,, 4 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



three-quarters of an inch in eighteen years, and a learned professor, taking only a 

 moderate-sized pendant and calculating from this basis, estimated that its growth must 

 have occupied a period of two hundred and sixty-nine thousand years so long has 

 Nature been labouring in preparing this palace for our delight. It must not be supposed, 

 however, that any such limit can be fixed to the term of the formation of the Caves. 

 \Vlu-n the geologist looks closely into the limestone of which they are formed he 

 discovers it to consist almost entirely of corals and shells, and thus he infers that the 

 parent material of all the rock at one time lived and grew in the warm ocean. The 

 stillness of the central sea was once over all this caverned space, the coral-reef grew 

 in the darkness of the unfathomed depths, and in the fulness of time was upheaved by 

 the central forces of the world three thousand feet above the sea-level ; and through 

 what enormous periods wrought by air and water, scooping out the great gorges, 

 hollowing out the great caves ! Two hundred and sixty-nine thousand years represent 

 but a moiety of the time occupied in their decoration, the building and the preparation 

 of the material were all before. Well says the guide, pointing to a huge projection on 

 the upper wall of " The Devil's Coach-house " (seen from " The Arch Cave "), whose 

 crown is shaped as the head of an ancient, rugged and vast with Homer-like locks 

 curling far down, " He was old there, before Adam was made." 



A great cavern, with a floor-space sixty feet by forty, in " The Arch Cave," bears 

 the name of " The Ball-room," and around its walls are many very stately columns and 

 stalactites of a perfect terra-cotta tint, all rich and chaste, and free from the slightest 

 speck. The only trace of a crystal or transparent formation is in some half-exposed 

 masses, knee and elbow shaped, a section of a trunk at times protruding, ringed as the 

 back of a lobster, and in colour a pale malachite. They resemble the bodies of some 

 monsters of an old world rising slowly from their burial-places. A sense of awe mingles 

 with wonder as their shapes are fancied out, and a shudder of horror is hardly resisted 

 as the warm human hand rests upon their clammy surface. 



Near to them is a cluster of huge many-domed formations named " The Willows," 

 bearing a striking resemblance to willow-trees bowed clown with snow snow which in 

 some mysterious manner has been transmuted into stone, whose surface has by some 

 subsequent process of Nature been painted green, bright almost as the leaves of willow- 

 trees. Far above "The Willows" is the pear-shaped opening on the roof of "The Devil's 

 Coach-house " ; about its sides are some few traces of the outer world fern-leaves and 

 tendrils of a delicate green. They break the spell of the enchantment bred by the 

 spirit of the inner recesses. Turn again from the subdued daylight, look for a moment 

 at the two grotesque masses which are supposed to resemble fighting-cocks. Look 

 attentively, and one becomes an eagle with bent beak and talons rooted in its prey, 

 suggestive of the Promethean legend. 



With lighted candles the guide leads past pillar, pinnacle and arch, by a narrow 

 passage into a cavern where great clubs of rock hang from the roof. Let the lights be 

 extinguished, and then in a darkness that may be felt, wait and listen ! Suddenly, 

 startlingly, close to the ear, comes the boom of a deep-toned bell. Another and another, 

 with higher, clearer tones an actual chime rung. It strikes through the ear to the 

 deepest wonder-chambers of the mind. It seems as if in the intense darkness the 



