Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
24 THE PLACE WHERE THE PLAIN, THE MOUNTAINS AND THE DANUBE MEET Clayey, loamy sediment plants, especially green algae extract the carbondioxide that they need for their life functions from water, thus extracting calcium carbonate. Several marine species, mainly the ones living in shallow, sunlit waters build massive limeshells. The lime-silt made of their perished bodies gradually turns into limestone. Because of its high carbonate content, the limestone found in Naszály is clear and white. The dolomite is a sedimentary rock, a mineral, containing magnesium, which formed earlier than the Dachstein limestone. It develops in the course of a long and complicated process from the lime sediment deposited on the ebb-and-flow areas that regularly dried out (about every twenty thousand year). The Hárshegy sandstone consists of debris rocks cemented by different binder materials. Its solidity is determined by the binders. THE CAVES OF NASZÁLY Although the appearance of the hill does not suggest this feature, there are several dozens of smaller and larger natural caves inside the cavernous limestone block of Naszály. The best known of these is the 200 m long Násznép ("Wedding Guests") Cave, which is the second biggest cave in Naszály. Its entrance is big and easy to access, the first two chambers may be visited. The spheroid cauldron-like forms and the tubular galleries of the first room indicate that the cave was formed by thermal waters. The entrance of the Násznép Cave Deeper inside there are peastones (pisolite) and smaller dripstones (stalactite) as well. The average temperature is about 10-12 degrees Celsius, but it is relatively unstable, thus the cave is only inhabited by a special kind of bat in the winter that lives in crevices. However, the cave plays a significant role in their reproduction, since 50-150 specimen mate in the cave every year. The cave has been inhabited since ancient times. The scientific study of its history started in the early 1900s, but the people living nearby had been searching for the treasures of llcsik and Jánosik, the 18th century Slovak highwaymen, for a long time. They had found nothing but broken pots, which, however, inspired them to make up legends about the origins of the name of the cave. One version is about some wedding guests, who fled the Turks and held the ceremony in the cave; the other one is about the secret wedding of the castellan's daughter and a poor serfs son. Professional guided tour: Troglonauta Speleologist Association (troglonauta@freemail.hu )
