TEN INDIANA CA VES. 149 



Collett described the Senate Chamber "as a vast 

 elliptical amphitheater, estimated at six hundred feet 

 long and one hundred and fifty feet wide. The sides 

 are built up with massive ledges of limestone, thin- 

 ning and converging upward into a monster dome, 

 with a flat elliptical crown fifty by twenty feet in 

 diameter. The center of this vast room is piled up 

 with a great mass of rocky debris fallen from the 

 immense cavity above." 



Other than the dimensions, this was an excellent 

 description. Exact measurements show the room to 

 be 144 feet long and 56 feet in width. The mass of 

 fallen rock in the center, known as " Capitol Hill," is 

 about thirty-two feet in height and is crowned to a 

 depth of several feet with an immense mass of stalag- 

 mitic material. From the center of this mass rises 

 from the top of the hill the grandest natural wonder 

 in Wyandotte Cave the great fluted column of crys- 

 talline carbonate of lime, known as the "Pillar of 

 the Constitution." Perfectly cylindrical, seventy-one 

 feet in circumference, and extending from the crest 

 of the hill to the ceiling above, this enormous column 

 exceeds in magnitude any similar formation in any 

 known cave on earth. From the point where it first 

 became visible in the dim light of our candles it 

 appeared "like an immense spectral iceberg looming 

 up before us, looking as if it had just arisen from the 

 foaming waves of the ocean on a dark and foggy 

 night." The entire column is composed of "satin- 

 spar" a rather soft, white, striated mineral, the 

 purest form of carbonate of lime. From one side, 

 near the base of the column, has been removed by the 



