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254 Monk. Farther on in the gallery, a pillar thirty feet in diameter sustaining the roof. There are lateral galleries, at a higher elevation, that have yielded evidence of human occupation. The guano produced by the innumerable bats that inhabit the cave actually forms an article of commerce.

The opening to the north, through which the river effects its escape, is less striking in appearance than that where it makes its plunge underground.

The road from Foix to Ax leads up the river that gives its name to the department, and penetrates deep into the recesses of the mountains.

The first town reached is Tarascon, prettily situated at the junction of the Vicdessos with the Ariège, about a conical hill surmounted by a round tower, which is all that remains of a castle that was blown up by order of Richelieu. The great cardinal thought that the best means of maiming the independence of the nobles, petty barons, and seigneurs, was to destroy their nests. It was he, not the Revolutionists, who made the worst havoc among the stately châteaux of France. He went so far even as to insist on the pepper-castor roofed round towers at the angles of every small squire's mansion being lowered a story to the level of the eaves of the main roof. Tarascon on Ariège is a busier place than sleepy Tarascon on Rhone, that was drawn out of its obscurity by the mythical Tastarin. It is the great centre of activity to the country, "a land whose stones are iron." Formerly it was more prosperous than it is to-day. But the population remains stationary, which in the midst of a universal shrinkage may be reckoned as good. The town is divided into two parts. Old Tarascon clusters about the decayed castle. New Tarascon forms the faubourg Sainte Quitterie, where there is a ferruginous spring bearing the name of the saint,