122 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
all around you, grow the lilies and roses, singly 
overhead, but clustering together toward the 
base of the vault, where they give place to 
long, snowy, pendulous cactus-flowers, which 
droop like a fringe around diamonded niches. 
Here you see the passion-flower, with its curi- 
ously-curved pistils; there an iris, with its lan- 
ceolate leaves; and again, bunches of celery, 
with stalks white and tender enough for a 
fairy’s dinner. There are occasional patches 
of gypsum, tinged with a deep amber color by 
the presence of iron. Through the whole 
length of the avenue there is no cessation of 
the wondrous work. The pale rock-blooms 
burst forth everywhere, crowding on each other 
until the brittle sprays cannot bear their weight, 
and they fall to the floor. The slow, silent 
efflorescence still goes on, as it has done for 
ages in that buried tropic. 
“ What most struck me in my under-ground 
travels,” continues Mr. Taylor, “was the evi- 
dence of design which I found everywhere. 
Why should the forms of earth’s outer crust, 
her flowers and fruits, the very heaven itself 
which spans her, be so wonderfully reproduced ? 
What law shapes the blossoms and the foliage 
of that vast crystalline garden? There seemed 
