"Two hundred feet more and the chamber ends in a vast waterfall, but the water has turned to stone. Above the waterfall is an opening, but it is twenty-five feet up a smooth wall and we have no ladder. The journey was at an end. Tired, wet and muddy, we started on our return trip; recrossed the dark lake, and retraced our steps to the place under the opening without realizing that we had spent six hours under ground. While the other members of the party, and the specimens, were being raised to the surface, the writer sought to learn the flora and fauna of this new region. The flora is blank. Even the white mold so common in many caves is absent; and no fungus grows on the poles, bark and rotten wood that have at some past time been cast in. "In animal life the range is greater. I have mentioned the ever-present bats, and dozens of them were seen. There were also small, white eyeless salamanders, small, yellow, speckled salamanders, with signs of eyes but no sight; also a jet black salamander, which like the rest, was blind. The bats were of two species--the common brown bat and the larger light grey or yellow species. But this was not the time of the year to see many bats in caves. In the summer season most of them go out and remain until cool weather, and then return to the caves with their young; so I was rather surprised to see as many as we did. "Down comes the rope for the last time, and taking my place, I soon feel myself spinning around and slowly rising. As I again pass the magic city I saw going down, a stronger wish than ever takes possession of me to go there, and I look for any chance to solve the problem of how such a journey can be made. 'Thou art so near and yet so far.' "Suddenly I find myself emerging from the ground into a very hot world, with the evening sun blazing so that the air feels like the scorching heat of an oven; and my late companions are scattered about under the trees, no doubt wishing themselves back in the cool regions below the hot cliffs.