512 THE PARKS AND GARDENS OF PARIS. [Chap. XXX. 



quarries are then well cleaned out, the very soil where the beds 

 rested being scraped away, and the place left to " rest " for 

 a year or two. 



The distant view of the entrance to these quarries has much the 

 appearance of an English chalk-pit. But there is a great rude 

 arch cut into the rock, and through this we enter, meeting pre- 

 sently a waggon coming forth with a load of stones, the waggoner 

 with lamp in hand. To one who has seen the low-roofed Mush- 

 room-caves near Paris, the surprise is great on getting a little way 

 into this one. At least it is so as soon as one can see ; the dark- 

 ness is so profound that a few candles or lamps merely make 

 darkness visible. The tunnel we traverse is nearly regularly 

 arched, masonry being used here and there, so as to render the 

 support secure and symmetrical, the arches being flat at the top 

 for six feet or so across, and about twenty-five to thirty feet 

 high. 



Presently we turn to the right, and a scene like a vast subter- 

 ranean rock-temple presents itself. At one end are several of us 

 with lamps, admiring the young Mushrooms budding all over the 

 lines of beds which, serpent-like, long and slim, stretch away to 

 some 150 feet distance where a group of men is at work at the 

 beds. From both sides of this gloomy temple start the dark 

 openings of avenues at short intervals, and the floor of all is 

 covered with Mushroom-beds. These beds are about twenty-two 

 inches high and as much wide, and are covered with silver sand 

 and whitish clay in about equal proportions. In some parts of 

 the cave the work of ripping out the stone by powder and 

 simple machinery continually goes on. The arches follow the 

 veining of the stone, so to speak ; their lower parts are of hard 

 stone, the upper ones of soft, except the very top, which is again 

 hard. There is but a slight crust of stone above the apex of each 

 arch, and above that the earth and trees. Kunning in parallel 

 lines, and disappearing from view in the darkness, one knows not 

 what to compare the beds to, unless it be to barked Pine-trees 

 in the hold of a ship. 



As the beds are regularly gathered from every day, no very 

 large Mushrooms are seen. They are preferred at about the size 

 of a Chestnut. If the old superstition that a Mushroom never 

 grows after being seen by human eyes were true, the trade of 



