1889 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



271 



@n^ flejaES. 



Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great 

 waters, and thy footsteps are not known.— Ps. 77:19. 



CONTINUED FROM LAST ISSUE. 



fHE friends will remember that I left 

 off at our last issue where the guide 

 was just ready to take me to the 

 cave. The strong door was unlock- 

 ed, and the guide handed me a lamp. 

 Just then, however, I remembered that I 

 was thirsty ; and as I did not want to travel 

 through the cave in that condition, I asked 

 the guide if we could find any water to 

 drink, in the cavern. He replied there was 

 none. Furthermore, there was none at the 

 office by the entrance. He said the only 

 thing they had was some Manitou spring 

 water, in bottles — 15 cents a bottle. Don't 

 be uncharitable, dear friends. That is 

 about the way they do things at all these 

 fashionable resorts. I decided, however, to 

 pay the price, even if the water does run 

 away in a quantity large enough to run a 

 small sawmill, right at the foot of the 

 mountain every day in the year. As it hap- 

 pened the water was bottled from the same 

 spring I tasted the day before, that I 

 thought was not very good. The cork flew 

 out of the bottle with a pop that might have 

 satisfied any schoolboy ; and as the guide 

 poured it into the glass, it fairly smoked 

 and sparkled with foam. Good? Why, my 

 friends, it was about the most delicious 

 drink I ever tasted in my life. Don't ever 

 say again that stolen waters are sweet. They 

 will not compare with that which has been 

 honestly paid for, and the thirst for it earned 

 by hard work in climbing mountains, and, 

 above all, taken with a clear conscience, 

 and with thanksgiving to God, the great 

 creator of the mountains and springs, and 

 all the wide universe. AVhile I remarked 

 that one glass was plenty for the time being, 

 I noticed he corked the bottle and set it 

 down by the side of the telescope. The 

 water is so pungent you can take only a 

 swallow at a time. He says they have an 

 arrangement for bottling it under pressure 

 before it reaches the surface of the ground. 



And now for the Manitou Cavern. It is 

 much like Mammoth Cave, only on a small 

 er scale. Before we had gone into the 

 mountain many feet I uttered exclamations 

 of surprise at the beautiful white alabaster 

 icicles, for that comes nearest in description 

 of any thing I can think of. Each icicle 

 had a drop of crystal water hanging to its 

 tip, and these drops of water glistened like 

 so many stars. Where the water trickles 

 down them fast enough to fall off , stalag- 

 mites are seen right under them. The very 

 old ones have grown brown and gray with 

 age ; but the new ones are glossy, and 

 bright with the liquid that encases them 

 and makes them grow. Of course, like 

 every one else I wanted one to take home as 

 a specimen. But the guide told me that, if 

 they had not decided to shut down on every 

 demand of this kind, their cave would have 

 been ruined in no time. I admitted this, and 

 yet it seemed rather hard that I could not 

 have just one little one. Well, a good many 



times the guide takes a dozen or more peo- 

 ple in at once.- Some of them, of course, 

 will persist in loitering behind, and these 

 are the chaps who snap off the icicles, and 

 carry them away. In fact, during this past 

 season the matter has become so bad that 

 they have been obliged to cover all the fin- 

 est ones with a protection of poultry net- 

 ting I confess that the sight of the netting 

 around these beautiful products of nature 

 does not seem to be just in harmony ; but 

 what are they to do? The guide stuck his 

 cane through one of the openings in the 

 netting, and gave one of those beautiful 

 icicles a rap. I supposed that he would, of 

 course, send it flying. But instead of that 

 it rang out like a bell— the sound echoing 

 and reverberating away through the gal- 

 leries of the cavern. Again and again he 

 struck others in the same way. They did 

 not break, but every one of them gave forth 

 a musical note. Some of them sounded like 

 a silver bell, and this is the peculiar feature 

 of Manitou Cavern. Further on, the im- 

 pregnated water had run down the side of 

 the cavern, and coated it with a polished 

 covering. 



" This is what we call the ' Wet Blan- 

 ket,' " said the guide ; and he hit it a clip 

 with his cane. It rang out, too, like a great 

 bell. During the wet season of the year 

 this impregnated water sometimes forms 

 pools on the floor ; and as it runs over the 

 edges it forms this white alabaster stone. 

 As it rises higher and higher it makes the 

 edge of it a basin, with many islands in the 

 center, all incased in alabaster. As we 

 passed under some vast domes above, that 

 seemed to go away up toward the top of the 

 mountain, a reverberating roar, rising and 

 falling like the tones of an seolian harp, ar- 

 rested my attention. I stopped and asked 

 for an explanation. He said it was a sort 

 of echo or reverberation of the sounds in 

 the cave. I could not be satisfied, however. 

 I gazed up at the rocky vault above, then 

 up one gallery and clown another, and final- 

 ly I began to consider a sort of quizzical 

 look on the face of my guide. 



" Look here, old chap, you are humbug- 

 ging me a little. Aren't you making that 

 sound with your mouth? " 



He laughed, and admitted that he was. 

 But I forgave him, especially as it was so 

 wonderful to think that a feeble human 

 voice could awaken such a frightful roar as 

 that. The guide is something of a musi- 

 cian, as I will tell you presently, and he 

 had discovered that, by striking the key- 

 note of that dome, he could almost make 

 the whole mountain vibrate, as it were. As 

 it is a difficult matter to keep his voice in 

 perfect unison with the vibrations of the 

 dome, he would occasionally waver to a lit 

 tie lower note and then higher, and thus 

 caused the roar to rise and fall, in a way 

 that seems almost startling. We now came 

 to some wooden seats, and the guide asked 

 me to sit down while he gave us some mu- 

 sic. As I composed the whole audience, I 

 spread m>self, as it were, to do justice to 

 the occasion. He climbed some stairs to a 

 grotto above and some distance away from 

 me. Then he remarked, by way of apology, 



