FORSTER’S HOHLE. BEAUTY OF ITS STALAGMITE. 127 
any attention, or was indeed accessible without great difficulty, its 
only opening having been a hole in the roof, through which it was 
necessary to be let down by ropes or a long ladder. More recently 
a lateral adit had been driven into it by an innkeeper named Forster, 
nearly on the level of the floor, and forms the present entrance. 
This cave is one of the most remarkable I have ever seen, for the 
beauty of its roof, and perfection of its stalagmite; but contains no 
other bones than a few of dogs and modern animals, which have 
recently been placed in it as appropriate furniture. Its height varies 
from 10 to 30 feet; its breadth where widest being about 30. Its 
floor is no where quite level, and the subjacent rock is buried under 
a deep bed of diluvial mud, over which is superinduced a more 
than usually thick covering of stalagmite. The form of this stalag¬ 
mite is particularly striking in the side vaults that descend in various 
directions into the main chamber, being inclined at an angle of about 
45°, and having the lower half of their area filled also with mud; on 
the surface of which entire bridges of thick stalagmite are formed 
across from side to side, presenting the varied features and irregular 
undulations of large and beautiful cascades, suddenly congealed into 
a mass of transparent alabaster: large waving streams of this orna¬ 
mental substance are seen descending into the main chamber from 
all the lateral avenues by which it is encircled, and contributing, as 
it were, to swell the stalagmitic lake that occupies its centre. The 
roof also of the main chamber, as well as of its side aisles, is in all 
parts broken into, and clustered over with irregularly grotesque 
forms of exquisite beauty, rivalling the richest combinations of the 
