Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/781

1868.] The professor and the ladies both regarded it with dismay, although for different reasons.

"Ladies first," said the guide.

"What! into that horrid place alone," said Violetta. "I wouldn't do it for the world." Blanche and Pauline echoed the sentiment. But then, they thought, for the gentlemen to go first was equally out of the question.

At length it was arranged that the guides might go first, the ladies following·. [sic] How the passage was to be accomplished, however, was past their comprehension. Leaving candle and basket behind, one of the guides entered the opening feet foremost, in a sitting posture, and then lying flat upon his back, worked himself through by the action of his hands and feet, knees and elbows, upon the sides of the hole. The baskets, candles, and instruments were passed down, and the other guide followed. The ladies went next, with much blushing and nervous laughter, but their slender forms slipped through with an ease which surprised them.

"Facilis descensus Averni—and I can tell you that you'll find the rest of it true when we come back," said the doctor, as he followed his fair cousins.

The professor essayed the passage next. Amusement and apprehension were ludicrously blended in his countenance, as his rotund figure slowly disappeared into the hole. The students and the other gentlemen were bursting with smothered merriment, and stepped back lest he should perceive it. When they returned, the professor was stuck fast in the middle of the hole. No assistance could be rendered from above, for his arms were pinioned closely to his body. The guides seized his legs, which protruded through the lower opening, and after much tugging, dragged him safely through, with no other injury than many fearful fractures of his—garments.

The passages beyond the Auger Hole are by far the finest portions of the cave. At this point the geological formation changes, and with it the character of the incrustations. The rock surrounding the passages thus far traversed by our travellers is the common limestone of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, composed of pure carbonate of lime. Beyond the Auger Hole appears a different variety, chiefly composed of sulphate of lime, with occasional beds of magnesian limestone. On the surface of the carbonate the incrustations are always stalactic—usually in long cones or cylinders, of a dirty white or yellowish color, and a fracture like marble. On the sulphate the incrustation is an efflorescence of pure gypsum, perfectly white, with a delicate pearly lustre, resembling the frost on a window in cold weather. The two kinds of incrustation differ not less in the mode of their formation than in their appearance. The stalactic carbonate grows by successive crystallizations upon the exterior surface only; the under surface remains constantly fixed to the rock, and apparently incorporated with it. The gypsum crystallizes from beneath, forming a constantly thickening crust, loosely adhering to the surface of the rock. From time to time the old crust falls off in patches, and is replaced by a new one. The cast-off crusts decompose into a dark-colored loamy substance, forming mounds of gypsum on the bottom of the cave, in quantities sufficient to fertilize a county.

Our pilgrims passed onward through an avenue, the ceiling and sides of which are covered with these beautiful incrustations, a quarter of a mile or more, their attention arrested at almost every step by the grotesque resemblances to organic forms produced with startling exactness by the fantastic grouping of the crystals. Issuing from this into "the Passage of the White Clouds," the whole