124 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
ornaments of alabaster, so much like a work of 
art as to surpass credibility. They are white 
and semi-transparent, and are thrown out from 
the rock in the form of rosettes, leaves, and 
curled enrichments of the composite capital of 
architecture. * -* .* = I was at first at 
a loss to account for such beautiful formations, 
and especially for the elegance of the curves ex- 
hibited. It is, however, evident that the sub- 
stances 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 action on one 
side diminish or increase, then all the beauties 
of the conic and mixed curves would be pro- 
duced. The masses are often evenly and 
longitudinally striated by a kind of columnar 
structure, exhibiting a 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 mammillary disk, surrounded by a circle of 
leaves at every flexure, like the branches of a 
chandelier, running more than a foot in length 
