56 THE YOfiKSHIEE GATES. 



hundred and fifty feet deep. A few paces take us beyond the 

 last gleam of daylight, and we are in a narrow passage, of which 

 the sides and roof are covered with a brown incrustation, re- 

 sembling gigantic clusters of petrified moss ; curioiis mushroom- 

 like growths hang from the roof, and throwing his light on these 

 the guide informs us that we are passing through the " Inverted 

 Forest." The cavern widens, and we are in the " Pillar Hall," 

 where stalactites of all dimensions hang from the roof and stalag- 

 mites dot the floor, the one growing downwards, the other up- 

 wards, until sometimes they meet, and then the ceaseless water 

 fashions an unbroken crystal pillar. 



The stalactites occasionally take the diverse, but all-beautiful, 

 forms of draperies, curtains, and wings, the guide strikes one of 

 these with his stick, and it gives out a rich musical note, another 

 has the deep boom of the catliedral bell, while yet another rings 

 sharp and shrill. A row of leaves, when skilfully touched, an- 

 swers with a gamut of notes, producing strange music in the 

 very heart of the mountain. 



Amongst the stalagmites there is one named, from its peculiar 

 shape, the "Jockey Cap," with a circumference of ten feet, and 

 a height of two feet, produced by a succession of drops from one 

 single point. An attempt has been made to measure the rate of 

 its growth, by collecting a pint of drops, and ascertaining the 

 time it takes to gather and the amount of deposit it contains. 

 From these data a calculation has been made, which gives two 

 hundred and fifty -nine years as the period required to build up 

 the Jockey Cap to its present dimensions. 



Presently we came to a point at which the roof is so low as 

 apparently to bar all further advance, but, "stooping to conquer," 

 a distance of a few yards, done almost on hands and knees, brings 

 us into the "Cellar Gallery" and the "Giants' Hall," where 

 the combined lights are all too feeble to illuminate the lofty roof. 

 At the extremity of one of the galleries a fairy structure of 

 slender columns, composed of stalagmites and stalactites, stands 

 and hangs in a miniature cavern, and here the guide, fixing 

 nearly all our candles on his own cross-bar, and leaving us in a 

 very "dim religious light," directed us to look steadily into a 



