Little stories about Proumeyssac chasm
And also
The tops
A dangerous chasm
Crooks, suicides and accidents
In the area, people call the chasm Trou-de-Promeissat, ″Promeyssac’s hole″. A chasm full of mysteries, of terrible legends…
Legends, because crooks and bandits came to hide their loots, or to put bodies of their unlucky victims…
Sorcerers, roaming souls populated the depths…
One thing is sure: the chasm caused several suicides and accidents!
So, because of this naughty reputation, people decided to close the chasm with a kind of big vault. But it collapsed many times… and they never made a new one!
Ducks on a spit?
This chasm was unexplored. People didn’t know what was hiding there, in the darkness…
They only knew it gave off vapour, toxic emanations! So, people thought it was the crater of an old volcano...
The book Histoire du Bugue by M. L. Dessalles (1857) tells us someone made crazy experiences in the chasm: they threw two living ducks in the hole.
The poor birds came out after a long moment, from a hole in Perdigat, with their wings completely burnt to a cinder!
Travel in the earth’s depths
In 1775, a local man went down in the chasm. Whoa, pretty rash!
In a hand, he held a rope linked to a little bell, at the top of the hole: if he had a snag, his friends could immediately raise him!
But, during his descent, the air suddenly became unsafe.
He explained later he saw ″a hot steam exhaling from big holes″… Whoa, it looked like the Hell’s entrance!
Gripped by fear!
The chasm was explored for the first time in 1907. Then, they opened it to the public.
Hey, you know what? At that time, visitors had to go down in the hole with fragile and small carriages hanging in the empty space!
The only way to go down… Oh my gosh!!! Real horror! Imagine, a trip in the darkness, in a moving basket! An unforgettable visit...
The visit of Proumeyssac
The visit lasts about 1 hour. We enter in the hole by a tunnel dug in the hill, and here we are in the Crystal Cathedral Room, a giant room with pure concretions. A nice lighting enhances their delicacy.