150 
NOTES ON THE REA VALLEY. 
Washington was next visited, with its grand Capitol, the 
Parliament House of the country, which stands on an 
eminence forming the terminus of a number of very wide, 
long lines of streets, that are laid out radially from the 
Capitol in all directions. The Capitol is a very large, noble 
building, surmounted by a fine dome that is nearly as large 
and high as that of St. Peter’s at Rome, and would contain 
inside it the dome of our St. Paul’s in London. 
There has been recently completed at Washington the 
great Washington Monument, a gigantic obelisk, the tallest 
structure in the world, and actually 550ft. high from the 
ground; the highest structure previously being Strasburg 
Cathedral spire, 470ft. high. Washington city is laid out 
upon a very ambitious and grand scale, and has very fine 
lines of streets of great width, but these are at present only 
imperfectly built up, and the population is only about 
150,000. 
A day and night travelling then brought us to Louisville, 
and a further journey southwards to the great Mammoth 
Cave of Kentucky, which is reached by a drive of eight 
miles from the nearest station, over a very rough and hilly 
road. This wonderful cave is a series of limestone caverns 
and tortuous passages, which are entered from the side 
of the hill, and extend eight miles in direct distance from the 
entrance. There has been as much as 100 miles total length 
of these passages explored, and more still exist ; and there 
are some of the chambers of enormous dimensions, one 
rotunda that we visited being 175ft. by 100ft., and 100ft. high ; 
and one chamber was 500ft. long and 65ft. high. Five hours 
were spent in the cave, and a specimen was brought away of 
the celebrated blind crayfish, and one of the cave crickets 
caught running over a rock in the depth of the cave. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTES ON THE RIVER REA AND THE FLORA 
OF THE REA VALLEY.* 
BY HENRY BOYDEN, B.A. 
In turning over the pages of a fine old copy of Dugdale’s 
“ Warwickshire,” in an old Warwickshire vicarage, a few 
weeks ago, I happened to light on a passage which indicates 
* Transactions of the Birmingham Natural History and Micro¬ 
scopical Society, read December 8tli, 1885. 
