A Bottomless Pit

Among the most remarkable of nature's wonders the aubterranean pit at Jean Nouveau, near Vaucluse, France, which reaches a depth of 540 feet, while nowhere more than 12 feet wlde, has only recently been explored. The French Society of Speleology (cave study) erected a derrick at the mouth of the pit, which begins with a tunnel 15 feet wide at the top and narrows down to 3 feet at a depth of about 20 feet. From here down the crevice in the rock, for such it is, extends vertically, gettlng wider as it gets deeper, until at a depth of about 475 feet it is 12 feet wide. At this point the shaft opens into a roomy cave in which just beneath the opening of the vertical pit a thick layer of clay, containing remains of bones, both human and animal, were found. The explorers found no evidence that the place had ever been visited by man, but tradition has it that crimináis were thrown into the "bottomless pit," as it was popularly called in the neighborhood, and the remair.3 in the cave just beneath the shaft tena to corrobórate this belief. The descent made into the shaft was exceetlingly difficult; it established the fact that there must be a further cave below the one now known, but the crevice through which it is accessible is choked up with debris and bolders so that it will be a very difficult matter to penétrate further into the cave than has been done. The deepest point reached in this crevice is 593 feet underground. Great quantities of water rush through the shaft every time there is a storm, still no trace of water was found in the cave explored, which proves that some other subterranean exit muet exist. -