of the way is through the forest
without a road, but with a charming little rushing, crooked stream of
clear, cold water: and in places the green slopes give way to mural
bluffs of grey limestone in undisturbed strata.

The entrance to the cave is through a hole about two feet high by three
in width, into which we went feet first and wiggled slowly down an
incline covered with broken rock, for a distance of fifteen feet, where
a standing depth is reached. A flat, straight, level ceiling extends
over the whole cave without any perceptible variation, and this is
bordered around its entire length and breadth with a heavy cornice of
dripstone, made very ornamental by the forms it assumes, and the
multitude of depending stalactites that fall as a fringe around the
walls. The line of contact between the cornice and ceiling is as clear
and strong as if both had been finished separately before the cornice
was put in place by skillful hands.

Dripstone covers the walls, which vary in height from one foot to twenty
feet, according to the irregularities of the floor, just as the width of
this one-room cave varies with the curves of the walls, which are
sweeping and graceful, the average being twenty-nine feet, but is much
greater at the entrance where the entire slope extends out beyond the
body of the cave. The length, from north to south, measures two hundred
and thirty-three feet exclusive of an inaccessible extension.

The south end of the cave rises by a steep slope to within a foot of the
ceiling with which it is connected by short but heavy columns of
dripstone, and another line of pillars of graduated height meets this
at right angles near the middle and ends in an immense stalagmite that
stands at the foot of the slope like a grand newel post.

There is no standing water in the cave, but everything is wet with drip,
and consequently the formation of onyx is actively progressing and the
south slope already mentioned shows a curious succession of changes in
cave affairs. By the slow action of acidulated waters, the grey
limestone deteriorated into a yellowish clay-bank, and now its particles
are being re-united into solid rock by the deposit of calcium carbonate
from the drip.

A careful test of the temperature of the atmosphere showed it to be
fifty-eight degrees.

PINE RUN CAVE.

This also is a small cave easily visited from Galena, being less than
two miles distant on the Marionville road. The entrance faces t