206 Miscellanies. 
After the liquid acid is obtained in the receiver, in order to prevent 
the waste of the solid by being blown from the cup as it forms, I find 
considerable advantage in having the cup made quite deep in proportion 
to its diameter, and allowing the liquid acid to escape from the receiver 
by as small a jet as possible. 
13. Alabaster in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.—After crossing 
within the cave, several streams in boats, an apartment has been reach- 
ed, the roof of which is decorated with the most gorgeous ornaments of 
alabaster, so much like a work of art as to surpass credibility. They 
are white and semi , and are thrown out from the rock in 
the form of rosettes, leaves; wa curled enrichments of the composite 
capital in architecture. I have not had the pleasure of visiting the lo- 
cality myself, but send you this sketch from a collection of the orna- 
ments. which | have just seen in the cabinet of Miss Longworth of our 
city. These were procured ina recent visit to the caves, by her sister, 
Mrs. Anderson, who has given me a yerbal description of ‘* Cleaveland’s 
cabinet,” as the compartment has been denominated. I was at first 
at a loss to account for such beautiful formations, and especially for 
the elegance of the curves exhibited. It is however evident that the 
substances have grown from the rocks by increments or additions to the 
base ; the solid parts already formed being continually pushed forward. 
If the growth be a little more rapid on one side than on the other, a 
well proportioned curve will be the result ; should the increased action 
on one side diminish or increase, then all the beauties of the conic and 
mixed curves would be produced. The masses are often evenly and 
longitudinally striated by a kind of columnar structure, exhibiting @ 
fascicle of small prisms, and some of these prisms ending sooner than 
others, give a broken termination of great beauty, similar to our form 
of the emblem of “ the order of the star.”’ The rosettes formed by a 
n disk surrounded by acircle of leaves, rolled elegantly out 
ward, are from ova inches to a foot in diameter. Tortuous vines, 
eaves at every flexure, like the branches of a chan- 
delier, ru running more than a foot in length, and not thicker than the fin- 
ger, are among the varied frost-work of the alabaster grottocs ; common 
stalactites of carbonate of. lime, although beautiful objecis, lose by 
contrast with these ornaments, all of their effect, and dwindle into mere 
clumsy awkward icicles. In order to give yourselves and your readers 
some idea of the acanthus-like curl of some of the leaves, I send you 4 
pencil sketch of one of them. It is the original scrap, and does the 
subject great injustice ; you will readily see that there are several “ un- 
- nformable” lines, as. at a, not in the original, but pagteson SiG at 
se at rela sie AG) 
