The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and artAbbott, John Loraine
Science
The wonders of the world : $b a complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art
Abbott, John Loraine
Curiosities and wonders
A low and very rugged passage, the roof of which is formed of projecting
pieces of rocks, leads to the third grotto, the opening into which is a
hole three feet high, and four feet wide. This grotto is more regular in
its form, and is about thirty feet in diameter, and nearly round; its
hight is from five to six feet. It is very richly and fantastically
adorned by the varying forms of its stalactitic hangings. The floor is
also covered with a wet and slippery glazing, in which several teeth and
jaws appear to have been fixed.
From this grotto commences the descent to the inferior caverns. Within
only about five or six feet an opening in the floor is seen, which is
partly vaulted over by a projecting piece of rock. The descent is about
twenty feet. This cavern is about thirty feet in hight, about fifteen
feet in width, and nearly circular; the sides, roof and floor,
displaying the remains of animals. The rock itself is thickly beset with
teeth and bones, and the floor is covered with a loose earth, the
evident result of animal decomposition, and in which numerous bones are
imbedded.
A gradual descent leads to another grotto, which, with its passage, is
forty feet in length, and twenty feet in hight. Its sides and top are
beautifully adorned with stalactites. Nearly twenty feet further is a
frightful gulf, the opening of which is about fifteen feet in diameter;
and, upon descending about twenty feet, another grotto, about the same
diameter with the former, but forty feet in hight, is seen. Here the
bones are dispersed about; and the floor, which is formed of animal
earth, has great numbers of them imbedded in it. The bones which are
here found, seem to be of different animals; but in this, as well as in
the former caverns, perfect and unbroken bones are very seldom found.
Sometimes a tooth is seen projecting from the solid rock, through the
stalactitic covering, showing that many of these wonderful remains may
here be concealed. A specimen of this kind has been preserved, and is
rendered particularly interesting, by the first molar tooth of the lower
jaw, with its enamel quite perfect, rising through the stalactitic mass
which invests the bone. In this cavern the stalactites begin to be of a
larger size, and of a more columnar form.
Passing on through a narrow opening in the rock, a small cave, seven
feet long, and five feet high, is discovered; another narrow opening
leads to another small cave; from which a sloping descent leads to a
cave twenty-five feet in hight, and about half as much in its diameter,
in which is a truncated columnar stalactite, eight feet in
circumference.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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