CRYSTAL CAVE.


South Dakota can boast of yet another cave in the Black Hills that was
formed by volcanic disturbance of the rocks and afterwards decorated in
a manner peculiar to itself. This is Crystal Cave. It is nine miles from
Piedmont in the eastern edge of the Hills, and easily visited from that
point by way of the narrow-gauge road, which winds along the natural
curves of the beautiful Elk Creek cañon, whose walls are said to expose
a depth of almost a mile of geological strata, although the exposure at
any one point does not exceed three hundred feet.

The disappointment of not having seen this cave during the summer visit
to the Hills grew as the weeks passed, and a request that the owner
should send a description was answered with an assurance that it was
impossible. Therefore, on Friday, November 13th, 1896, with a small
nephew, Herbert A. Owen, Jr., for company, the trip was undertaken a
second time to complete the unfinished mission.

The first glimpse of the Hills is at Edgemont in the early morning, but
the train makes its way to the north through the heart of the uplift,
twisting about the curves of the hills and clinging to the sides of a
beautiful cañon whose high walls give way here and there to fine slopes
densely covered with forests of pine and spruce. These look black in the
distance and suggested the name of Black Hills to the Indians, who
always have a reason for the names they give even to their children.

There are great tracts where fire has killed part or all of the timber
but left much of it standing, while in other places nature has defied