THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 106 



three Bengal-lights, which he had saved for the 

 occasion. It needed a stronger illumination 

 than our lamps could afford to enable me to 

 comprehend the stupendous dimensions of this 

 grandest of underground chambers. I will give 

 the figures, but they convey only a faint idea 

 of its colossal character: length, eight hundred 

 feet; breadth, three hundred feet; height, one 

 hundred and twenty feet; area, between four 

 and five acres. Martin's picture of Satan's Coun- 

 cil-Hall in Pandemonium would hardly seem ex- 

 aggerated if ofiered as a representation of the 

 Chief City, so far and vanishing is the per- 

 spective of its extremities, so tremendous the 

 span of its gigantic dome. 



" I sat upon the summit of the hill until the 

 last fires had burned out, and the hall became 

 even more vast and awful in the waninsr liirht of 

 our lamps. Then taking a last look backward 

 through the arch of the avenue, — to my mind the 

 most impressive view, — we returned to the Hall 

 of the Cascades. Stephen proposed showing me 

 the Fairy Grotto, which was not fiir off; and to 

 accomplish that end I performed a grievous 

 amount of stooping and crawling in the Solitary 

 Cave. The Grotto, which js a delicate stalactite 

 chamber, resembling a Gothic oratory, was very 



