♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (Beryl) It's fall, a beautiful time in South Carolina.

One of the marvels of life is finding a site where the efforts of man work in harmony with nature.

One such site is Stumphouse Tunnel in Oconee County.

Hello, I'm Beryl Dakers.

With me is Rudy Mancke, natural history curator of the South Carolina Museum Commission.

Rudy, as our guide and teacher, what makes this a special place to visit?

Well, Beryl, I love the mountains, especially this time of year.

We don't have many in South Carolina.

They're in Oconee, Pickens, and Greenville County.

Oconee County is extra special in my mind because of things like the tunnel behind us, which was an interesting tunnel.

There's an interesting story related to it that we might want to talk about before we get inside.

In the 1850s-- it was around 1855- people decided it would be nice to bypass New Orleans to get goods from the port of Charleston to the Mississippi River without going to New Orleans.

They thought they'd build a railroad from Charleston to Cincinnati, Ohio, and that is what this tunnel was built for, to get through the hills and connect Charleston with Cincinnati.

It's preserved in pretty good form.

Well, it's just a very nice area, and it's amazing, as we go in, the difference between this side of the tunnel and just a few feet inside.

Can you tell us things to look for before we get started?

We'll notice very quickly the green plants are going to go away.

We'll see not nearly the variety inside as outside.

Why don't we see what we find?

Let's get started.

Come on, folks.

[footfalls] Boy, you can feel it getting chilly already!

(Rudy) It's kind of nice, isn't it?

Let me get this light a minute, Beryl Okay.

It might be a good idea for folks to bring a flashlight when they come to Stumphouse Tunnel.

To really appreciate it you have to go inside, and having a light is helpful.

On the edge you can see that the green begins to slowly disappear.

See that clump of moss.

(Rudy) It's about as far into the cave as you see anything green.

The reason green plants don't grow in the cave is?

There's no light.

Without light, green plants cannot produce food.

No photosynthesis, sure.

Right, and mosses are very primitive plants.

They need moisture and sunlight, and they have both of those in the tunnel here.

What are those marks up there that look almost uniform?

Those are the chisel marks made by men building the tunnel.

That is amazing to me that people could work in a dark place like this and build a tunnel like this with very primitive tools, without the sophisticated equipment that we have today.

Without lights like this to guide their way.

They would use chisels and big hammers and break away the material.

In the early years of this tunnel-- 1856 was when it began-- they used people who lived around here.

They found that they couldn't work terribly well in this circumstance, so they got a lot of Irish immigrants that came and worked until 1859, when money ran out.

They hadn't completed this tunnel, and the Blue Ridge Railroad folded.

That was right before the War Between the States, which speeded things along too.

Do you hear dripping water?

Yeah...there's water all over the place.

There's a puddle right over there.

Let's see if there's anybody in it.

Water seems to be seeping in all over this tunnel.

It is, from above, Beryl.

It's coming down, changing this rock before our very eyes.

See the water dripping off the mosses?

Mm-hmm.

You can see a little salamander, probably one of the dusky salamanders.

That animal breathes through his skin.

He doesn't have lungs at all.

He breathes through his skin and lives in wet places.

One reason we're not going to handle those salamanders... if their skin dries out they die, and we don't want that.

Look in the mud on the bottom.

Do you see the frog?

He's the same color as the mud!

It's pretty hard to see.

Why would a frog want to live in here?

There isn't much food available.

This is the best of two worlds.

You've got an area to hibernate in, to escape from enemies into the darkness, yet you've got food coming in from outside.

The edges of tunnels like this attract quite a few interesting animals.

Animals do get in a good distance, but very few do terribly well in the darker part of the tunnel.

We're going to walk back there in a second.

There's another salamander over there.

That's an immature salamander.

If we could get a closer look, it would probably have gills.

It's breathing oxygen out of the water.

They lose those gills and turn into that dusky salamander.

Kind of an interesting story going on in the water.

Probably, the further back you go, the smaller amount of this material you'd see.

And no more animal life?

Look in the water... there's no algae in there.

There are no green plants.

We're too far in for sunlight to make it.

Let's see what else we can find.

It's going to get darker and cooler.

Let's keep going.

(Rudy) I find it hard to believe that people did this with those tools they were using.

How long is this tunnel?

It was going to be about 6,000 feet long.

They completed only a couple of small sections of it.

What they did was drill shafts from above down to the level of the tunnel and put some men down those shafts.

Then they worked toward each other.

