THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
2 11 
•cavity was wrought by the same agencies that produce 
nli such effects in limestone formation, namely, by the 
erosion and by the dissolving action of water holding 
carbonic acid in solution, and coursing through pre¬ 
viously formed fissures in the rocks. These cavities 
gradually become enlarged into chambers by the falling 
and removal of loose material to lower levels, and even 
through open outlets to the general drainage of the 
country. Tho ornamentation of the cave, composed of 
lime-carbonate, in the form of stalactite, stalagmite, 
calcareous tufa, travertine, cave pearls, calcite, crystals, 
etc., has been produced by the precipitation of that 
mineral from solution in water, formerly percolating 
freely through tho crevices of the rock which formed 
the lofty ceilings, and the singular ornamentation, are 
brought out. The general color is a dirty brown, and 
not so crystal white as some of our party had expected, 
yet a good deal of the work is of dazzling whiteness. I am 
not in for a detailed description of this wonderful work¬ 
shop and pleasure-palace of Nature; words would con¬ 
vey no idea to my readers; only good stereoscopic views 
can do that. I can only speak of a few of the ingenious 
marvels, and imitations of animals, architecture, vege¬ 
table life, and objects made by man. Perhaps I can assist 
the imagination by one comparison. If the reader has 
ever seen on the stage a phantasmagoric, fantastic rep¬ 
resentation of an impossible world, ice-caverns, peaks 
and pinnacles, hanging crystals, vistas of scenic splendor, 
Tub Ballroom—Caverns of Luray. 
tho ceiling, after the process of hollowing out was 
completed.” 
The show begins at the vestibule, and I am told that 
there is more ornamentation, more fantastic and gnome, 
like work in this one chamber, than in the whole Mam¬ 
moth Cave. The massive forms, the curious shapes, the 
ghostly whity-brown forms, the dazzling columns, mys¬ 
terious recesses, sparkle and play of light and shadow, 
make a bewildering scene, and yet this is only a faint 
introduction to the variety, fantasy and grandeur further 
on. The whole cave is adequately lighted with electric 
lights, so that all the fantastic figures, the vast spaces, 
forms of awakened beauty and fancy shimmering and 
glowing in the side-lights, a region that I never could 
tell whether it was intended for Heaven or the other 
place, he may form some notion of the electric lighted 
views in some of the inner chambers of this cave, when 
he looks through fretted galleries and passages into hall 
after hall, and recess after recess, apparently of illimit¬ 
able extent, with crystal columns, and tints, and hang¬ 
ing canopies and draperies, and the thousand sportive 
shapes of this marvelously ingenious creation. 
In the vestibule is a monster pillar, very highly fluted, 
about twenty-five feet in diameter, called Washington’s 
