Accurate and beautiful as is Mr. Hovey’s description of Luray Caverns, yet words, however ingeniously used, fail utterly to convey a true idea of the incomparable splendors of this under-world palace which gleams with unspeakable glories, such as God alone can create. Aladdin, in the Arabic tale which so delighted our youthful fancy, was permitted to enter a cave which exhibited such decorations that its very beauty both dazzled and affrighted; and to his amazement was added the greater wonder, that the cavern thus wrought of precious stones was the work of a geni, who was slave to a lamp and ring. But the fervid imagination of youth, or the dreamer under influence of the delirium-inducing hasheesh intoxicant in India’s climes, never riveted gaze upon vision more wondrously beautiful than Luray’s intervals of divine architecture; nor was Aladdin’s Cave half so charming. The Throne-Room, canopied with curtains woven of pearls and diamonds; “The Saracen’s Tent,” in which more than oriental splendors of richest damasks and golden samite sweep round the crystal couch in festoons of magic beauty; Titania’s Veil of petrified spider’s webs and crystallized harmonies, behind which the queen of fairies hides from Æolus; and the Ball-Room, with best adornments, as if to celebrate a marriage between the gods; all these and many more, in fast succession of admiring surprise, compose the Caverns of Luray, of which it has been said: “Mortal hath not made the like, nor human fancy conceived a thing more magnificent.” Let the illustrations herewith convey an idea of the beauty which language cannot express. The uniform temperature of the cave is 54° Fahrenheit, which is the same as Mammoth Cave, and as the chamber-floors are dry, visitors are not fatigued or discomforted by long walks through the labyrinthine passages, where every step taken brings fresh marvels into view. To the curiously inclined the inquiry, not often asked, will appear very interesting: How did the animals whose foot-prints were noticed in the tenacious clay, by those who made the discovery, get into the cave? The opening by which the chambers are reached is an artificial one, made at the point where Mr. Campbell detected the hollow by stamping on the ground, as explained. No other ingress is yet known, though the cave has not been thoroughly explored; so it is possible, or probable even, that other means of entrance have long continued open, but the possibility also remains that its entering passage-ways may have been sealed up by an invasion of glacial drift, since the flood; marks of that tremendous cataclysm are plainly to be seen in the cave, and not all of the diluvium deposit has been yet removed or ground under foot by the 10,000 persons who visit the caverns annually.