Jeita history · History of Jeita
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History of Jeita
History of Jeita
Caverns sculpted by water and time.
Few caverns in the world approach the astounding wealth or the extent of those of Jeita.
In these caves and galleries, known to man since Paleolithic times, the action of water
has created cathedral-like vaults beneath the wooded hills of Mount Lebanon.
The modern discovery of the underground river of Jeita dates to 1836 and is attributed to
Reverend William Thomson, an American missionary who ventured some 50 metres into the cave.
Reaching the underground river, he fired a shot from his gun and the resulting echoes
convinced him that he had found a cavern of major importance.
In 1873 W.J. Maxwell and H.G. Huxley, engineers with the Beirut Water Company, and their
friend Reverend Daniel Bliss, president of the Syrian Protestant College (later the American
University of Beirut) explored these caverns. In two expeditions carried out in 1873 and
1874 they penetrated 1,060 metres into the grotto-principal source of the Nahr el-Kalb that
supplies Beirut with water. They were finally stopped by "Hell's Rapids", where the river
flows in torrents over razor sharp rocks.
Like explorers everywhere, Dr. Bliss, Mr. Maxwell and the other engineers could not resist
recording their names and the year on "Maxwell's Column", a great limestone pillar some 625
metres from the entrance.
About 200 metres further on, in the so-called "Pantheon', they wrote their names and details
of the expedition on paper, sealed it in a bottle and placed it on top of a stalagmite.
The action of the lime- impregnated water has since covered the bottle with a thin white
film, permanently fixing it to the stone. Between 1892 and 1940 further expeditions were
carried out, mostly by English, American or French explorers.
These efforts brought them to a depth of 1,750 metres.
Since the 1940's, Lebanese explorers, notably the members of the Speleo-Club of Lebanon
founded by the first Lebanese speleologist Lionel Ghorra, have pushed even deeper into the
Jeita grotto.
Their methodical exploration revealed the great underground system of the upper and lower
galleries which is now known to a depth approaching 9 kilometres.
The upper galleries, discovered in August 1958 by Lebanese speleologists, required a hazardous
climb to 650 metres above the entrance of the underground river. Altogether, 2,130 metres of
this gallery have been explored.
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Jeita Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.