THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 121 



disks, SO perfect in their fragile beauty that they 

 seem ready to melt away under the blaze of 

 your lamp. Then commences Cleveland's Cab- 

 inet, a gallery of crystals, the richness and 

 variety of which bewilder you. It is a sub- 

 terranean conservatory, filled with the flowers 

 of all zones ; for there are few blossoms expand- 

 ing on the upper earth but are mimicked in 

 these gardens of darkness. I cannot lead you 

 from niche to niche, and from room to room, 

 examining in detail the enchanted growths ; 

 they are all so rich and so wonderful that the 

 memory does not attempt to retain them. 

 Sometimes the hard limestone rock is changed 

 into a parterre of white roses ; sometimes it is 

 starred with opening daisies ; the sunflowers 

 spread their flat disks and rayed leaves ; the 

 feathery chalices of the cactus hang from the 

 clefts ; the night-blooming cereus opens securely 

 her snowy cup, for the morning never comes to 

 close it ; the tulip is here a virgin, and knows 

 not that her sisters above are clothed in the 

 scarlet of shame. 



" In many places the ceiling is covered with 

 a mammillary crystallization, as if a myriad 

 bubbles were rising beneath its glittering sur- 

 face. Even on this jeweled soil, which sparkles 



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