TEN INDIANA CAVES. 159 



Passing to the right of Delta Island we entered the 

 " Dining Room," forty feet wide, ten feet high and 

 seventy feet in length, the monotony of the limestone 

 walls being relieved by several bands of jet black 

 flint, about three feet apart. One of these bands has 

 the flint in quadrangular blocks, while in the others 

 it is in nodules, many of which are several inches in 

 diameter. Sometimes these nodules resemble in form 

 a geode, and when broken show a crystalline center, 

 the siliceous particles having collected arid crystallized 

 about a common nucleus. 



Leaving the Dining Room we proceeded through a 

 short pass to the "Drawing Room," whose dimensions 

 are about 25x10x60 feet, and .from this into the 

 " Junction Room." From here three passages diverge, 

 one to the left through " Creeping Avenue," one 

 straight ahead to the right of the "Continent," the 

 latter being a vast mass of uneroded limestone, 

 around which the two branches of the old subterra- 

 nean river formerly flowed ; while the third passage, 

 known as the "Cut Oft'," turns abruptly to the right 

 and merging into a .short, tortuous, descending pass- 

 age-way, leads out into the main cave between Coun- 

 terfeiter's Trench and Rugged Mountain. 



Taking the passage past the right of the Continent 

 we entered the "Council Chamber," a spacious room, 

 15x50x100 feet, which, like Hanover Hall, contains 

 many artificial monuments, erected in the past by 

 enthusiastic visitors who knew no better way of pro- 

 claiming to the world the fact of their existence. 

 Narrowing again, the main passage continues for per- 

 haps 200 feet, when once more it expands into another 



