Macska Cave

Macska Cave is located in Csobánka in the Pilis Mountains, within the Danube–Ipoly National Park. It is among the caves in Hungary that are specially protected. It is also described in tourist guidebooks.

Description

It can be approached from the Csobánka ridge on the tourist route marked with the blue Ω, i.e., the blue cave sign, branching off from the blue stripe of the National Blue Trail. It opens at the southeastern foot of Ziribár Hill, about 1.5 km north of the centre of Csobánka, next to the Spring Hut. Tourist maps mark the cave’s location with a cave symbol and the name of the cave.

The cave entrance is swallowed by a rainwater seep flowing down the mountain side above it, so it functions periodically as an active water‑draining cave. The outflow water falls as a waterfall into the cave entrance, then changes direction there and flows in the exact opposite direction of its previous path into the further passages of the cave. Barite crystals also occur in the cave, which is a sign of sulphuric cave formation. Later it transformed into a karst water‑draining cave. At the bottom of the cave, among the debris, the periodically entering water disappears. The mountain side above the cave and even the entrance of the cave are in sandstone, but further inside it developed in Dachstein limestone. Permission and basic caving equipment are required for entry.

Murai Éva mentioned in 1976 that in 1965 the cavity system was a bat roost. The Budapest Bat Protection Group began studying its bat population from 1992, and David Csanádi reported on the results in 1998. It is used as a mating site and winter shelter. A colony of common bats consisting of few individuals is found here regularly.

According to Dénes György, this hillside is probably the one mentioned in a 1367 deed as Macskakő, which indicates that a wildcat inhabited the area, and the cave also received the name cat because of the hillside. The cave appears in literature as Macka jama (Koch 1871), Macka-jama (Kadić 1952), Macka lyuka (Koch 1871), Mačka jama (Bekey 1914), Macskabarlang (Thirring 1929), Macska barlang (Kadić 1920), Macska jama (Thirring 1900), Macskalyuk (Polgárdy 1941), Macskalyuk barlang (Tamás 1948), Macskalyuk-barlang (Leél-Őssy 1962), Maczka jama (Moussong 1891), Máczka szállás (Moussong 1891), the name Máczka barlang according to Géza Moussong being one of the names of the Kis-kevélyi-barlang, Mucka-loch (Bekey 1914), Muckaloch (Kadić 1952) and Muka-Loch (the name written incorrectly on a map in Thirring 1900). In 1914 the cave was first called Macska-barlang in literature, in the writing of Imre Gábor Bekey.

19th century

In the 1870 Natural Science Gazette and in a report written by Antal Koch it is mentioned that a year earlier a funnel-shaped depression was found in Csobánka, which in rain swallows the water of its surroundings. The first publication giving the name of the cave is the 1871 Geological Gazette and the study written by Antal Koch, which saw daylight. Antal Koch visited the cave. West of Csobánka, proceeding towards Nagy-Ziribár, one can reach the actual, i.e., the washed, inflow or entrance cave, whose name is Macka jama (Macka lyuka). Between Kowaczina and Nagy-Ziribár there is a narrow valley that continuously widens inward and forms a large valley basin that collects the water of the surrounding mountains. At the beginning of the valley is the cave’s huge entrance, which swallows the water flowing into it with great roar and turbulence. This is good for the fields below, because the abundant water would otherwise flood them. With lower Oligocene limestone walls it forms a small pool in its surroundings and during heavy rain completely fills the pool with water, which cannot disappear from the cave at once.

The 3° wide entrance is in Oligocene sandstone. The cave slopes, runs north‑northwest and alternately is high and low, but not lower than 2° and not higher than 8°. At the entrance the top is sandstone, later the enclosing rock is Dachstein limestone. At about 5° the slope becomes steeper and large rocks greatly hinder progress because they are slippery from water and therefore difficult to cross. The walls constantly drip in the deeper part and are coated with thick dripstone crust, however large stalagmites are rare. About 20° deep the passage is south‑facing and steep, but can be reached only to 3°, where there is a 5° vertical shaft. The dropped stone continued to fall and roll, which means that the cave does not end here. The cave here is the largest, about 10° in diameter and about 6° high.

The Csobánka stone quarry was the lessee for years before Antal Koch’s on‑site investigation; with ropes and the help of workers it descended 60° down, but did not reach the end of the cave. Antal Koch regretted that the lessee is no longer alive, because he would have listened to the lessee’s observations and experiences. The formation of the cave was favored by the fact that the Dachstein limestone layers are very fractured at the contact plane with the sandstone and water could easily wash a path, enlarge itself between them and thus a large‑sized cave could develop. The abundant disappearing water leaks between the fissures of the deeper‑lying Dachstein limestone layers and, through a fissure at the bottom of the valleys, where it finds a way, emerges as a spring into daylight, or seeps even deeper, then is forced out through a fissure as a warm spring.

The 1871 yearbook of the Hungarian Royal Institute of Geology mentions that one of the caves of the Pilis Mountains is the Macka cave in Csobánka. Ferenc Schafarzik wrote in the 1884 Geological Gazette that Antal Koch had already mentioned in the first volume of the Geological Gazette that in the Buda region the Dachstein limestone is the rock in which caves occur more frequently. He listed such caves from the areas of Csobánka, Solymár, Csév and Üröm, and even in the Csobánka Macka cave the bones of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) were found.