386 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Nov. 7, 1884. 



of the houses of the German peasant — at other places, as 

 if boys had been throwing small snowballs at the walls, 

 which had stuck there, white as snow, a portion of it as 

 soft too. 



As illustrating the indestructibility of matter, the lime- 

 stone, extremely hard though it be, wastes away in the 

 presence of aqueously-saturated air, and under certain 

 conditions on contact with water, and is deposited at lower 

 levels in all those strange and curious forms that so exult 

 visitors. 



The caves that have their entrance from outside are but 

 four or five in number : the Elder Cave, Nettle Gave, 

 Lurline Cave, Lucas Cave. The Imperial Cave, the finest 

 of all the number, was discovered but two years ago. All 

 other caves are but sub-caves of these. The Lucas Cave is 

 singular in its form, winding downward as it does until, at 

 its further end, we find ourselves directly under the entrance 

 portion, but 200 feet lower. 



Let us ])ause a little, and think over the evidently extra- 

 ordinary sluw growth of that grotto of stalactites before us. 

 From long continued observation, extending over a century, 

 in the limestone caves of Europe and America, the results 

 go to show that it takes a thousand years to make a foot in 

 length of the slowest forming stalactites. It is equally cer- 

 tain, however, from the results of observations in the same 

 caves, that the same length has been aggregated in 100 or 

 i200 years, but the conditions under which each was formed 

 being different. From one falls a drop of water but once 

 in two or three minutes, much of the water previous to its 

 falling as a drop being evaporated on its coming in contact 

 with air or a current of air. From the other the water falls 

 in an almost continual trickle. At the Fish River Oaves 

 the only observation as yet taken was by the guide, who 

 informed us that, at the entrance to the cave, and previous 

 to the path being lowered, he had accidentally broken the 

 tip off a stalactite 8 in. long by striking it with his head 

 sixteen years ago. The new growth, the growth of sixteen 

 years, was but f in. in length by J in thickness, the thick- 

 ness of the stem where broken off being about g in. At 

 the time of our visit, one to two minutes elapsed between 

 the falling of each drop of water from it. At this rate it 

 must have taken 360 years to form this stalactite of 8 in. 

 length previous to its breakage. 



At one place, measuring about 150 squai-e feet, we 

 counted 36 stalactites to the square foot, from an inch to 

 15 inches long, making about 5,000 delicate pendants in 

 this sequestered nook. The longest stalactite noted in 

 these caves was about 20 feet or less*, and the tallest stalag- 

 mite about 10 feet, many of the latter assuming most 

 peculiar shapes, as of human-like figures, hooded monks and 

 nuns, of robe:l statues and statuettes, of fish standing on 

 their heads or tails, of candlesticks, as in Fig 2, to the 

 right in Nelly's Grotto. 



Throughout our subterranean travels, number of pools 

 and basins from 4 inches to 20 feet in diameter, filled with 

 water as clear as the distilled element, continually met our 

 view, and in the strangest and most unexpected of places, 

 too ; on top of a mound, on shelves or ledges, on terraces, 

 or in niches ; while in vicinity of Fig. 6 is a sheet of water 

 usually less than 6 inches in depth, 100 feet long, its bottom 

 glistening with pearls and other concretionary forms like 

 nodules, marbles, birds' eggs, ifec, intersper.<-ed with patches 

 of diminutive coral forms, a sight so dazzling to the eye that 

 if continued becomes almost painful. 



The Shawl Cave, Fig. 5, Nature has devoted to the dis- 

 play of shawls, and there are curtains from ten to twenty 

 feet long, quarter to half-inch thick, and two to five feet 

 wide. Some are nearly white, while others are more or 

 leas beautifully striated in white, pink, yellow, and brown, 



like the markings visible in agates and other precious 

 stones. A light placed behind these curtains reveals some 

 to be opaque, others translucent, and all extremely hand- 

 some. A tiny stream of water trickles down the edge of 

 each shawl. 



The Crystal Salt Pans, Fig. 6, are a number of shallow 

 basins filled with beautiful semicircular sheets of gleaming 

 water (basins dry when photographed), each basin being a 

 terrace, and catching the overflow of water from the one 

 above it. It was only after a second investigation that we 

 could realise that the ruffled margins and corrugated brims 

 to these calcareous pools were built up by deposition of 

 material contained in the water itself, the deposit strangely 

 taking place only at the point of overflow. These basins 

 are sometimes dry, when they present the appearance of a 

 number of evaporated salt-pans at a salt factory, the 

 bottoms of the basins being then covered with .shining 

 crystals. Viewing the pillars to the left reminds the 

 visitor of the ruined monumental columns met with in 

 Italy, Palestine, or Greece. 



Fig. 1, Lolly Cave, is an overcrowded curiosity shop, the 

 most splendid gems hidden from view by inferior articles. 



Nelly's Grotto, Fig. 2, is an assemblage needing no 

 comment. 



Solidified or petrified cascades and waterfalls are numerous 

 throughout the caves. A few are spotless white in colour, 

 others leaden blue, some striated in various shades of white, 

 pink, and yellow, while more are of a transparent black 

 or brown. The latter is also the prevailing colour about 

 the diamond wells, where the carbonates are coated with a 

 surface of crystals, the crystals being large. — Scientific 

 A merican. 



DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. 



A QCASI-SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY INTO 



THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 

 By Thomas Foster, 



{^Continued from p. 358.) 



AFTER the interview with the opium-eater, Datchery 

 returns to his lodging, but merely to get his almost 

 superfluous bat, that he may go out and seek the Deputy. 

 He hails this ])romising youth by his seldom-used nickname 

 Winks ; and we find that the acquaintance between the 

 two has been established on a familiar footing. ("Always 

 kindly," Drood was, we were told in Chapter XIV.) " We 

 two are good friends ; eh, Deputy 1 " he says. " Jolly 

 good." "I forgave you the debt you owed me when we 

 first became acquainted, and many of my sixpences have 

 come your way since ; eh. Deputy?" "Ah! and what's 

 more, yer ain't no friend o' Jarsper's. What did he go 

 a histing me oft' my legs for ? " " What, indeed ? " says the 

 quaint and Droodlike Datchery, whose talk here reminds 

 one of Dickens's own talk with a little Irish boy, as 

 described in a letter to Forster. Datchery gives Depnty 

 a shilling to find out where the old opium woman lives. 

 Hearing that she is going to the Cathedral in the morning, 

 he " receives the communication with a well-satisfied, 

 though a pondei'iug face." As yet he has learned little from 

 his meeting with the opium woman, except that she knows 

 Jasper, that she is not very friendly towards him, and that 

 opium is the secret of the strange resemblance he had noted 

 six months before between her look and Jasper's. He 

 opens the cupboard where he keeps the score of his reckon- 

 ing against Jasper. A few uncouth streaks only are 

 chalked on its inner side. He sighs over the contemplation 

 of the poverty of the score, and is uncertain what addition 



