Holes in rock
A den for bears and a bedroom for bats. A home for prehistoric people. A
dark place of gloom and mystery. A sparkling wonderland of strangely
shaped rocks. That’s a cave!
A cave is simply a hole in the earth. It may be a small hole, not much
bigger than a room in a house. It may be a place of long, twisting
tunnels and huge caverns. It may be high up on a mountainside or it may
be in the ground.
Most caves are in the kind of rock called limestone. These limestone
caves are made by water. Water seeps through cracks in the rock. It
trickles downward, carrying dissolved limestone with it. Slowly, the
cracks grow wider as more and more limestone is carried away. After many
thousands of years a cave may have a great many winding passages and
broad rooms, all made by the slow trickle of water.
underground water in a cave
