Hill, Brodrick, and Rule — The Mitchelstown Caves. 243 



entrance, and at such a depth one might expect to meet with the sub-soil 

 water at the point of saturation. 



The cave ends in a straight wall of rock, running from top to bottom of 

 the chamber and joining floor and ceiling. 



The Western Chamber. 



Though not so large in area as its neighbour, this chamber can well vie 

 with its fellow owing to the beauties of the natural formations to be met 

 therein. It is divided into two parts, separated by a narrow isthmus, 15 feet 

 wide, containing two beautiful pillars. Unlike the Eastern Chamber, whose 

 floor is thickly bedaubed with clay, here every particle glistens with a cover- 

 ing of crystalline stalagmite securely sealing down the fragments of rock and 

 the boulders which in the past have fallen from its roof. Not a trace of clay 

 is to be seen anywhere. 



The first part of the Western Chamber is roughly circular in shape ; its 

 floor of stalagmited boulders slopes at an angle of 30°, whilst the roof 

 in the main is 60 feet in height. Passing through the isthmus, between the 

 beautiful pillars which obstruct the way, you emerge into the second part — 

 a cavern which for beauty and interest it would be difficult to match. 



You enter about the middle of a slope which from top to bottom measures 

 nearly 200 feet in length. Scattered over this area rise huge bosses of 

 stalagmite, the finest of which faces you on entering. This particular one is 

 5 feet high on its upper side and 20 feet on its lower, and just a short 

 distance below its summit measures 20 feet in diameter. Others are of 

 less size, but all are fine. Many of the corresponding stalactites, even those 

 at a great height, have been destroyed in the past. Thanks to the seventy 

 years' rest this Chamber has since enjoyed, nature is slowly making attempts 

 to repair the damage wrought in the past, and now tiny points of stalactite 

 are creeping their way downwards from the fractured summits, whence 

 formerly depended columns whose growth could be measured only by 

 centuries. 



At its upper extremity this Chamber is at least 80 feet high, while 

 even at the lowest part the roof and floor do not approach within 20 feet 

 of one another. A great mass of boulders, evidently fallen from above, fills 

 up the lower portions of this chamber. 



The loftiness and size of this chamber, and the massiveness of the 

 stalagmitic deposits which drape its walls and floor, give it a dignity and 

 magnificence hardly to be surpassed in any cavern in the British Islands. 



R.I.A. PBGC., VOL. XXVII., SECT, B, f2 0] 



