Q 1866 NEWSPAPER NOTICES OF THE BLOWING CAVE OF GEORGIA Marion 0, Smith Cle During the summer and fall of 1866 several short stories about "The. Blowing Cave of Georgia" were widely dispersed in newspapers of the eastern United States. Although all of these notices emphasized air movement at the entrance, one little was said about the interior of the cave. Three of the articles are reproduced below, which will acquaint the reader with the historical background of what we know today as either GGR 250, Blowing Cave (the most likely), or GGR 56, Glory Hole, and some of the nineteenth eee thinking’ on fluctuating air currents. Curious Cave.--A singular cave in Bainbridge county [sic ] , Ga., 18 re- ported, with an orifice so small that no person can enter it. © Through this orifice a strong current of air is alternately blown out and drawn in, with- out any apparent cause, and regulated by no known law.--New York Evening Post. The "Blowing Cave" is doubtless referred to. It is no new discovery, but has been long known. The alternations of inhalation and exhalation are regu- lar, and are supposed to be caused by the ebb and flow of the tides in the Gulf of Mexico. We believe that the distance from the mouth of the cave to the Gulf is about seventy miles, and it is supposed that there is a subter- ranean communication between the mouth of the cave and the waters of the Gulf .--Columbus [Georgia] Enquirer. } New Orleans Picayune, August 5, 1866, p. 6, c. 3. The Blowing Cave of Georgia : Gainbevilie, Ala., Aug. 2, 1966. Editor Mobile Daily Times:+ : Among many other interesting items contained in your last issue, I noticed a paragraph in regard to one of Georgia's greatest natural curiosities. I allude to the "Blowing Cave," as it is called by the inhabitants of the section in which it is located. | oy Thinking that a few particulars in regard to this truly strange phenomenon might prove interesting, and lead to further inquiry, l dot them down. Blowing Cave is situated on: the plantation of Col. David Barrow, 2 5 Decatur county, 2 Georgia, twenty-seven miles from Thomasville, the terminus of the Savannah and Gulf Railroad. The cave is at the bottom of a small natural basin, (whose diameter will not. at any point exceed thirty feet) in a perfect- ly smooth plain, and surrounded with a dense copse of wood. There are no in- dications to lead to the supposition that it was occasioned by any eruption of a volcanic or convulsive nature, as the face of the surrounding country, as well as the immediate neighborhood of the cave itself is wholly free of stones, ruggedness and other marks of convulsive action. When first discovered and brought into notice by Colonels Barrow and McKins- ley,4 in the year 1836 or'37, the orifice of the cave was three or four feet to the left of the present one, and much larger. Colonel McKinsley proposed | exploring it, but in attempting to sound it with lead and line, and failing to touch bottom, gave up the undertaking as too hazardous for further venture. © The present mouth of the cave is about one and a half feet in diameter, ON = Ss ¥ 9 . allt g third}, 39 os a, Saas Sone Alt; but age pe Hnpulgus: c me a “89, a te A by, ae = lot TEES S SREY O cE © ° quae ¢ cue ¢ meme ¢ cya © smunm “st . ae rattahoochee a via ue, pire i eaten! Z. e : amet acim eee Heat % t sai vito . ee . prMfea nati oe ee aes mA C2 FUSEL 22 age ee ; . by 3 toe 4 y : a CP a aS Vf ‘a , ‘ . i eae . : * ‘ ~~ * Se Se Se ae \ : *L. bLumonia : “lg aaa Cisse | aii om / re eit fs : lle ae j me ; £ ie a : ne =< : : ot ae mg ns ' ~ me a a ea iN : 4 ci e ficlunny me Poe ; Turkey ar 3 W% > beg eae : ta ie aukeengh - : ‘ i —™ i ry i in ® oe ts ° ae y ; oo ,—} ; A TALNAHASSERS™ 3 ' ee oy “lL Bella rr ‘ ~-* ty Ce Ri -5 eed) ee —- - -—-_ —_ —_— oe -~_ =— =~ ote -_ oe — + _ Ag ie ios ca lke ie pipe ans ge pps ouite oe Civil War era map of southwestern Georgia. Pilate 14%. Atias Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. to Accompany the through