forbade a relationship. They both ran away, but were tracked down and taken back to the village. O-Ko-Cho ordered his sons to throw Boyer into a water-filled cave. There the French spent a week looking for an alternative escape route to the main entrance guarded by the Indians. Finally exhaustion overwhelmed him and since he didn't want his tormentors to see him die, he retired to the farthest corner of the cave on a hidden ledge and passed away. The Indians gave him the posthumous honor of not touching his body and dragging it out of the cave, but merely weighted it down with stones in order to sink it at the deepest point in the water.
Lake Nitanee, the Nittany Valley and Mount Nittany are still reminiscent of the chief's daughter Nita-nee. In addition, the Pennsylvania State University sports teams use the generic name Penn State Nittany Lions.
tourism
Penn's Cave is one of Pennsylvania's most popular natural history attractions these days. Every year it is frequented by a good 35,000 tourists and thus roughly reaches the number of visitors to the German Bing Cave, for example . In addition to the geological impressions, a key attraction is that the grotto is the only one in the state that offers boat trips. This unique selling point has existed since 1954, when those responsible for the Alexander Caverns suspended their visits to the water. Penn's Cave guided tours these days begin with a collection of the appropriate group in the Visitors Center. In addition to the cash register and restoration options, this also houses sanitary facilities, a souvenir shop and a wooden, water-fed facility in which you can wash previously purchased gemstones from the sand. Next to the center is an outdoor picnic area measuring a good seven acres. From the building, a tourist guide then leads visitors through the forest and down the stairs to the main entrance of the cave. There is space for 22 people in each of the flat bottom ships with outboard motors . During the almost 50-minute journey, the guide explains individual rock formations with the help of a swiveling spotlight and has light switches at certain points to illuminate and highlight individual sections in color. In addition, an acoustic effect of some stalagmites is used, which start to vibrate and emit sounds as soon as they are hit by small stones. In Lake Nitanee the turn to return takes place. A total of 1950 meters are covered on the water.
Wildlife park
Last year, under the direction of William Campbell, a wildlife park was established in 1982 on a 1,500 acre forest and meadow area. Open from April to November, the facility is designed to introduce visitors to Pennsylvania's native wildlife. Visits take place exclusively in the form of around ninety-minute round trips with minibuses. The vehicles from which the window panes were removed are similar to the typical US school buses and offer space for 25 to 35 guests. Bison , white-tailed deer , elk , Texan longhorns and mustangs live in the free-range area , which is only cordoned off from the outside . Accustomed to the tourists, the animals often come close to the buses from which they can be observed. However, some zoo animals are too dangerous to be in this area, so visitors will hop off later in the drive to see these species in their enclosures. They are pumas , bobcats , wolves and three American black bears . Attached to the park is the small “Exotic Animal Museum”, which shows life-size replicas of African savannah animals in their respective habitats .
literature
- Henry W. Shoemaker: Penn's Grandest Cavern - The History, Legends an Description of Penn's Cave in Center County . Altoona Tribune Press, Altoona , 1916. Reprinted by Penn State University Press, University Park, 2005, ISBN 978-0271022666
- Kevin Patrick: Pennsylvania Caves & Other Rocky Roadside Wonders . Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, 2004, ISBN 978-0811726320
Individual evidence
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 7
- ↑ The latitude must be indicated, as it cannot be ruled out that the underground catchment area deviates from the area that can be mapped above ground.
- ↑ Shoemaker (2005), page 11
- ↑ Shoemaker (2005), page 14
- ↑ Shoemaker (2005), page 12
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 6
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 15
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 16
- ↑ Shoemaker (2005), page 19
- ^ Patrick (2004), p. 104
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 4
- ^ Patrick (2004), p. 113
- ↑ Patrick (2004), p. 51
- ↑ Penn's Cave Teacher's Guide ( Memento of the original from April 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 1.2 MB) from Penn's Cave, Inc., page 8
- ↑ Patrick (2004), p. 112
- ^ Patrick (2004), p. 159
- ↑ Sharon Kehnemui, Laura A. Ward: "Penn's Cave marks history in Center County" in The Daily Collegian , April 19, 1989
