1822-1824.] 
GAILENREUTH. 
73 
stalagmite, piled in irregular mamillated heaps, one of 
which in the centre is accumulated into a large pillar 
uniting the roof to the floor. We descend by ladders 
to a second chamber, the floor of which also appears to 
have been once overspread with a similar stalagmitic 
crust: this, however, has been nearly destroyed by holes 
dug through it, in search of the prodigious quantities of 
VERTICAL SECTION OF THE CAVERN AT GAILENREUTH IN FRANCONIA. 
bones that lie beneath. The cave is connected by a low 
and narrow passage, with a smaller cavern, at the bottom 
of which is a nearly circular hole, descending like a well 
about twenty-five feet, and from three to four feet in 
diameter, into which you let yourself down, as in climbing 
a chimney, by supporting the hands, feet, and back 
against the opposite sides. The circumference of this 
hole is for the most part composed of a breccia of bones, 
pebbles, and loam, cemented by stalagmite : on one side of 
