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caverns of the Peak of Derbyshire, where, ex- 

 tended in a boat, we traversed a subterranean 

 river, under a vault of two feet high. I had 

 visited the beautiful grotto of Treshemienshiz, 

 in the Carpathian mountains, the caverns of the 

 Hartz, and those of Franconia, which are vast 

 cemeteries * of bones of tigers, hyenas, and 

 bears, as large as our horses. Nature in every 

 zone follows immutable laws in the distribution 

 of rocks, in the exterior form of mountains, 

 and even in those tumultuous changes, which 

 the exterior crust of our planet has undergone. 

 So great a uniformity led me to believe, that 

 the aspect of the cavern of Caripe would differ 

 little from what I had observed in my preced- 

 ing travels. The reality far exceeded my ex- 

 pectations. If the configuration of the grottoes, 

 the splendor of the stalactites, and all the phe- 



* The mould, that has covered for thousands of years the 

 soil of the caverns of Gaylenreuth and Muggendorf in Fran- 

 conia, emits even now choke-damps, or gazeous mixtures 

 of hydrogen and nitrogen, that rise to the roof of their 

 caves. This fact is known to all those who show these 

 caverns to travellers j and when I had the direction of the 

 mines of the Fichtelberg, I observed it frequently in the 

 summer time. Mr. Laugier found in the mould of Mug- 

 gendorf, beside phosphate of lime, 0*10 of animal matter. (Cu- 

 vier, Recherches sur lee Ossemens fossiles, T. 4. Ours, p. 

 14.) I was struck, during my stay at Steeben, with the 

 ammoniacal and fetid smell produced by it, when projected 

 on a red hot iron. 