In this section of tunnel, there were people working in a shaft that met with people coming in from the outside, a thousand feet or so.

I just find it hard to believe, anybody trying to do this!

I was wondering what would have happened if the tunnel had been begun earlier and had been completed.

It would have changed the economy of the state of South Carolina drastically.

Let's keep going.

It's getting even chillier down here.

Temperature in here remains about a constant 55 or 56 degrees year-round... great for aging cheese.

Clemson used it for that a while back.

Look at the pool of light we're coming to.

There's a big hole up there.

That's one of the shafts that was drilled so people could be brought down here and work.

Lot of water, kind of wet there.

You can look way up the shaft.

Let me get over here a little bit.

Look up there.

People were lowered down on a cable.

They began to work from this end toward the outside, and they met the people working from the outside in.

It also goes on beyond us.

This allows plant material and some animals to get into the cave that normally wouldn't be here.

Most caves don't have such openings like that.

I really, I guess, mean tunnel... kind of a combination of both.

That is an interesting view from here.

I want to look behind us and see if I can find an animal I expect here.

See him hanging on the wall there?

Looks like a cricket.

Let's take a look at that.

This is known as a camel cricket.

Called that because first, he's a cricket, and secondly, he does have a hump-backed middle resembling that of a camel.

These have real long antennae used for feeling in dark places where their eyes are not useful.

They're always found in dark places... caves, tunnels, and under people's houses sometimes.

This is a female.

You can see the egg-laying device, the ovipositor, on the rear end.

Rudy, I think we've seen enough in Stumphouse Tunnel.

We've gone as far as we can easily.

Why don't we turn around, head out, and see what we find in the light outside.

Watch the water.

Watch the water.

♪ You know, it's amazing that when you leave this dark place the world is going to change.

The world looks pretty good!

The diversity of life outside is so much greater than the diversity of life inside.

This is a special place, and it's fun to come to places like this.

I'm kind of glad to get back outside.

It gives you a good feeling, doesn't it?

Sunlight really makes the difference, doesn't it?

Yeah... it feels good.

Let me put down this light... and pick up the net again.

Let's look at some of this greenery.

I see a nice clump that we might want to start with.

What's that red, berry-looking thing?

I was attracted by the shrub or the tree, but let me get in there and get it, pull down a little bit of it.

There are quite a few names for this plant.

It's got fruit on it.

It's pretty!

One common name is strawberry bush, but I don't like that common name, frankly.

Doesn't really look like a strawberry.

I'm a romantic...I think hearts-are-busting-with-love is a much better name.

That is a common name for it.

Euonymus is the scientific name.

It's very pink on the outside-- the fruit is-- and it opens up and out comes the seed, eventually.

They're nice and reddish orange in color.

Hearts-are-busting-with-love kind of makes sense to me.

This is found all over the state.

Are the seeds edible?

No, it's not edible.

It grows well in almost any situation.

It's really doing well here with the moisture around the tunnel.

Isn't that beautiful?

Sure is colorful.

Look at this tree.

The leaves have not even begun to change yet.

Got little things hanging down too.

This is perfect!

I was going to tell you the name of the tree without having any fruit, but here is the fruit of this tree.

Look at that... real fuzzy.

It's called hazelnut.

This is one of the plants that produces fruit that is edible.

The fruit inside here as it develops is edible and looks a little bit like a chestnut color.

These trees do well in the mountains.

Feel the underside of the leaf.

It's kind of fuzzy.

Yes, and that's very distinctive.

Not nearly so fuzzy on the top, but really fuzzy on the bottom.

The fruit is a giveaway.

You find these more commonly in the mountains of South Carolina and on the Piedmont than anywhere else... hazelnut.

It doesn't get, really, terribly large.

It's more of a shrubby plant than a tree.

You might also notice-- let me break off a little bit so we can get a closer look-- that there are these.

Cigarlike things.

Yeah...things hanging down.

These are next year's flowers.

The flowers on this tree are generally referred to as catkins.

Hang down...male flowers in one catkin usually, and female flowers elsewhere on the plant.

So you see, even before wintertime has come, the potential for next year is already there.

They will survive the winter?

Yeah...the leaves will, of course, be lost.

This will survive the winter and open up next spring, summer.

Let's leave these things here.

I will get them before we leave, though, because I want to keep that hazelnut.

I see a little movement, Beryl.

[leaves crunching] See what I got?

No.

A lizard!

Do you know this one?

