3 2o AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



roof, grotesquely shaped and stained ; while in the full light that streams through the 

 arched openings huge masses of marble are seen heaped on the floor, black as the crags 

 of Sinai, with boulders of a dull blue or slate colour strewn about their bases. Some 

 outer galleries of "The Arch" and "The Nettle" Caves, seen from the northern entrance 

 high up, are to the right. It is a vast, a weird, an awful place, by no means ill-named 

 by its early explorers; such a place " Herne the Hunter," or " Lutzow, the Jager of the 

 German \Yoods." would choose to tether his fire-fed steeds. It completes the circuit of 

 the Caves as at present opened ; is as appropriate a gate of departure as " The Grand 

 Arch " is of entrance ; the outer door, if so the visitor choose, of such a temple of 

 Nature as was never opened to mortal eyes in the world before : " And as yet," says 

 the quaint and worthy keeper and explorer, " we are but at the beginning. By that 

 rock (a half-mile away) is another cave-entrance, by that tree (high up on the cliff-side) 

 is another into which we have but peered. In ' The Mammoth,' two miles away, I was 

 lowered down two hundred feet into a hollow vault where the biggest church of Sydney 

 might have swung without touching any wall." 



How far the caves extend and what new beauties they may reveal are problems 

 only to be solved by future exploration. They are with good reason supposed to extend 

 through several leagues of country north and south of the spur in which those now 

 opened are situated, and there are grounds for believing that they reach below the deepest 

 levels yet explored. At greater depth it is also believed that stalactite and stalagmite 

 and all the varied forms the limestone assumes, will be found more perfectly crystallized ; 

 as in all the caves which have hitherto been opened opaque formations lie near the 

 surface, marbles and alabasters a little below, while deepest of all are the glassy and 

 ice-like shapes which form the most intricate and delicate beauties of the Caves. The 

 process of exploration is necessarily slow, as any new caves must lie more remote from 

 the entrance, and the keeper can only give to the work the time not claimed by visitors. 

 The Caves already made accessible have recently been illuminated by the electric-light, 

 which imparts to them an added charm. 



