Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/885

Rh The Blue Grotto of Busi.—The "Blue Grotto" of the Island of Busi, in the Dalmatian Archipelago, which is illuminated by submarine light, was discovered in 1884, and has become one of the most noteworthy sights of that interesting quarter of the Adriatic. The Island of Busi, which is inhabited and well cultivated, takes its name from the Venetian busi (Italian buchi) caves, on account of the dozen, more or less, of grottoes that exist upon it. It lies southwest of the Island of Lissa, and being only about five miles from the port of Cornise on that island, can be reached from it after about seventy or eighty minutes of rowing. It is rich in subterranean and submarine caverns, which have been only partly explored. Count von Ransounet is acquainted with ten of these, all accessible only by boat. The largest of them, which is called Medvedina, or the Bear's Cave, is about five hundred feet long, and presents a spacious interior with imposing rock-effects. The most remarkable of the caves so far explored, is the Blue Grotto, which is called by the inhabitants the ballon-cave, from the name of the rock promontory Ballon, on the northeastern coast of the island under which it lies. The entrance to the cave is in the farthest recess of a bay on the northeast side of the island, and is about seven feet wide and five feet high, with sixteen feet depth of water, and spacious enough to admit, when the sea is still, a boat carrying ten or twelve persons. This entrance forms a thread-like canal, inclosed between steep walls, which is shrouded in its first half in deep darkness; but the farther one presses in, the more evident and clear becomes a peculiar twilight effect, by which one can soon discern the breadth and height of the interior, illuminated by a surprising play of colors. At first the water under the keel of the boat appears of a dark blue-green; then the color gradually changes to a clear blue, and at last to an azure, which grows lighter and brighter. Soon the visitor finds himself set, as if by enchantment, into a broad, high space, the ground of which is filled with a brilliant, shimmering, blue flood, whence streams out a soft light, covering everything visible with a strange glamour. The illumination appears to come from under the sea. The oars appear silver-white in the transparent blue flood, and the stones under the water like semi-lustrous silver, while the waves themselves exhibit the various changes of the shades of blue. The hollow of the grotto is thirty-one metres long, from fifteen to seventeen metres wide, and between sixteen and eighteen metres deep. The water, which appears to extend still farther under the rocks, receives its light through a submarine door of ten and a half by eighteen metres; and the silvery shimmer with which the submerged rocks are lighted is an effect of the sunlight reflected from the water. This effect is particularly charming on a rock-bridge under the water, extending clear across the cave. Beyond this bridge may be seen, through a cleft in the rock, a second blue cave of smaller dimensions and different light-effects.

British Health Resorts.—The health resorts of Great Britain have the advantages—to Englishmen—of being convenient of access and of being conducted according to British ideas of comfort. Their disadvantages are those of a cool and humid climate, and the long, dreary, sunless winter. The sea-side resorts are probably the most important. Of them, those of the east coasts—Ramsgate, Cromer, Redcar, and Whitby—are stimulating; those of the west, especially of the southwest—Bournemouth, Torquay, Penzance, and Ilfracombe—sedative; and those upon the southeastern littoral—Eastbourne, Folke-stone, and Hastings—hold an intermediate position. The selection must depend upon the physician's appreciation of the finer points in his patient's case, but it is far from being a matter of indifference, and the indiscriminate recommendation of sea-air, without regard to the different watering-places, is an inexcusable error. If the invalid is intolerant of marine influence, he may make a selection from a variety of inland resorts. Tunbridge Wells is mild and sheltered, Malvern is more tonic, and Buxton, Ilkley, Harrogate, Weymouth, and Crieff are bracing and stimulant. The gouty and rheumatic may find benefit at the mineral springs of Bath, Cheltenham, Droitwich, Matlock, Leamington, Woodhall, and Harrogate in England, Moffat and