CAVERNS. 249 



would be a fitting home for the romantic outlaws of Salvator Rosa, or the spurious 

 banditti of our English Mortimer. In this spot, not a long time ago, a popular 



Organ, Blue John Cavern. 



nobleman, who prosecuted adventurous researches in the most dangerous recesses of 

 the mine, feasted a multitude of his friends, and made the wet rock resound to the 

 toasts and sentiments imported from a more fashionable atmosphere. In a certain 

 direction from this grand focus the visiter is led to a narrower and more irregular 

 space, presenting a towering cupola, the grandeur of whose shivered sides can only 

 be exhibited by drawing upwards, with cord and pulley, a round of lighted candles 

 supplied by the conductor : these illuminate successively the varied and peculiar stages 

 of the internal surface. The perpetual waters which trickle down have left a residuum 

 of lime, which has been moulded, by accident, and by industrious and gentle operation, 

 into a thousand free tresses and waving bands. The whole is fashioned by Nature 

 with less of the abrupt form which characterises the congelation of fountain streams 

 by cold, and presents a grotesque enamel of exquisite polish and gracefulness, giving 

 to the artificial plain or coloured lights, uplifted within the conical abyss, beautiful 

 reflections from its unrivalled crystallised surfaces. Frequently, while attention is 

 riveted to the precinct of gloom and awful solitude, a chaunt of voices is heard from the 

 summit of the dome, accessible by hidden performers from other avenues of the mine. 

 The fleeting and distant expression of sound, with the mournful intervals of the strain, 

 seems like a song of captive spirits, obedient to the rigid discipline of some invincible 

 gnome. 



The temperature of caverns exhibits great diversities, dependent upon their extent and 

 form, and that of the same cavern will greatly vary at different seasons. In those which 

 are dry and deep, covered with a thick stony roof, and withdrawn from the influence of 

 the alteration of the external air, by having only a limited opening, the temperature can 

 vary but little, and will continue through the whole year at nearly the same degree of 

 warmth which is peculiar to their geographical situation. Before the warmer air of 

 summer has so penetrated the roof that the temperature of the cavern can be somewhat 



