The Jenolan Caves: An Excursion in Australian WonderlandCook, Samuel
History
The Jenolan Caves: An Excursion in Australian Wonderland
Cook, Samuel
Australia -- Description and travel; Caves; Jenolan Caves (N.S.W.)
The Underground Bridge is not a brilliant achievement in engineering,
but seems to be well constructed and safe, which is an important
consideration; for, although it is so many hundred feet below the summit
of the mountain, and yet down so low as to be on the same level as the
foundations of the Cave House in the adjacent valley, it spans a black
yawning gulf, at the extremity of which, 50 feet still farther down,
is a clear pool of water 20 feet deep! The Bridge is about 42 feet
long. It has wire girders and uprights, with stanchions and handrails,
and a wooden deck, which, by-the-bye, needs some repair, for several of
the planks are broken. The passage is made increasingly secure by
galvanised wire netting stretched along the lower part of the Bridge on
both sides. The rocks which form the boundary of the immense chasm
spanned by the Bridge are of enormous size, and the scene from this
point is remarkable for sublimity rather than for what is commonly
called beauty. Near the roof is an immense recess, filled with huge
stalactites and mammoth pieces of formation, which have floated over the
bottom and formed graceful ornamentation for the cavern below. And so
the process is repeated from the top of the immense chamber, near the
roof, down to the rugged walls immediately round the Bridge. Even on the
rocks which surround the abyss similar wondrous decorations are lavishly
bestowed. The clear-headed and sure-footed guide descends from one
jutting rock to another and yet another, until he approaches a row of
remarkable stalactites which can be just discerned through the gloom.
This group is called "The Piano," because of the resonant qualities of
its separate parts. Each stalactite gives out a note. The notes vary in
quality and pitch, but most of them are imperfect. As stalactites they
are very fine, but as melodious instruments they are frauds. They refuse
to harmonise, and their music is about as entrancing as that of a
discordant "upright grand," mounted on one leg and played with a handle.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LURLINE CAVE.
Seventy or eighty yards from the Underground Bridge is the Lurline Cave.
The course is south-west, through a curved gallery with 53 steps in
different flights, and two archways--one like loveliness when "adorned
the most," and the other formed by an ornate mass of stalactites.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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