172 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



height of about eighteen feet. When whole this concretion had a solid and white 

 appearance, but when broken the fracture had all the look of spar. Adjoining to 

 this was another large concretion of somewhat similar form, which our guides called 

 the organ, from its numerous pipes, or flutings, having some resemblance to that 

 instrument ; but the idle curiosity of travellers and visitors has greatly mutilated 

 this fine pillar, and this mutilation still proceeds, yet with this good effect, that it 

 will, in all probability, protect the other, and preserve it from similar mutilation. 



" To this point the ceiling of the chamber was flat, or nearly so, but over the pit, 

 at the foot of the great pillar or market cross, it rose to a great height, somewhat 

 in the form of an irregular conical dome. Behind the ledge of rock upon which our 

 guides stood, the cave terminated in that direction in a wedge- like form. Numbers 

 of stalactic pipes descending from the ceiling will, in time, close up this portion 

 of the Cave. 



" Returning behind the pillar our guides pointed out to us a fissure, through 

 which the light was observable, it looked down into the external lower portion of the 

 Cave at the entrance [which Mr. Robertson has described as its lowest level — being 

 about one hundred and sixty feet below the upper surface of the hill which covers 

 it]. We looked in vain for those glittering sparry incrustations that formed a roof 

 and walls of pure crystal, nor were skulls and dead men's bones necessary to 

 heighten the effect upon our imagination, these with the roaring river and the 

 well of wonders, all vanished on examination, as suddenly as the gardens of 

 Aladdin under the wand of the sorcerer — to which gardens, our Cave bore, indeed, 

 no resemblance. But without those fictitious accompauiments (falsely calculated 

 to excite an interest, which must terminate in disappointment) it contained within 

 itself abundance of matter to gratify the curious observer, and lover of works of 

 nature, and amply to repay the trouble of examining it ; whether we attribute its 

 formation to some convulsion of nature, or to a primitive creation. Here we 

 see a most singular cavity, one hundred and sixty feet below the surface of the 

 earth. There we may also behold one of Nature's great operations — the formation 

 of stone or spar, by the water percolating through the limestone rock, and carrying 

 with it the pure calcareous matter of which the rock is formed, and reforming spar 

 with it. There are to be seen immense beds of limestone, far exceeding in size 

 anything of the kind to be found in this county. 



"The obelisks of Egypt were thought worthy of removal to Rome at an im- 

 mense expense, amongst other reasons being much prized because they were 

 monoliths of sixty or seventy feet in height ; but were it possible to bare the beds 

 of these quarries, I am confident that stones of one hundred feet in length could be 

 procured." 



You may observe that Mr. Robertson smiled at the idea of " skulls and dead 

 men's bones" being found in the Cave of Dunmore. When Mr. Robertson so wrote, 

 he had in his mind's eye, the following passage in the anonymous tour — M In 

 several places were skulls and dead men's bones, set as it were in the crystalline 

 substance, but no account could be given how they came there ; certainly no 

 person would make it a habitation." 



It is, however, a fact that human bones have been found in abundance in this 

 cave ; Banim, in his description of it, mentions his having picked up several ; and, 

 I am informed by his brother and able assistant in his literary works, that in their 

 exploring trips to the Cave, they frequently brought away such remains ; but 

 Alderman Banim thinks that they are now but rarely met with. I exhibit two 

 specimens of bones which were found in this Cave, one of them (the property of 

 the Rev. James Graves) has been pronounced to be what is technically called 

 M The Atlas," or upper vertebra of a human body, the other specimen (which 

 belongs to myself) is firmly imbedded in stalactite, and is too imperfect to enable 

 one to say to what animal it had belonged. 



The question naturally arises, at what time and under what circumstances 

 were human bones deposited in this Cave? Without being able to fix the exact 

 age of these remains we may fairly assume that they are of high antiquity, judg- 

 ing from the incrustation which frequently envelops them. There are legendary 

 tales still current amongst the natives of the district, which lead us to conclude that 

 they believe that in days of yore, people retreated to this Cave for shelter in time of 



