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The National Geographic Magazine 



colored, and elaborately draped. In the 

 canopy above the Imperial Spring it is 

 estimated that 40,000 are visible at once. 



"The 'cascades' are wonderful forma- 

 tions, like foaming cataracts caught in 

 mid-air and transformed into milk-white 

 or amber alabaster. The Chalcedony 

 Cascade displays a variety of colors. 

 Brand's Cascade, which is the finest of 

 all, being 40 feet high and 30 feet wide, 

 is unsullied and wax-like white, each 

 ripple and braided rill seeming to have 

 been polished. 



"The Swords of the Titans are mon- 

 strous blades, eight in number, 50 feet 

 long, 3 to 8 feet wide, hollow, 1 to 2 feet 

 thick, but drawn down to an extremely 

 thin edge, and filling the cavern with 

 tones like tolling bells when struck heav- 

 ily by the hand. Their origin, and also 

 that of certain so-called scarfs and blan- 

 kets exhibited, is from carbonates depos- 

 ited by water trickling down a sloping 

 and corrugated surface. Sixteen of these 

 alabaster scarfs hang side by side in 

 Hovey's Balcony, three white and fine as 

 crepe shawls, thirteen striated like agate 

 with every shade of brown, and all per- 

 fectly translucent. Down the edge of 

 each a tiny rill glistens like silver, and 

 this is the ever-plying shuttle that weaves 

 the fairy fabric. 



"The waters of this cavern appear to 

 be entirely destitute of life, and the exist- 

 ing fauna is quite meager, comprising 

 only a few bats, rats, mice, spiders, flies, 

 and small centipedes. When the cave 

 was first entered the floor was covered 

 with thousands of tracks of raccoons, 

 wolves, and bears — most of them prob- 

 ably made long ago, as impressions made 

 in the tenacious clay that composed most 

 of the cavern floor would remain un- 

 changed for centuries. Layers of ex- 

 crementitious matter appear, and also 

 many small bones, along with a few large 

 ones, all of existing species. The traces 

 of human occupation as yet discovered 

 are pieces of charcoal, flints, moccasin 

 tracks, and a single skeleton imbedded in 

 a stalagmite in one of the chasms, esti- 

 mated to have lain where found for not 

 more than five hundred years, judging 



from the present rate of stalagmite 

 growth." (The members were shown 

 the skeleton pieces, but it must be con- 

 fessed that a vivid imagination was neces- 

 sary to see the resemblance to a human 

 skeleton.) 



"Geologically considered, the Luray 

 Cavern does not date beyond the Tertiary 

 period, though carved from the Silurian 

 limestone. At some period long subse- 

 quent to its original excavation, and after 

 many large stalactites had grown, it was 

 completely filled with glacial mud 

 charged with acid, whereby the dripstone 

 was eroded into singularly grotesque 

 shapes. After the mud had been mostly 

 removed by flowing water, these eroded 

 forms remained amid the new growths. 

 To this contrast may be ascribed some of 

 the most striking scenes in the cave." 



NOTES ON THE PANAMA CANAL* 



I BELIEVE there are but few who ap- 

 preciate the tremendous possibilities 

 which the opening of the Panama Canal 

 means to all our country, and especially 

 to the Southern States. As an evidence 

 of how some men regard it, I will quote 

 a remark made in my presence by one of 

 the so-called captains of industry in this 

 country — one of the men who have been 

 most instrumental in the internal develop- 

 ment of this nation, one of the men who 

 have made our wonderful prosperity pos- 

 sible, one of the men who control the 

 greatest corporation in the South. In 

 speaking of his holdings in the Tennes- 

 see Coal and Iron Company, he said : 

 "When the Panama Canal is completed,, 

 every share of my stock in that company 

 will be worth a thousand dollars." He 

 said the opening of that canal will make 

 Birmingham the Pittsburg of the South, 

 and will give it the same relationship to 

 the Gulf that Pittsburg now has to the 

 Atlantic coast. He said the immensity 

 of traffic which originates within 40 

 miles of Pittsburg, and which is the mar- 

 vel of the world, will be duplicated in the 



*From an address by Hon. Theodore P. 

 Shonts, Chairman Isthmian Commission, to the 

 Chamber of Commerce, Atlanta, Georgia, May 

 30, 1906. 



