TEX INDIANA CAVES. 177 



Pillar," a large stalagmite, the first room entered was 

 "Cleopatra's Palace," where there are hundreds of 

 fine stalactites, which show grandly in the glare of the 

 magnesium light. 



Beyond this room two pits, said to be 60 feet in 

 depth, shut off the farther side of the cave. A narrow 

 partition of slippery stone separates the two and serves 

 as a bridge to cross the chasm. On leaving this natural 

 bridge, we made our way along the side of a steep 

 ledge that skirts the left hand pit, and then passed 

 around a gigantic fallen stalactite, which has been 

 kept from rolling into the pit only by a friendly sta- 

 lagmite against which it rests. Climbing a steep slope 

 in which notches have been cut to serve as footholds, 

 we entered a gallery, one side of the expanding mouth 

 of which serves as a balcony above and partially 

 around the deepest pit. On and above this balcony 

 is a collection of cave formations of exceeding beauty 

 and grandeur. A stately, fluted pillar, with its base 

 expanding in broad-leaved masses of dripstone, thus 

 forming a heavy folded curtain along the edge of the 

 pit, is the giant of the group ; while most unique of 

 all is the "Corinthian Column," ten feet high and less 

 than three inches in diameter a slender shaft of 

 translucent, snow-white satin-spar reaching from floor 

 to ceiling. A number of fragile tubular sterns were 

 clustered about the head of this pillar, each with a 

 terminal drop of water, which glistened like a well 

 cut diamond in the light of our candles. Entering 

 the gallery we wandered on, "beneath a ceiling fretted 

 with glistening pendants, amid pillars and pilasters, 

 flying buttresses and interlacing arches, with here a 

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