248 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



bearded head, so perfect that you could have thought it the work of a sculptor ; and 

 further on, toward the end of our walk, the figure of a warrior with a helmet and coat of 

 mail, and his arms crossed, of the illusion of which, with all my efforts, I could rot 

 possibly divest my mind. Two stalactites, descending close to each other, are called, in a 

 German inscription over them, with sentimentality truly German, ' the union of two 

 hearts' The resemblance is certainly very striking. After passing ' The Hearts,' we 

 came to the * Ball Room.' It is customary for the inhabitants of Adelsberg, and the sur 

 rounding country, to come on Whit-Monday to this grotto, which is brilliantly illumi 

 nated ; and the part called the ball room is actually employed for that purpose by the 

 peasantry. A gallery, very appositely formed by nature, serves the musicians for an 

 orchestra ; and wooden chandeliers are suspended from the vaulted roof. It is impossible 

 for me to describe minutely all the wonderful varieties ; the ' Fountains' seeming, as they 

 fall, to be frozen into stone ; the ' Graves,' with weeping willows waving over them ; the 

 ' Picture,' the ' Cannon,' the ' Confessional,' the ' Pulpit,' the ' Sausage-maker's Shop,' 

 and the ' Prisons.' I must not omit mentioning one part, which, though less grand than 

 many others, is extremely curious. The stalactites have here formed themselves like 

 folds of linen, and are so thin as to be transparent. Some are like shirt-ruffles, having a 

 hem, and looking as if they were embroidered ; and there is one, called the ' Curtain,' 

 which hangs exactly in natural folds like a white and pendent sheet. Every where you 

 hear the dripping as of a continual shower, showing that the mighty work is still going 

 on, though the several stages of its progress are imperceptible. Our attention was so 

 excited, that we had walked two hours without feeling the least fatigue, or being sensible 

 of the passage of time. We had gone beyond the point where most travellers had stopped, 

 and had been rewarded for it by seeing stalactites of undiminished whiteness, and crystals 

 glittering, as the light shone upon them, like unnumbered diamonds." 



Stalactical depositions vary in colour according to the nature of the surrounding rocks, 

 and Hurnboldt remarks in general that the formations occur more beautifully and 

 completely in proportion as the caves are narrow and enclosed, since the deposition of 

 crystals is less disturbed by the circulation of the surrounding air. On this account 

 those of the wide open cavern of Caripe, which he explored, were far inferior to the 

 stalactites of Adelsberg. In our own country the spot most remarkable for these 

 formations is the Blue John mine, another of the celebrated places of the Peak, near 

 its great cavern. This is a natural cavity, worked as a mine for the sake of obtaining 

 the elegant fluor spar which gives its name to the site, and which is here found in small 

 detached pieces in the limestone rock. Rude steps, leading downwards about sixty 

 yards, conduct to a series of caverns and passages encrusted with depositions of lime, 

 which have assumed a variety of interesting forms. In our illustrated instance, sta 

 lactites, of a delicate pearly yellow colour, of fine texture, and fantastically varied one 

 from the other, have grown downwards until they rested upon some shelf of a 

 lower stratum, probably of earthy matter. Arriving at such a plane, the waters 

 in future spread more widely around, forming a deposit, and connecting the former 

 stems with an inferior tablet of similar composition. The earthy or mineral stratum 

 having been by some chance removed, the fairy columns attached to their kindred 

 floor now remain suspended in middle space. These are graphically termed " the 

 Organ." It is much to be regretted that a Continental reproach against us, that of 

 an Englishman's eyes being in his fingers, here receives an illustration of its truth. 

 Some unprincipled and vagabond sight-seers have wantonly mutilated this rarity, and 

 deprived it of its earlier proportions, for which cause the relics are now upbraidingly 

 exhibited in a rude wooden cage. Here, as at Antiparos, the principal subterranean 

 apartment is termed the "Hall," a wide and lofty cavity, such as imagination conceives 



