Trajts. N. Y. Ac. Set. 40 Nov. 20, 



and from 10 to 40 feet deep. The " Dead Sea," " Lake Lethe" and 

 the " River Styx," are smaller bodies in the same cave. These all 

 have secret communication with the adjacent Green River, and are lia- 

 ble to sudden floods, sometimes rising 60 feet, and one result is the 

 deposit of immense mud-banks. (It is aside from the purpose of this 

 paper to describe the living objects found in these waters, or the re- 

 markable acoustic properties of Echo River passage-way.) 



Agreeably contrasted with these dismal lakes are the exquis- 

 itely clear pools occupying the crystal basins of Luray Cavern. These 

 build their own walls, by the process of crystallization, till some ot them 

 are more than five feet high and enclose lakes fifty feet across. 

 There are more than a hundred of them in this cave, as clear as ether, 

 and holding their unruffled surface as a mirror to reflect the countless 

 stalactites hanging above them. By as careful an estimate as could be 

 conveniently made, the Imperial Spring is adorned by 48,000 such stal- 

 actites ! The " Castles on the Rhine" are but the incrusted stalag- 

 mites remaining where one of these pools once lay, but whose waters 

 have long ago been drained. 



Stalactites and stalagmites are referred to in every description of 

 cavern scenery, and their causes are well understood. The carbonate 

 of lime left by the water, on evaporation, makes a ring on the ceiling, 

 followed by ring after ring, till a cylinder grows that finally is thick- 

 ened into an elongated cone ; and this is a stalactite. The deposit on 

 the floor is a thin film, which by repeated coating grows into the blunt 

 stalagmite. The two are often united into a column. The Pillar of 

 the Constitution, in Wyandot Cave, is one of the largest known sta- 

 lacto-stalagmitic columns, being 40 feet high and 25 feet thick, and 

 homogeneous throughout. The material is Oriental alabaster (to be 

 distinguished from the softer gypsum, being a very hard carbonate of 

 lime), and this stately pillar was once resorted to by the Indians as a 

 quarry for materials from which to make amulets and images. Some 

 of the stalactites in Luray Cavern are 50 feet long ; and the Double 

 Column, composed of two consolidated stalagmites, rises to the height 

 of perhaps sixty feet above the floor. Stalactites sometimes are blade- 

 like and highly sonorous. Agam they hang like scarfs or shawls, 

 pure white or striated : many fine examples of which are found in 

 Luray. Stalactitic distortion is quite a study in itself. Among assign- 

 able causes are the growth of fungi, the influence of atmospheric cur- 

 rents, and the outgrowth of lateral crystals. 



The lantern views of Subterranean Scenery represent Fingal's Cave, 

 the Cavern-Temple of Elephanta, the Ice Caves of Niagara, the Bone 

 Cave of Gailenreuth, and several other miscellaneous selections; but 

 the great majority of them were taken from scenes in Wyandot, Mam- 



