STALACTITES. 
o65 
ble. All round the lower part of the sides of the 
arch are a thousand white masses of marble, in the 
shape of oak trees. M. Tournefort compares them 
to cauliflowers, but I should as soon compare them 
to toadstools. In short, they are large enough to 
enclose, in many places, a piece of ground big 
enough for a bed-chamber. One of these cham- 
bers has a fair white curtain, whiter than satin, of 
the same marble, stretched all over the front of it. 
In this we all cut our names, and the date of the 
year, as a great many people have done before 
us. In the course of years afterwards, the stone 
blisters out like this white marble over the letters. 
M. Tournefort thinks the rock grows like oak or 
apple-trees for this reason ; but I remember I saw 
some of the finest cockle and muscle shells in the 
rock thereabouts that ever I saw in my life: — I won- 
der whether he thinks they grow there too. Be- 
sides, if this rock grows so fast, the cavern ought to 
be all grown up by this time ; and yet, according 
to his measures and mine, the cavern seems to be 
turned larger since. Indeed, all that I can gather 
from his account of this glorious place is, that he 
had drunk a bottle or two too much before he went 
down into it.” 
One of the prettiest varieties of these calcareous 
substances is the flos ferri. This is a very beauti- 
ful stalagmite, composed of a tuft of little white 
cylinders interlacing each other like a branched co- 
ralline. The name of flos ferri has been impro- 
perly applied to this variety, because it is found in 
