as well,
the finished work of crystallization is preserved in an absolutely
perfect condition. And everywhere the largest crystals are on the under
side of a projection or the roof of a cavity.

As the day was passing far too rapidly and many points of special
interest yet remained unseen, we turned with reluctance from the beauty
and relief from the hardships of exploration in the Catacombs, and made
our way over a crevice into Santa Claus' Pass, which was traversed for
a considerable distance and then abandoned for a low crawl terminating
at the Senate Chamber. This is a large room extending to Poverty Flat,
and is brilliantly red and purely white, most of the crystal presenting
a smooth surface. Under the Senate Chamber there is said to be some fine
box work which we had no time to visit. The name of this chamber was
given by a visiting party composed of members of both houses of
Congress. A smaller room, which is really an extension of the Senate
Chamber, has handsome walls of white and red box work on account of
which the same distinguished party called it the Senate Post-office.

From here a difficult crawl, through red rock, well-worn by the action
of water, leads to the Starr Chamber, another large room in white and
red, and named by Senator Starr of South Dakota.

Opening out from the last room is a curious, dangerous looking, narrow,
crevice-chamber known as Suicide Room on account of the threatening
appearance of over-hanging rocks, some of which have at times fallen in
great masses of various sizes to form an irregular floor; and a descent
of this is necessary in order to reach a short and extremely rough
crawl, beautifully and painfully decorated with sharp crystals above and
below and on the sides. From this we emerge into Rainy Chamber, an
elliptical room not less than two hundred feet long by one hundred feet
wide, with a tent-like ceiling rising high in the center and sloping
down to meet the floor, which also slopes irregularly toward a deep
central depression, giving the room a greater height than any other
visited. The high points are generally seen in the narrow crevices,
while the rooms of generous length and breadth are usually low, many of
the largest having an average of five feet or even less.

Although there is frequent intersection of crevices, and each chamber
has passages leading out on every side, the general direction of the
cave is said to be northwest-southeast.

Rainy Chamber is