Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/320



272 WM. W. FIDLER

Are expressions admirably suited to a description of this Josephine county cave. The stalagmite and stalactite for- mations of this cave surpass anything ever dreamed of in the sphere of arts, and nothing I ever beheld in Nature before so completely overcame me with suggestions of sublimity and beauty.

In some places the floor is almost as smooth as polished marble, and in others the ceiling is frescoed all over with bright crystals or stalactite in the shape and resembling icicles. In one chamber in particular, which we casually designated the King's Palace, was this the case. The vari- ous members of our party commenced here, in obedience to a very natural impulse, to break off specimens to bring away with them, but in obedience to a suggestion that it looked like a shame to desecrate or deface anything in na- ture so beautiful as that was, they readily ceased the work of spoliation; and let us hope that future tourists and ad- venturers will be governed by the same honorable deference and spare this apartment if none of the others.

A volume might be written descriptive of the beauties of the small portion we beheld, which portion did not com- prise one-tenth, perhaps not one ten-thousandth, part of these "Dirn and awful aisles."

One great clanger to be constantly guarded against is that of getting lost. Frequently we lost our way and got into narrow crevices, through which we could see a light in some lower apartment but could not reach it without retracing our steps and finding some larger crevice. What could be explored by enlarging some of these narrow fis- sures is a matter of conjecture. The farthest back any of our party got was perhaps not over 400 yards. To make that distance through its various angles, dips and ascents, required nearly an hour's travel after we were familiar with the route. We did not try to follow up the main stream of water, which undoubtedly must constitute the main part of the cave, but have left lots of work for future explorers. Our party obtained many beautiful and valu-