This is the one that has the little pink gullet.

Yeah...this is called a green anole, although people in our state call them chameleons a lot because they do change color.

Kind of brown down there in the cool leaves, and probably, as he warms up and gets excited, he'll get more greenish in color.

Interesting eyes on the animal, and of course, it's a reptile, which means it's got dry skin and scales.

In this instance, rather small scales.

The salamander, you remember, in the cave was not a reptile.

It's an amphibian... it has no scales, and it has wet skin.

There are some distinct differences.

This animal does a tremendous amount of feeding on insects, mainly.

He's enjoying it in the sun.

Look at him close his eyes.

He seems to have clamped onto you!

I really like this group of animals.

It's interesting...if you can sort of imagine this larger and almost the same, as far as the markings, it would be the dinosaur.

Once these animals did rule the earth.

They were the large animals and most abundant.

I find them interesting.

Do you think we can get him to show his dewlap?

This is a male.

The way you can tell that is the pinkish skin.

It's called a dewlap, and the male forces this out when there's another male in his territory in the spring.

Usually if he's on a tree the male will push this out and-- it looks like he's doing push-ups.

That's his behavior to warn the other male that This is my territory.

They rarely, if ever, fight each other.

Sometimes they push and shove a little and pinch, but generally, nobody is injured in the process.

Very, very interesting animal!

I don't even have to hold him.

Look...he really got comfortable!

Breathing a little hard.

I imagine he's a little worried, but notice he's gotten greener when he's warmed up and gotten excited.

I think I've handled him enough.

He's probably more than willing to get down.

See him leap away?

I sure did!

Great jumpers and good climbers.

That thing above you looks like poison ivy.

It can't grow that big, can it?

You're right... it is poison ivy, and I'm afraid it can grow that large.

Look at the size!

Here's my hand compared to just one leaflet.

This plant has a compound leaf that's made up of three leaflets.

How do you tell the leaflets from the leaves?

Those look awfully big and independent.

If you follow this on down, you'll see that it comes off of a branch at something that's called a node.

You can break this thing off very distinctly, and it will leave a leaf scar.

So, really, this is one single leaf with three parts.

"Leaflets three," remember, "let it be," because it could be poison ivy or poison oak.

I didn't know it could grow that big.

Sometimes it gets so large it does look like a tree or shrub.

Lest we encourage it to get on us, let's move on!

Yeah...let's head down this way.

Rudy, what kind of plant is this with the things hanging off of it?

If we were here in the spring, the name would make sense.

It's called silver bell.

The flowers on this thing are silvery white in color and bell-shaped, hanging down.

Really brightens up the forest in the springtime and comes down on rivers in the lower part of the state.

See the fruit hanging on it?

Oh, yes, I do.

Wings on it...brown and very distinctive.

Kind of nice against the green background.

Silver bell is interesting to see with fruit or flowers on it...pretty easy to identify.

Species name is interesting because it's carolina... it's one of the plants found in the Carolinas first.

So this is a native.

Look up in that tree over there.

This is the home, or was the home, of one of the social insects, of course, the hornet... bald-faced hornet or white-faced hornet.

I imagine a colony of a couple of hundred individuals lived there, almost all of them females.

Did quite well making paper, as you can see there, out of bark and material off of trees that they scrape with their jaws and mix with saliva and make something that really is paper.

We think we invented the stuff, but these insects have been using it a long time and cover the nest with paper to protect it.

This nest was built this spring and summer.

The animals begin to die off, and by the dead of winter you could pick that off and carry it home.

The hole is the exit and entrance.

Those are very interesting animals.

They sure are!

Let's head down toward the waterfall.

Let's see what it looks like down there.

Let's head down the trail here.

We're going to walk across this little creek.

Let me have my net.

I think I see a butterfly, Beryl.

(Beryl) Okay.

This creek ends up becoming a waterfall.

That means you need to be careful on these rocks too.

Hold on just a minute.

Did you get it?

Yeah, I think so.

That's a tiny one.

Yeah, it's a small one, and I hope it'll hold onto my hand.

It's a very small butterfly, common statewide year-round, called the pearl crescent.

Very small, and I'm going to try to let it sit on my finger, because the markings are very distinctive.

Oh, it's beautiful!

Very delicate.

I have to be careful with these things.

Called a pearl crescent because there are pearly-white crescents on the underside of the wing.

The top is pretty, isn't it?

It is...even little orange tips on the antennae!

