2004 NSS
Convention
Marquette,
Michigan July 12-16, 2004
Spelean
History
Session Abstracts
Quick Robin... To The Bat Cave! A
Visit To Hollywood’s Bronson Caverns
Dr.
Cato Holler
PO Box 100
Old Fort, NC 28762
hollers@icu.net
Nestled
on the western border of Hollywood’s Griffith Park is an abandoned
quarry. It contains a massive, forked tunnel which has been cut through
a small hillside of basaltic rock. Located within a few minutes drive
of most of the major film studios, this man-made California cave, known
as Bronson Caverns, is perhaps the most heavily used film location in
the world. Countless numbers of westerns and science-fiction features
have been filmed there over the years. Even the infrequent TV watcher
and movie-goer has undoubtedly seen some feature or commercial which
has been filmed on this site. If you’ve ever witnessed the Batmobile
lurching from the BatCave, or marveled at the Klingon prison camp in
Star Trek VI, you’ve actually been viewing a bit of Hollywood magic,
filmed in Bronson Caverns.
Cave Hoaxes and Nineteenth
Century Archeological Theory
Greg A.
Brick
Department of Geography & Geology, Normandale
College
9700 France Avenue South
Bloomington,
MN 55431
greg.brick@normandale.edu
American
archeology in the nineteenth century was dominated by the Mound Builder
myth, which held that the tens of thousands of earthen mounds seen
around North America were constructed by a superior vanished race
unrelated to the Indians. Several distinctive Mound Builder motifs
appear in the nationally propagated Nesmith Cave hoax of 1866-67, which
was based on an actual cave, Chute’s Cave, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Specifically, there are close parallels between details in the cave
hoax and Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, a classic of
American archeology and the first publication (1848) of the newly
founded Smithsonian Institution. The authors, Ephraim Squier and Edwin
Davis, were squarely in the Mound Builder tradition. In excavating
mounds they found stone coffins, skeletons that crumbled to powder, and
sacrificial altars with calcined bones—all of which were also
supposedly found in the hoax cave by the fictitious Mr. Nesmith. The
latter concludes, as Squier and Davis had earlier, that “the relics
found are not at all aboriginal in character, and may have been the
work of a people existing long before even these prairies were the
hunting grounds of the Indians.”
The Application of Back’s
Principle to Cave History
Greg A. Brick
Department
of Geography & Geology, Normandale College,
9700
France Avenue South
Bloomington, MN 55431
greg.brick@normandale.edu
William
Back, in his 1981 article, “Hydromythology and Ethnohydrology in the
New World,” wrote “If used with caution, mythology can sometimes extend
historical and archeological interpretation further back in time.” This
principle was applied to Minnesota cave history. According to early
missionaries, the indigenous Dakota people believed that the junction
of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers was the center of the Earth,
positioned directly under the center of the heavens. Nearby was the
dwelling place of Unktahe, Dakota god of waters and of the underworld,
who was often depicted as a serpent. Mary Eastman, in her 1849 book,
Dahcotah, or Life and Legends of the Sioux around Fort Snelling, wrote
that “Unktahe, the god of the waters, is much reverenced by the
Dahcotahs. Morgan’s Bluff, near Fort Snelling, is called ‘God’s House’
by the Dahcotahs; they say it is the residence of Unktahe, and under
the hill is a subterranean passage, through which they say the
water-god passes when he enters the St. Peter’s [Minnesota River]. He
is said to be as large as a white man’s house.” Taken at face value,
the subterranean god Unktahe constitutes the oldest cave reference for
Minnesota, antedating the accounts of explorers such as LeSueur (1700)
and Carver (1778).
History of the George Washington
University Student Grotto
Steven J.
Stokowski, Jr.
10 Clark St.
Ashland, MA
01721-2145
caversteve@aol.com
NSS
grotto #134, the George Washington Student Grotto (GWU Grotto), existed
from 1966 to 1974.
The first grotto Constitution
had 5 elected officers, including a "Publicity Director." The
second Constitution (1969) changed elections to April so that the now 3
officers could plan the upcoming school year. The GWU Grotto
primarily caved in Virginia and West Virginia. From 1966-68,
the club mapped caves for "Descriptions of Virginia
Caves." The first Chairman, Hugh H. Howard, was the
most dynamic. He tried to start the GWU grotto in 1965, but
had to first overcome a rule that any on-campus club could not be
affiliated with a national organization. The grotto had 54
members in its first year and published The Colonial Caver.
In the fall of 1967, Warren Broughton was elected Chairman.
The club published professional-looking issues of The Colonial
Caver. Charles Pfuntner was elected Chairman for the 1969-70
school year and Leonard LeRoy was elected grotto Chairman for the
1970-71 school year. The Vietnam War affected grotto
membership. Paul Stevens was elected Chairman for the 1971-72 and
1972-73 school years. Paul took the grotto and later the NSS
by storm. "The Foggy Bottom Caver" was started.
Grotto membership expanded to 35. Steve Stokowski was elected
Chairman for the 1973-74 school year. In 1974, the staff
advisor left GWU and all the GWU student members either graduated or
left the university. After considering that advertising for
new cavers without guidance may result in a cave conservation disaster,
Stokowski dissolved the grotto.
The Roquefort Caves of St. Paul,
Minnesota
Greg A. Brick
Department
of Geography & Geology, Normandale College
9700 France
Avenue South
Bloomington, MN 55431
greg.brick@normandale.edu
The
Roquefort caves of France have a history dating back to Classical
Antiquity. In 1933, Professor Willis Barnes Combs of the University of
Minnesota began experimental ripening of a domestic Roquefort cheese in
artificial sandstone caves at St Paul, Minnesota, which he determined
had the proper combination of low temperature and high humidity. He
stated that there was no commercial production of Roquefort in the
United States at this time. After spectacular success at the University
Cave, he boasted that St. Paul’s caves could supply the entire world
demand for Roquefort. Made from the more plentiful cow’s milk, rather
than from sheep’s milk as in France, the Minnesota cheese was initially
called Roquefort but after complaints by the French Foreign Trade
Commission was relabeled Blue Cheese. The production of Minnesota Blue
did not really take off until 1940, however, when World War II cut off
Roquefort imports from France. Kraft Cheese and Land O’Lakes then
rented caves in St. Paul and ripened millions of pounds of blue cheese.
For a brief moment, St. Paul was acclaimed the Blue Cheese Capital of
the World. The University Cave, which ceased operations in the 1950s,
was recently dug open by the author. Filled with debris that was pushed
into it with a bulldozer years ago, the cave contains no obvious
artifacts from the cheese-making era.
A History of Project SIMMER
Steven
J. Stokowski, Jr.
10 Clark St.
Ashland, MA
01721-2145
caversteve@aol.com
No
abstract received.