Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/346

 332 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1758.

The cold is very intenfe in this cavern, and rather greater than in the Baumans cave. Toletinfome light, there are feveral round and fquare holes in the roof, feme of which are flopped up with Hones and other rubbifh. The common people imagine the dwarfs went in and out of thefe openings, but it is more probable they were made for air-holes. There are fuch num- bers of paflages and turnings, that it is almoft impoffible to count them : fome running forwards, feme fideways, and others acrofs, all conitTiunicating with one another in the manner'of a labyrinth, for which reafon it is very difficult to find one's way out of it again with- out a guide. Moll of thefe paflages are as clean as if they were fwept with a broom, and fome are filled up with rubbifh by thofe that dug th^re, either for ore, or the fofiile unicorn.

Thei)ro/-y?c«^isfoundin feveral of thefe caves, although the top of the mountain where the cavern is, be a dry lime-ilone. The water drops continually from the roof, fo thick that it feems as if it rain- ed ; and when thefe drops fall on your cloaths, and grow dry upon them, they turn to white fpots, and a white powder like chalk comes from it.

It is reported, that once, on the eve of St. Peter and Paul, tv/enty-five perfons bound them- felves by oath to each other to go into this cavern, and not to come oat of it again till they had view- ed all the curioficies therein, and found out the end ; therefore they provided themfelves with a num- ber of candles, a ladder, and firings, and provifion for feveral days.

When they were advanced about nine hundred fathoms, they found many curiofities, large places like palaces, all forts of figures formed hy X-hc Drop Jl one; alfofome fprings, running waters, quantities of hu- man bones, fome of a gigantic fize. Then creeping again through other narrow paffages, they came into fpacious places, where twenty-five could walk a-breaft. Thus they went on till they could go no far- ther ; by following the thread which they had tied to the entry of the cavern, they found their way back again without difficulty ; but by the coldnefs of the place, and many frights, they were become fo pale, and their countenances fo al- tered, that their friends hardly knew them again.

Here is alfo found the foffile unicorn, but not near in fuch quan- tity as formerly, becaufe the pea- fants, who ufed to dig for it, and to fell it to the apothecaries and druggifts, have almoft exhaufted the place. This fuffile is of dif- ferent fliapes ; fometimes 'tis form- ed like a ftr;iight-horn, a fcull, a jaw-bone, a fhoulder-blade, and a back-bone, a rib, a tooth, a thigh- bone, and all other forts of bones both of men and beads ; and there is fome found like an unfhapenlump or mafs of ftone, having no refem- blance to any bone at all.

There have been great difputes amongthelearned about thisfoffile: fome, confidering that there are pieces fo exaftly like true bones, affirm they mull really have been part of fome animal ; and, that thofe of an anomalous form are of the mineral kind. But others re- ply, that upon examination they cannot find that great likenefs to bones as their adverfarics are pleafed

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