Deepest Depth

The speleological depth record passed last week from Italy to France. Speleologist (cave explorer) Pierre Chevalier, a chemical engineer above ground, led an expedition into a hole in the limestone body of the Dent de Crolles, a 6,765-ft. mountain in the western Alps. Eleven hours later the party emerged from the other side of the mountain and announced that they had worked their way 658 meters (2,158 ft.) below their starting point. The previous record, near Verona, Italy: 637 meters (2,089 ft.).

It took M. Chevalier and his fellow cave crawlers twelve years to explore the Dent de Crolles, which is riddled with caves like a geological Swiss cheese. Back in the Tertiary period (10 million years ago), says M. Chevalier, the mountain was much taller. Snow water from the youthful peak worked its way into the rock, gnawing wells and tunnels and vast, echoing halls in the soluble limestone. Then, as the peak itself eroded away, the channels gradually lost their water supply and became a "fossil drainage system." Another elaborate system, still rushing with water, now drains through the diminished peak.

Armed with picks, dynamite, ropes and spidery wire ladders, the French speleologists pushed deep into both these geological intestinal tracts. During the German occupation they set out each time with stealth, lest their odd-looking apparatus interest the Gestapo. But whenever they reached the secret innards of the mountain, they knew they were safe from human interference. Little by little they explored the underground labyrinth. At last they discovered that if they enlarged a narrow passage between two tunnels, they could break the Italian depth record. Last week they did it.

The conquest of Dent de Crolles merely whetted the speleological appetite. "Speleology is the last frontier," says M. Chevalier. "I know a hole over near Annecy that I think is deeper than this one. I've been up a subterranean river there for three kilometers. It's worth looking into."

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