The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852Various
History
The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
beautiful objects, lose by contrast with these ornaments, and dwindle
into mere clumsy, awkward icicles. Besides these, there are tufts of
'hair salt,' native sulphate of magnesia, depending like adhering
snowballs from the roof, and periodically detaching themselves by their
own increasing weight. Indeed, the more solid alabaster ornaments become
at last overgrown, and fall upon the floor of the grotto, which was
found covered with numbers quite entire, besides fragments of others
broken by the fall."
A distinguished geologist has said that he believed Cleveland's Avenue,
two miles in length, contained a petrified form of every vegetable
production on earth. If this be too large a statement, it is at least
safe to say that its variety is almost infinite. Amongst its other
productions, are large piles of Epsom salts, beautifully crystallized.
Travellers have shown such wanton destructiveness in this great temple
of Nature--mutilating beautiful columns, knocking off spar, and crushing
delicate flowers--that the rules are now very strict. It is allowable to
touch nothing, except the ornaments which have loosened and dropped by
their own weight. These are often hard enough to bear transportation.
After you leave Alma's Bower, the cave again becomes very rugged.
Beautiful combinations of gypsum and spar may still be seen occasionally
overhead: but all round you rocks and stones are piled up in the wildest
manner. Through such scraggy scenery, you come to the Rocky Mountains,
an irregular pile of massive rocks, from 100 to 150 feet high. From
these you can look down into Dismal Hollow--deep below deep--the most
frightful looking place in the whole cave. On the top of the mountain is
a beautiful rotunda, called Croghan Hall, in honor of the proprietor.
Stalactites surround this in the richest fringe of icicles, and lie
scattered about the walls in all shapes, as if arranged for a museum. On
one side is a stalagmite formation like a pine-tree, about five feet
high, with regular leaves and branches; another is in a pyramidal form,
like a cypress.
If you wind down the mountains on the side opposite from that which you
ascended, you will come to Serena's Arbor, which is thirteen miles from
the entrance of the cave, and the end of this avenue. A most beautiful
termination it is! In a semicircle of stalactite columns is a fountain
of pure water spouting up from a rock. This fluid is as transparent as
air; all the earthy particles it ever held in suspension, having been
long since precipitated. The stalactite formations in this arbor are
remarkably beautiful.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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