st of the walls, are not covered thinly
with one crust, but layer has been added to layer until the thickness
is four to ten inches and often more. The ceilings that have been
denuded by nature's forces during the same early period when water
filled the cave were also renewed.

From the Pyramid Room a narrow fissure forms a passage to the Cactus
Chamber, where there is a marvelous floor on which the crystals are in
bunches like cacti, and the beautiful ceiling is the finest and most
irregular unbroken mass of crystal yet seen.

Passing through a round hole known as the Needle's Eye, we enter
Statuary Hall, where the latest inrush of water has eroded the sharp
points from the crystals, leaving only smooth surfaces, and at the same
time done much curious carving, the most conspicuous pieces of this work
being a bear and the heads of an Indian and his baby.

Out from the Hall are two important routes, one down the steep incline
of Beaver's Slide to The Catacombs, and another, which we followed
first, is through Rocky Run, a rough and rocky pass, to a large and
handsomely crystallized chamber called the I.X.L. Room, on account of
those three letters, over twelve inches in height, being distinctly and
conspicuously worked in crystal on a magnificent piece of box work that
would weigh nearly half a ton, for which an offer of five hundred
dollars is said to have been refused.

The next chamber beyond is Tilotson Hall, very large and extremely
rough, and named in honor of a teacher from the Normal School, who
delivered an address here that gave much pleasure to both visitors and
guides.

The way to farther advance is now more difficult and through a jagged
crevice of threatening appearance, but the trip is made in safety and
with comparative ease, and brings us into Notre Dame, one of the largest
chambers in the cave and perhaps the finest, although where so much is
fine that may be uncertain. The display of box work and crystal is
sufficiently gorgeous to do honor to the famous old cathedral of France,
the ceiling especially being a masterpiece of the builder's and
decorator's arts; but the grandest portion, which a visitor recently
returned from foreign travel called The Russian Castle, on account of
the magnificence of the large box work and pearly crystal masses, should
rather be known as the great cathedral's crowning glory, The Altar.

Another large room, the handsome Council Chamber, is entered just as
that Altar