Mr Russel on the Cavern at Adelsberg^ in Carniola. 49 



it has lost its noise and rapidity ; it eddies slowly along, in a 

 well defined bed, and having reached the opposite wall of this 

 immense vault, the solid mountain itself, it again dives into 

 the bowels of the earth. Its course can be followed no far- 

 ther, and it is still doubtful whether, or where, it again ap- 

 pears on earth* At 



This, imposing as it is, is but the vestibule to the most mag- 

 nificent of all the temples which nature has built for herself 

 in the regions of night. A slight wooden bridge leads across 

 the river, and after advancing a little way the terminating 

 wall of the cavern opposes you. This was always held to be 

 the ne plus ultra. But, about five years ago, some young 

 fellow took it into his head to try, with the help of his com- 

 panions, how far he could clamber up the wall by means of 

 the projecting points of rock. When he had mounted about 

 forty feet, he found that the wall terminated, and a spacious 

 opening intervened between its top, and the roof of the cavern 

 which was still far above. A flight of steps was immediately 

 hewn in the rock, and the aperture being explored, was found 

 to be the entrance to a long succession of the most gigantic 

 stalactite caverns that imagination can conceive. 



From a large rugged, and unequal grotto, they branch ofF 

 in two suites. That to the left is the more extensive, and 

 ample, and majestic; that to the right, though smaller, is 

 richer in varied and fantastic forms. Neither the one nor the 

 other consists merely of a single cavern, but a succession of 

 them, all different in size, and form, and ornament, connected 

 by passages which are sometimes low and bare, sometimes spa- 

 cious and lofty, supported by pillars, and fretted with corni- 

 ces of the purest stalactite. It would be in vain to attempt to 

 describe the magnificence and variety of this natural architec*. 

 ture. The columns are sometimes uniform in their mass, and 

 singularly placed ; sometimes they are so regularly arranged, 

 and consist of smaller pillars so nicely clustered together, that 

 one believes he is walking up the nave of a Gothic Cathedral. 

 Many of these columns, which are entirely insulated, have a 

 diameter of three, four, and even five feet. Frequently the 

 pillar is interrupted as it were in the middle, losing its co- 

 lumnar form, and twisting, dividing, or spreading itself out 



VOL. VII. NO. I. JULY 1827. D 



