134 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



within a foot of the floor. By creeping, crawling and 

 twisting from side to side we managed to get up a 

 slippery hill and through a small opening into the 

 " Fairy Palace/' a place visited by few on account of 

 the difficulty of the way. Here we found the farthest 

 explored part of the cave, and in the small room, per- 

 haps ten feet wide and five feet high, were thousands 

 of formations, which reflected the light in a most bril- 

 liant manner. 



Retracing the way to the Junction Room, we turned 

 to the right into the " Prison Cell," a large room which 

 contains some of the principal features of the cave. 

 Here is the "Leaning Tower of Pisa," a stalagmite six 

 feet high, with the top inclined several inches beyond 

 the base; " Solomon's Temple," a group of slender 

 pillars six and a half feet in height and arranged in a 

 circle; "Administration Building," a pillar made up 

 of a series of circular layers of crystalline limestone, 

 piled one on top of another so as to cause the whole 

 to resemble a Japanese pagoda; "Bunker Hill Monu- 

 ment," formed on a fallen slab, story on story as the 

 preceding, besides many others as handsome, yet too 

 numerous to mention. We passed from the Prison 

 Cell, between the "Prison Bars" a series of slender 

 columns six feet long and six to eight inches in cir- 

 cumference into "Washington Avenue," the left 

 branch of the main passage at the fork near Cave Hill 

 Cemetery. This avenue is 450 feet in length, from 

 twenty-five to forty in width, and for about one-third 

 of its length the ceiling is so low as to require a stoop- 

 ing position in passing through. On the way are 

 many small stalagmites grouped in a straggling 



