382 Scientific ana General Memoranda, 



about thirty feet, they reached the bottom, where they found a 

 stream of limpid water, running south. Whilst pursuing the course 

 of this stream, they visited a spacious apartment, about twenty 

 feet broad, and more than a hundred feet high. In this room they 

 found the skeleton of an animal, believed to be a fox, which, per- 

 haps, having fallen through in some part, had died for hunger. The 

 stream led to a body of water, which, having no means of ex- 

 ploring, they returned upon their steps, and rejoined their friends. 



In October, Mr. Gebhard, Mr. Bonny, and Dr. Foster, having 

 constructed a boat, contrived to get it afloat upon this subter- 

 ranean lake, and with other friends, having manned the boat, 

 navigated the lake for three hundred feet, through various passa- 

 ges, in one of which the water was thirty feet deep, and transpa- 

 rent to the bottom. At a shelving ascent on the right shore of the 

 lake, the water appeared to be lost by an invisible drainage. 

 They were here rewarded by the discovery of a very magnifi- 

 cent apartment, the description of which we shall borrow from an 

 account of ^the adventure, drawn up, we presume, by one of the 

 party, and which a friend has forwarded to us in a number of 

 the Troy C^ntinel. 



" Advancing" up the shelving- ascent, about twenty feet, they entered an 

 aperture in the rock, directly in front, of about the size of an ordinary en- 

 trance to a house, where a scene, grand beyond description, burst upon the 

 view. They advanced through this opening into a vast amphitheatre, hitherto • 

 untrod by mortal foot, which, from its perfectly regular and circular form, 

 obtained at once the name oflhe rotunda. Upon giving this apartment a par- 

 ticular examination, after the first feelings of surprise had subsided, they 

 found it about one hundred feet in diameter, and apparently more than a 

 hundred feet in height, regular in its form, the floor descending on all sides, 

 gradually, to the centre, and forming a spacious gallery around its whole 

 circumference, and enclosed above by a horizontal roof The vast size of 

 this apartment, the magnificence of^he gigantic walls, and fretted roof, both 

 entirely encrusted with transparent crystals, which sent back the blaze of 

 the torches in a thousand different dyes, at once satisfied the beholders, that 

 they had penetrated into the very temple, in these hitherto unexplored realms." 



After freighting their little bark with a rich cargo of minera- 

 logical curiosities, they returned to the upper world, delighted 

 with the success of their voyage. 



Zoological Weather Glass. — " At Schwitzingen, in the post- 

 house, we witnessed, for the first time, what we have since seen 



