Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/81

Rh L U R L U K 67 of Dioscorides. The Ocp/j-os ^/xepos was used to counteract the effects of drink (Atheu., 55, C.). The seeds were used as money on the stage (Plaut., Pcen., 3, 2, 20 Hoi:, Ep., i. 7, 23). L. albus, L., was also cultivated as a field lupine, the L. sativus of the Romans, referred to by Cato, 7. /?., 34, 2 ; Virgil, Georg., i. 75 ; Pliny, xviii. 36 ; &c. In 1597 Gerard (Herbal!, p. 1042) writes : &quot; There be diuers sortes of the flat Beane called Lupine, some of the garden, and others wild &quot; ; and he figures three species, L. sativus (now L. albus, L.), L, luteus, L., and L. varius, L. Few species are in cultivation now, but the varieties are very numerous (see Paxton s Bot. Diet., p. 345 ; Hemsley s Hand, of Hardy Trees, &c., p. 115). Of species now grown, L. albus, L., is still extensively cultivated in Italy, Sicily, and other Mediterranean countries for forage, for ploughing in to enrich the land, and for its round flat seeds, which form an article of food. This, as well as the other two mentioned by Gerard, have been superseded as garden flowers by the American species, e.g., L. arboreus, Sims, and L. polyphyllus, from California ; L. versicolor and L. tomentosus, from Peru. LURAY CAVERN&quot;, in Page county, Virginia, United States, 39 35 N. lat. and 78 17 W. long., is 1 mile west of the village of Luray, on the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. The valley, here 10 miles wide, extends from the Blue Ridge to the Massanutton mountain, and displays remarkably fine scenery. These ridges lie in vast folds and wrinkles ; and elevations in the valley are often found to be pierced by erosion. Cave Hill, 300 feet above the water-level, had long been an object of local interest on account of its pits and oval hollows, or sink-holes, through one of which, August 13, 1878, Mr Andrew J. Campbell and others entered, thus discovering the extensive and beautiful cavern now described. Geologically considered, the Luray cavern does not date beyond the Tertiary period, though carved from the Silurian limestone. At some period long subsequent to its original excavation, and after many large stalactites had grown, it was completely filled with glacial mud charged with acid, whereby the dripstone was eroded into singularly grotesque shapes. After the mud had been mostly removed by flow ing water, these eroded forms remained amid the new growths. To this contrast may be ascribed some of the most striking scenes in the cave. The many and extra ordinary monuments of aqueous energy include massive columns wrenched from their place in the ceiling and pro strate on the floor ; the hollow column 40 feet high and 30 feet in diameter, standing erect, but pierced by a tubular passage from top to bottom ; the leaning column, nearly as large, undermined and tilting like the campanile of Pisa ; the organ, a cluster of stalactites dropped points downward and standing thus in the room known as the cathedral ; besides a vast bed of disintegrated carbonates left by the whirling flood in its retreat through the great space called the Elfin Ramble. The stalactitic display exceeds that of any other cavern known, and there is hardly a square yard on the walls or ceiling that is not thus ornamented. The old material is yellow, brown, or red ; and its wavy surface often shows layers like the gnarled grain of costly woods. The new stalactites growing from the old, and made of hard carbon ates that had already once been used, are usually white as snow, though often pink, blue, or amber-coloured. The size attained by single specimens is surprising. The Empress Column is a stalagmite 35 feet high, rose-coloured, and elaborately draped. The double column, named from Professors Henry and Baird, is made of two fluted pillars side by side, the one 25 and the other 60 feet high, a mass of snowy alabaster. Several stalactites in the Giant Hall exceed 50 feet in length. The smaller pendents are in numerable ; in the canopy above the Imperial Spring it is estimated that 40,000 are visible at once. The &quot; cascades &quot; pointed out are wonderful formations like foaming cataracts caught in mid-air and transformed into milk-white or amber alabaster. The Chalcedony Cascade displays a variety of colours. Brand s Cascade, which is the finest of all, being 40 feet high and 30 feet wide, is unsullied and wax-like white, each ripple and braided rill seeming to have been polished. The Swords of the Titans are monstrous blades, eight in number, 50 feet long, 3 to 8 feet wide, hollow, 1 to 2 feet thick, but drawn down to an extremely thin edge, and filling the cavern with tones like tolling bells when struck heavily by the hand. Their origin and also that of certain so-called scarfs and blankets exhibited is from carbonates deposited by water trickling down a sloping and corrugated Luray Cavern. Scale 290 feet to the inch. The Vestibule. 13. Saracen s Tent, 25. Helen s Scarf Washington s Pillar. 14. The Organ ]5. Tower of Babel. 10. Empress Column. 17. Hollow Column. Flower Garden. Amphitheatre. Natural Bridge. Fish Market. Crystal Spring. Proserpine s Pillar. 26. Chapman s Lake. 27. Broaddus Lake. 28. Castles on the Rhine. 29. Imperial Spring. 18. Henry-Baird Column. 30. The Skeleton. 10. Chalcedony Cascade. 31. The Twin Lakes. 20. Coral Spring. 32. The Engine Room. The Spectral Column. 21. The Dragon. 33. Miller s Room. Hovey s Balcony. 22. Bootjack Alley. 34. Hawcs Cabinet. Oberon s Grot. 23. Scaly Column. 35. Specimen Avenue. Titania s Veil. 24. Lost Blanket. 36. Proposed Exit. surface. Sixteen of these alabaster scarfs hang side by side in Hovey s Balcony, three white and fine as crape shawls, thirteen striated like agate with every shade of brown, and all perfectly translucent. Down the edge of each a tiny rill glistens like silver, and this is the ever-plying shuttle that weaves the fairy fabric. Streams and true springs are absent, but there are hundreds of basins, varying from 1 to 50 feet in diameter, and from 6 inches to 15 feet in depth. The water in them is exquisitely pure, except as it is impregnated by the carbonate of lime, which often forms concretions, called, according to their size, pearls, eggs, and snowballs. A large one is known as the cannon ball. On fracture these spherical growths are found to be radiated in structure. Calcite crystals, drusy, feathery, or fern-like, line the sides and bottom of every water-filled cavity, and indeed constitute the substance of which they are made. Varia tions of level at different periods are marked by rings, ridges, and ruffled margins. These are strongly marked about Broaddus Lake, and the curved ramparts of the Castles on the Rhine. Here also are polished stalag mites, a rich buff slashed with white, and others, like