KALAT (Chashma-e)

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A man-made karez modified by Time, Age & Co., which gives the impression to represent a 200 m long, partly natural, partly modified branching stream cave recorded BROOKS (1990a: 1; 1990c: 2) under the title Jeshman Kalat (sic! for: Chashma-e Kalat / Spring at Kalat) from a spot situated 0.5 km north of Kalat town. CAVE DESCRIPTION 1 (BROOKS 1990a: 1; 1990c: 2) had the impression the 200 m long Jeshman Kalat … [is] …an interesting stream cave formed in soft limestone conglomerate. CAVE DESCRIPTION 2 (Brooks 1997 Mss: Pakistan Cave Database): The cave is the village water supply …formed in a softly cemented conglomerate. Exhibiting many features associated with a 'Karez' [kariz] irrigation system the cave passage is generally between 1 to 2 m wide and up to 4 m high, though some side passages are of a smaller dimension (1 m wide and 1.5 m high). The cave ends at points where water issues from small fissures in the hard limestone underlying the conglomerate. At several places along te passage there are shafts to surface, these seem to be collapse features. CAVE LIFE: … home to many small swift like birds that nest in pockets in the walls.