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The Dip Cave lies about three miles south of Wee Jasper on the western side of the Goodradigbee valley about 500 yards from the river. The cave underlies the nose of a spur running fairly steeply down from Wee Jasper range west of the valley. Only the terminal part of the spur is of limestone, the rest is of impervious rocks. In fact, shales outcrop along the road immediately above the cave. Below this spur there is a much more gently inclined bench in the limestone, trenched by steep-sided gullies coming down from the two flanks of the spur.
Various geomorphologists such as Bögli, Corbel and Lehmann have in recent years demonstrated the interest that certain simple chemical analyses of natural waters can have for the comparison of rates of limestone solution in different in different climatic conditions. They can also have their relevance for the tracing of underground water connections as Oertli (1953) has shown in the example of the Slovenian part of the classical Yugoslavian karst. Since 1957, the writer has therefore been making such analyses of waters from Australian limestone areas. The chief significance of these measurements comes when one caving area is compared with another. M.M. Sweeting (1960) has already commented briefly on observations from Mole Creek, Tasmania, Buchan, Victoria and the Fitzroy Basin, Western Australia, made in 1958-59 by herself and the writer; further discussion will appear in a forthcoming publication of ours on the Limestone Ranges of the Fitzroy Basin. Nevertheless measurements of this kind can have a certain intrinsic interest as it is hoped to show in the following notes on the few observations I made at Yarrangobilly. These observations are set out in tabular and Trombe graph forms; the locations of the collecting points are shown on the map.
Although research has been unable to establish a definite date of discovery for the limestone caves at Wellington, New South Wales, documentary evidence has placed it as 1828. The actual discovery could have been made earlier by soldiers or convicts from the Wellington Settlement, which dated from 1823. Whether the aborigines knew of the cave's existence before 1828 is uncertain, but likely, as in 1830 they referred to them as "Mulwang". A number of very small limestone caves were also discovered about the same time in the nearby Molong area. The Bungonia Caves, in the Marulan district near Goulburn, were first written about a short time later. On all the evidence available at present, the Wellington Caves can be considered to be the first of any size discovered on the mainland of Australia. The Wellington Caves are situated in a low, limestone outcrop about six miles south by road from the present town of Wellington, and approximately 190 miles west-north-west of Sydney. They are at an altitude of 1000 feet, about half a mile from the present bed of the Bell River, a tributary of the Macquarie River. One large cave and several small caves exist in the outcrop, and range in size from simple shafts to passages 200 to 300 feet long. Mining for phosphate has been carried out, resulting in extensive galleries, often unstable, at several levels. Two caves have been lit by electricity for the tourist trades; the Cathedral Cave, 400 feet long, maximum width 100 feet, and up to 50 feet high; and the smaller Gaden Cave. The Cathedral Cave contains what is believed to be the largest stalagmite in the world, "The Altar", which stands on a flat floor, is 100 feet round the base and almost touches the roof about 40 feet above. It appears that the name Cathedral was not applied to the cave until this century. The original names were "The Great Cave", "The Large Cave" or "The Main Cave". The Altar was named by Thomas Mitchell in 1830. See map of cave and Plate. Extensive Pleistocene bone deposits - a veritable mine of bone fragments - were found in 1830, and have been studied by palaeontologists almost continually ever since. These bone deposits introduced to the world the extinct marsupials of Australia, and have a special importance in view of the peculiar features of the living fauna of the continent. The names of many famous explorers and scientists are associated with this history, among the most prominent being Sir Thomas Mitchell and Sir Richard Owen. Anderson (1933) gives a brief outline of why the Wellington Caves fossil bone beds so rapidly attracted world-wide interest. During the 18th and early 19th Century, the great palaeontologist, Baron Georges Cuvier, and others, supposed that the earth had suffered a series of catastrophic changes in prehistoric times. As a result of each of these, the animals living in a certain area were destroyed, the area being repopulated from isolated portions of the earth that had escaped the catastrophe. The Bilical Deluge was believed to have been the most recent. Darwin, during the voyage of the Beagle around the world (1832-37), was struck by the abundance of Pleistocene mammalian fossils in South America, and also by the fact that, while these differed from living forms, and were in part of gigantic dimensions, they were closely related to present-day forms in that continent. Darwin's theory of descent with modification did not reconcile with the ideas of Cuvier and others. As the living mammalian fauna of Australia was even more distinctive than that of South America, it was a matter of importance and excitement to discover the nature of the mammals which had lived in Australia in the late Tertiary and Pleistocene.
Cavernicolous Rhaphidophoridae are very active insects, in spite of their immobile appearance on the walls of caves. Movement is continuous to a greater or lesser degree throughout the 24 hour period of each day. Through marking a representative sample of the total adult population of two species of Rhaphidophoridae in limestone caves in New Zealand, it was shown that several different types of movement occurred; that home ranges had no well-defined limits; and that there was no evidence of territorial behaviour. The technique of marking Rhaphidophoridae is discussed in some detail.
Eight breeding Caves of Miniopterus schreibersi (Kuhl) are described from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Southern Queensland, in terms of their structure, the location of nursery areas at which juveniles are deposited after birth, and their physical environments. Maternity colonies are found at these caves through spring, summer and early autumn. Established colonies range from about 15,000 to 200,000 bats at peak size. These individuals are predominantly adult females and their young. Adult males are conspicuous only at the single South Australian breeding cave. Births occur from approximately the beginning of December to mid-January at all colonies except that in South Australia, where a birth period is evident between mid-October to late-November. Artificial warming, as a consequence of bat activity, appears to be characteristic of these Miniopterus schreibersi breeding caves. It is suggested that this may have functional significance in facilitating adequate development of juveniles, and that the habit could be a reflection of the tropical ancestry of this species.
Although small caves are numerous in the limestone Ranges of the Fitzroy Basin in West Kimberly, (sic, actually Kimberley) large and long caves are few on the basis of present knowledge, and reasons for this paucity are ready to find (Jennings, 1962). Of all the known caves, The Tunnel has probably the greatest geomorphological interest (Jennings and Sweeting, 1963a), though it offers little apparent prospect for further exploration. The string of caves ending in Cave Spring in Bugle Gap (Jennings and Sweeting, 1963b) seemed more promising in this latter respect when examined in 1959 and D.C. Lowry (Personal Communication) reports finding considerable extension to one of these caves in a recent visit. Although the cave to be discussed here - Old Napier Downs Cave - is not very large in terms of its known dimensions and a brief reference to it has already been made (Jennings and Sweeting, 1963b, p.27), fuller description in a journal more readily accessible to Australian speleologists and publication of a survey are justified because of the prospects for further exploration that the cave itself and its neighbourhood present.
The three cave systems are developed along the course of a seasonal stream that has been superposed on a range of Devonian Limestone in north-western Australia. The cave system furthest upstream has the greatest known development of cave passages in the region (more than 2,300 yards) and is controlled by two sets of vertical joints approximately at right angles to each other.
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