Devil’s Sinkhole In Texas: Sacred, Dangerous And Spectacular Dwelling Place Of Millions Of Bats
|MessageToEagle.com – The Devil’s Sinkhole – located a few miles northeast of Rocksprings, in Edwards County, Texas – is probably the largest known single-chamber cave in the state.
This massive underground chamber is a dwelling place for more than three million bats flying from the entrance of the cave to the sinkhole during the summer months.
The interior of this cave is now accessible only for scientific work and occasional caving trips by professional and very experienced vertical cavers, though caution is required in and near the shaft at all times.
Three people have died in the sinkhole, the first round 1900, the second in 1960, and the most recent in 1972. Before it became a closed and protected place, the Devil’s sinkhole was often visited by treasure-hunters and artifact-seekers. Due to concerns for safety and bat conservation, this fascinating though the rather dangerous cave has been kept closed.
The Devil’s Sinkhole has an opening that measures 15 meters (50ft) and the cave itself is 106 meters (350 ft)! deep. About 34 m down the pit, there is a gigantic room measuring 138 m long by 76 m wide.
According to Native Americans and locals, this 360-foot sinkhole was a sacred place but the history of the sinkhole is shrouded in mystery and the tracing of the cave’s past is difficult, though, it is an old place, where some artifacts have been found dating back to 4000–2500 BC.
Over the years the Devil’s Sinkhole has been the subject of many studies and expeditions using all possible equipment in hope of finding adjoining subterranean rooms and passages.
Along the northwest and southwest corners of the room, the breakdown has separated some areas into smaller rooms, two of which lead deeper to water. These “lake rooms” have been explored by divers without finding any significant passages.
However, the divers reached only the depths of 11 meters.
MessageToEagle.com
Expand for referencesReferences: