MIMICRY OF VEGETABLE GROWTHS. 213 



lesced, leaving the pillar deeply fluted, or seamed up and down, along 

 their connected edges. When yon find one of these massive, ribbed, and 

 rugged pillars vanishing above in a host of curved stalactites, their thin 

 and wavy selvages guiding the eye to tips which seem to sway and quiver 

 overhead, it is hard not to believe it is an aged willow turned to stone. 

 Indeed the whole scene, in many parts, is strongly suggestive of a forest 

 with tangled undergrowths, thrifty saplings, fallen logs, and crowding 

 ranks of sturdy trees, under whose bending limbs and drooping foliage one 

 might wander for miles without catching the flicker of a leaf or hearing 

 the stir of any breeze — 



"The island valley. . . 



Where falls not hail or rain or any snow, 



Nor ever wind blows loudly." 



In more than the general effect, indeed, the ornamental incrustations 

 of this cave mimic the vegetable growths outside. Many of the stalactites 

 are embroidered with small excrescences and complicated clusters of pro- 

 truding and twisted points and flakes, much like leaves, buds, and twigs. 

 To these have been given the scientific name of helictites, and they are 

 ascribed " to a slow crystallization taking place on a surface barely moist, 

 from material conveyed to the point of growth by a capillary movement." 

 The grottoes of Stebbins Avenue exhibit them to the best advantage. 



Then there are the botryoids — round and oblong tubers covered with 

 twigs and tubercles, such as that cauliflower-like group which gives the 

 name to the Vegetable Garden ; these grow where there is a continual 

 spattering going on. A process of decomposition, dissolving out a part 

 and leaving a spongy framework behind, furnishes to many other districts 

 quantities of plant-semblances, that you may name and name in endless 

 distinction. Then, in the many little hollow basins or " baths," and in 

 the bottom of the gorges where still water lies, so crystal clear you cannot 

 find its surface nor estimate its depth — where your blue magnesium-flame 

 opens a wonderful new cave beneath your feet in the unrecognized reflec- 

 tion of the, fretted roof, and where no ice is needed to cool nor cordial 

 competent to benefit the taste of the beverage — there the hard gray stone 

 blossoms forth into multitudes of exquisite flowers of crystallization, with 

 petals rosy, fawn-colored, and white, that apparently a breath would wilt. 

 Have you seen a group of sea-anemones in some tide-pool, with all their 

 downy tentacles flung out? That is like these motionless corollas of 

 calcite. 



Another freak of crystallization is the making of "cave -pearls." 

 They lie, three or four together, in little hollows in the floor, exactly 