which at one period of the day there issues a strong current of air, not in puffs, but a continuous stream, with a roar that is heard at a dis- tance of sixty or seventy yards. | In the winter of 1864, in company with several ladies, I visited the cave at the time of his "blowing out;" and by way of experiment, one of the ladies threw her veil into the mouth of it, which was blown into. the air to the height of six or seven feet. I then threw my hat--a heavy woolen one--into it with a like result. Several articles, heavier than either of the above, were tried, but were immediately expelled. _ At another period of the day the suction is relatively as great. Any light article held near the orifice is instantly drawn into the cave. . Dr; Cotton, tne otate geologist, > a gentleman of hight scientific ‘ability, visited it at the solicitation of Cols. McKinsley and Barrow, and gave it as his opinion that these reserved phenomena were caused by the ebb and flow of the tide, and that the cave was originally one of the fathomless lime sinks so numerous in that part Of Georela. I believe the doctor's theory correct. | Leading from all points into the basin are Indian trails, deep worn, indication much visiting to the cave, by the red man, ere the exe of the white man woke up the echoes of the forest, and it was probably regarded by them as a place of sanctity, where they held commune with the spirits in the great hunting ground above. 2 Ji we BOK Augusta Daily Constitutionalist, August oT. AROO. Oh 44 Gs Se THE BLOWING CAVE.-- Several articles in reference to this Georgia phenomenon have lattely appeared in our paper. The Bainbridge Argus (published in the county in which the mouth of the cave is located) noticing these articles, reports the following additional facts con- cerning it: : ao 3 "we are credibly informed, however, that the cave has been explored. Mr Michael. Ganous, / who resides within a short distance of it, states that he has himself descended into its mouth to the depth of one hundred feet, and that the interior covers about half an acre, across which a stream passes whose waters are continually agitated from some cause, and that anything thrown upon its surface is instantly sucked under. The walls of the cavern are limestone rock. In very wet weather, the cave is filled with water, which sometimes rises above its mouth. It is situated about eighteen miles from this city.” _ Milledgeville Southern Recorder, Oetober 2. 1066, 0. 35° ce» 1. NOTES i, Henry St. Feus (c1818-£11885), a New Orleans attorney and captain of the 7th Louisiana Battalion Infantry, CSA, after the Civil War lived in Mobile, where he was a proprietor and editor of the Times before resuming the practice of law. Mobile directories (1866-85); 1860 Census, La., Orleans,. 6th Ward, 137; (1870), Mobile, , Mobile, 2nd Ward, 15; Andrew B. Booth, comp., Records of Louisiana Confederate Soldiers and Louisiana Confederate Commands (3 vols., Spartanburg, 5. C., 1984 [1920]}), 33672. 2. Grady County was created by the legislature August 1/7, 1905, to begin existence the first day of 1906. It took its territory from Thomas County and the eastern portion of Decatur County. Pat Bryant, Georgia Counties: Their Changing Boundaries (Atlanta, 1963), G1. a5 Barrow, whose age was not given in the census, before the war lowned 3875 acres of land and ninety-three slaves worth a total.of $67,500. 1860 Census, Ga., Decatur, 16th Dist., Blowing Cave P. 0., 285 Frank S. Jones, History of Decatur County Georgia (Spartanburg, S. C., 1980 fi971]), dey a 4. Not identified. 5. John Ruggles Cotting (1783-1867), a Massachusetts-born chemistry professor, was Georgia's first state geologist (1835-37). National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 5:185-86. 6. Not identified. ae Probably Mitchell Gainus (b. c1845), a farm laborer, and a veteran of the 8th Florida Infantry, CSA. 1860 Census, Ga., Decatur, 16th Dist., Blowing Cave P. 0.; 26; (1870), Limesink Precinct, 13.