These butterflies are still flying even though autumn has arrived.

Most of them are killed during the winter.

They overwinter as eggs.

This one is not going to make it through winter.

There are a few butterflies that do make it in winter.

Look at the plant behind you.

I don't think we've seen this one before.

I've never seen this particular species before.

It's one of the plants called a turtlehead.

Turtlehead?

Yeah...that's the common name because of the shape of that flower.

That looks like the head of a turtle.

These flowers are out this time of year, usually in wet places like this.

That's extra exciting to me because I've never seen this variety before.

Is it limited to this part of the state?

It's scattered, but this variety is mountains.

I think it's known from Oconee County.

Let's walk on over and-- Yeah...you can hear the falls so well!

Do you know the name of this falls?

It has an Indian name, doesn't it?

Yeah... Issaqueena Falls, named after an Indian princess who supposedly was in love with a white trader and wanted to marry him.

Nobody seemed to think that was right.

There are a couple of stories.

One is she leaped to her death from this point.

I don't think I like that one.

The one I like is she pretended to leap, jumped on a lower level of the falls, hid until her lover came, and they went away into the hills and lived happily ever after.

Much better story!

You can pick whichever one you want.

This is Issaqueena Falls.

The creek we were walking across goes over the side here.

Very exciting area, and I want to try-- I see a dragonfly.

(Rudy) See if I can get this first.

Uh-oh...there he goes again!

Then we'll go downstairs.

Good...

I got him.

Let's take a close look at this.

Hold onto that net... this one may fly away if I'm not careful.

Dragonflies don't sting, contrary to the myths.

They don't...they're our good friends.

They eat insects that cause problems to us.

How about that for a delicate little animal!

That's tiny, and you've got good eyesight!

See the red abdomen on it?

This is one that does quite well.

It seems delicate yet lives by a roaring waterfall, spends most of its life in the water.

Maybe he'll hold on for a minute.

Look at there!

I think you've got glue on your fingers today because everything's sticking!

Something's going right today.

The red abdomen, pulling those wings forward.

That's typical of this species.

See the little red dots on the tips of the wings?

Mm-hmm.

One of my favorite animals.

Whoooo!

And he's gone!

Let's find something underneath the falls.

(Beryl) Okay.

(Rudy) Head around this way.

♪ [water splashing] Well, we're underneath Issaqueena Falls now, and it's really a neat place.

You've got to be careful getting down here.

It's something you know is slippery.

It's a little treacherous!

It's worth it for a view like this.

If this were a normal season there would be lots of water pouring off.

We couldn't hear each other talk.

Not quite so much water today.

It's an eerie feeling though, Rudy.

It's reminiscent of-- The cave.

--the cave or tunnel a while back.

Look at all of the green plants under here.

This feels like being in someone's house with a green basket hanging over you.

That does resemble a hanging basket.

What is that?

It's a vine that usually climbs on trees called climbing hydrangea.

The flowers look like the regular hydrangea flower, but it's a vine instead of a shrub.

It does quite well, as you see.

A lot of things do well in wet places, but a lot of these plants are particular about where they live.

The one right behind you with the flower on it.

What is that?

It's called jewelweed.

You can see the water beading up like jewels on the leaf.

That's why the name jewelweed.

You almost always find it in wet places like this.

Look at that one right behind it... the one with tiny white flowers.

That's a particular flower you find in situations like this.

It's called alumroot... delicate white flowers, and quite a few of them.

And then all that green stuff back there that doesn't even have flowers on it is called liverwort.

People used to believe that if a plant took on the shape of an internal organ, you could use it to cure disease of that organ.

So that's the first cure for liver problems.

Right, that's one of the cures for liver disease.

Who knows...maybe it has curative properties.

Well, it may or may not, but it did resemble lobes of a liver to people.

Everything under here is typical, and you expect to find it.

This has been a nice day.

It has been a really interesting day.

We've looked at different kinds of environments.

The tunnel was dark and dank, still wet.

That they had in common.

In the water we've got green algae growing.

Water in the cave... no green algae.

The difference is not water but sunlight.

That makes all the difference in the world.

I don't think I've ever had more fun going to places than we did today.

It's the kind of place we want to encourage folks to visit.

Stumphouse Tunnel, with its history and natural history, is exciting.

What makes this place special is man has been here but didn't destroy it... he really helped it out.

It's been a nice day.

Join us next time for another edition of NatureScene.

Want to head out this way?

I sure do.

Thank you.

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