The largo room (thirty feet high and forty feet across) of the cave was one of the most 

 beautiful sights imaginable in the brilliant illiuiiination of our acetylene mine lamps. Its 

 chief feature was the great greenish white stalagmite (fourteen feet high) rising at its upper 

 end, so impressive in size and setting, so beautiful in outline, ornamentation and surroundings 

 that it seemed little short of vandalism to destroy or mar it, or any part of the cave which it 

 adorned, although in the interests of science 



with inimitc i ry>t;illiiic surfaces that ghttcrcd in the rays from our hiinj^s, 

 wliih- tlic floor \va.s uneven with knobby clusters of calcite, and held here and 

 there a shallow pof)l of limpid water. The upper exit from this first (•haiiil)er 

 was almost closed with ureat blocks of rock that fell from the eeilin<j; so 

 long ago as to ha\e reeei\('d their own coatini,' of dripstone, \\orininii' our 



305 



