128 
FRETTED ROOF. MUD ON THE FLOOR. 
most complicated gothic fret-work, and far surpassing them in the 
wild and irregular varieties in which its masses descend, like inverted 
pinnacles, to meet the icy lake of stalagmite that covers the floor. 
The quantity of stalactite dependant from this roof is comparatively 
small; and though extremely beautiful, it forms a subordinate feature 
only in this most magnificent vault; the peculiar beauty of which 
consists in the deep carious cavities into which its entire surface has 
been corroded, and the endless succession of sharp points and ridges, 
and irregularly projecting partitions, that stand in high relief between 
these cavities, and descend many feet, suspended almost by nothing, 
into the body of the cavern. With respect to the muddy sediment 
that occurs below the stalagmitic floor, it remains only to observe, 
that its thickness has not been ascertained, though several holes have 
been dug in it to the depth of three or four feet: it contains 
numerous angular fragments of limestone, but I could find no 
pebbles. I have already stated that there are no bones: it probably 
was inaccessible, or at least not tenanted at the period when the bears 
were in occupation of this country. By the holes dug into this mud 
it appears that there is no trace of any other crust, or even of a film 
of stalagmite alternating with it, so as to lead us to infer that it was not 
deposited at one and the same period, and by the same inundation that 
introduced a similar sediment into all the other caves of which I have 
been speaking. Whether there be any under crust of antediluvian 
stalagmite between it and the subjacent rock, I could not ascertain. 
There is not a particle of mud, or even of dust, above the surface of 
the upper crust of stalagmite, or interposed between its component 
