Page:The Selkirk mountains (1912).djvu/133

Rh varies from 8 feet wide and 5 feet high at the upper end, to 20 feet wide and 20 feet high at the lower end. The sides are hung with rock shelves spotted with the calcium, and the floor is covered with fallen rock. It ends in a cul-de-sac. But through a crack on the right, scarcely noticeable in the dark and barely wide enough to admit a human body, you may descend 57 feet and enter the largest cave of all, 200 feet wide and from 40 to 50 feet high. It is called the Judgment Hall, and some conspicuous pillars within, the Pillars of Justice. Blocks broken from roof and sides litter the floor and lie heaped at the north end. The roughly arched roof and the sides rising in parallel ledges, and the heaped rocks are covered with the white calcite and in places beautifully ornamental. From its north end the Judgment Hall connects with the unnamed one of the two ancient potholes.

Near the centre of the western wall, a narrow gap leads to a small chamber named by W. S. Ayres, the White Grotto from the delicacy and beauty of its florescent calcium ornamentations. The passage of which the chamber is a part, is 40 feet long, 15 feet wide and 10 feet high. From the White Grotto a passage leads to the Bridal Chamber also named by Mt. Ayres, from the purity of its lime incrustations and the general beauty of the floral designs. It is a small chamber. Here the passage breaks off in a precipice falling to a deep chasm from which is heard the subterranean stream. It is 240 feet from the Wind Crack and 54 feet above it. The wind issuing from these lateral cracks already described, is probably due to a waterblast caused by the stream falling into the chasm.

Another passage is the Ice Cave situated above the deep entrance from the Gorge and reached directly from the valley. Its largest chamber is named the Temple. The name. Ice Cave, applying to the whole passageway, is on account of ice blocking the entrance the year round. A second set of passageways occur below Goat Falls which pour into them until they are icebound in late October. Their structure is similar to the passages leading to the Auditorium, via a series of connecting potholes, only these are much smaller. Probably the flow from Goat Falls the bulk of whose water passes through these channels, empties into the Turbine.