148 GLEANINGS FROM NATURE. 



pendicular cleft in the floor, through which an average 

 sized man can just squeeze himself. This is the open- 

 ing into "liothrock's Straits," a deep and narrow 

 passage-w^ay which connects with "liothrock's Ca- 

 thedral," a room of the New Cave. 



From Odd Fellows' Hall we climhed by a rugged 

 stairway and passed onward through narrow passages, 

 and beside pits and chasms the way ever seeming to 

 grow rougher the hills and valleys following each 

 other in rapid succession. In one place we descended 

 fully fifty feet and from the bottom noted on our right 

 the perpendicular walls of rock known as the " Cliffs." 

 Over these in ages past a drapery of stalactites has 

 been thrown in graceful folds, resembling a cascade 

 w r hich in mid-air has been congealed into stone, and 

 is most worthy of its name "The Falls of Minne- 

 haha." Below these overhanging cliffs is the gaping 

 mouth of the "Pit" a deep cavity leading by one 

 drop fifty feet into space as yet unexplored. From 

 the foot of the Cliffs we made our way with difficulty 

 up "Uncle Sam's Stairway" and then under the "Dead 

 Fall," a large flat rock which lies at an incline across 

 the passage, the upper edge supported by less than 

 three inches of a thin rock projecting from the wall. 

 From this point onward, for a distance of perhaps 

 1,000 feet, the way is a succession of steep climbs and 

 steeper descents, varied by an occasional crawl on 

 hands and knees and a final twisting of the body 

 into shapes innumerable in order to effect the pass- 

 age of the "Screw Hole," which forms the portal 

 to the "Senate Chamber," the final room of the Old 

 Cave. 



