Yesterday me and marc discovered a cave inside a mine right here in monroe CT. The entrance is about the size of the entrance to #5 adit at sunk, and on a 85 degree day, the freezing air pouring out of it was a dead give away. When I sqeezed in and went in a little ways, I was shocked and samazed at what I saw, there was an actual water carved lime stone cave with flowstone, formations and everything! the mine operated from 1823 to 1880. legend has it that there is a huge room somewere inside called the kings ball room, this room has huge 40 ft ceilings and seats and a table carved into the limestone by the miners. I have several historical refernces to it so I know it is there. the room could not be accessed in 1938, I squirmed through some tiny passage ways but could not find the room, the problem is there is tons of soil and rocks in the mine/cave. Marcs discovery of a broken19th century bottle deep in the cave was very intriging. -Mike

Very neat! This room is in the cave off of the mine? Is the mine partially caved, or is it the cave that is caved? How big is the mine?

We have found no obvious adits or tunnels yet, it apears as a a quarry or open cut mine that undercut in some areas but it is now badly eroded. it was mined for limestone which was roasted in a nearby kiln and used for fertilzer. marc found some limestone with a large diameter drill hole in it. If you did not know where to look you would never find this site we were probably the first ones in it since 1938. After the mine was abandoned tours were given for a few years at the cave and the kings ball room was said to accomadate 75 people, by the early 1900s the site was lost and forgoton

Our guess is that the limestone was first quarried and then the cave was discovered after a chamber was blasted into. The drill hole was 3" diameter. There was no other trash in the cave/mine besides the hand blown bottle fragment. This cave is going to need some careful excavating to get any farther and find the king's room. I can't find any references to the cave/ mine online, so we may plan a trip to the monroe historical society for some more info. I did find that there may have been a lime kiln around the site of the trumbull mines.

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If exploring mines is wrong, then baby... I don't want to be right.

So what is the general makeup of the surrounding rock. I assume it is mostly limestone but is there any other rocks that can be found. I would like to do mineral prospecting sometime to determine the exact mineralogy of the mine and caves.

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OK kids, let's get this straight, When I talk about rocks, I'm not talking about THOSE types of rocks....

looks to be pegmatite

Can we meet up to look at the mineralogy next week? The Monroe Pegmatite has yielded some seldom seen but good specimens in the past (I'm talking 19th century here).

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OK kids, let's get this straight, When I talk about rocks, I'm not talking about THOSE types of rocks....

Jeremy -I may go to the cave sometime in the next two weeks I will let you know when I go