[Chap, xxxi] WASHINGTON TO SAN FRANCISCO 137 



there are stalactites of the most varied forms, and often of 

 the most wonderful beauty. Usually they form pillars like 

 some strange architecture, sometimes they hang down like 

 gigantic icicles, and one of these is over sixty feet long, the 

 dripping apex being only a few inches from the floor. In 

 some places the stalactites resemble cascades, in others 

 organs, and several are like statues, and have received appro- 

 priate names. Many of them are most curiously ribbed ; 

 others, again, have branches growing out of them at right 

 angles a few inches long — a most puzzling phenomenon. 

 There is a Moorish tent, in which fine white drapery hangs in 

 front of a cave, a ballroom beautifully ornamented with snow- 

 white stalactitic curtains, etc. Some of these, when struck, 

 give out musical notes, and a tune can be played on them. 

 A photograph of the Moorish tent and the curious pillars 

 near it is here reproduced. The curtain is like alabaster, and 

 when a lamp is held behind it, the effect is most beautiful. 

 In many places there are stalagmitic floors, beneath which is 

 clay filled with bones of bats, etc., and at one spot human 

 bones are embedded in the floor under a chasm opening 

 above. The print of an Indian mocassin is also shown 

 petrified by the stalagmite. Rats and mice are found with 

 very large eyes ; and there are some blind insects and centi- 

 pedes, as in the Mammoth Cave. Several miles of caverns and 

 passages have already been explored, but other wonders may 

 still be hidden in its deeper recesses. The only caves in the 

 world which appear, from the descriptions, to surpass those 

 of Luray are the Jenolan caves in New South Wales. The 

 latter have all the curious and elegant forms of stalactites 

 found at Luray, and in addition others of beautiful colours, 

 such as salmon, pink, blue, yellow, and various tints of green, 

 a peculiarity, so far as I am aware, found nowhere else. 



Returning to the station, I went on to Waynesboro' Junction, 

 where I dined, and had to wait two or three hours for the 

 train on at 5 p.m. I took a walk on a wooded hill close by, 

 but the only flower I could find was the little Epigcea repens, 

 the only indication of spring. The appearance of the woods 

 was no more advanced than with us in February ; yet it was 



