wenty feet high, tapering up from a base three feet in diameter, and
known as the Spring Room Sentinel, because the Spring of Youth is just
behind it although not directly connected with the Auditorium; it being
the first chamber on the left in Total Depravity Passage, a wet and
dangerous way of which next to nothing is known, but the entrance to
which is a fine arch a few feet west of the Sentinel. The Spring of
Youth is reached by climbing through a window-like opening, and is very
small, very wet, very cold, and very beautiful. It is not more than ten
feet high nor six in its greatest length and breadth, but every inch of
its irregular surface is composed of dripstone of a bright yellowish-red
and colorless crystal; and down the glittering walls trickles clear and
almost ice-cold water, to the onyx floor where it is caught and held in
a marvelous fluted bowl of its own manufacture. This is said to be the
gem of the whole cave and seems to have been placed where it is for the
consolation of those who are unable to enjoy the peculiar grandeur of
the Auditorium, and leave it as some actually are said to do, with a
sense of disappointment, because it is not the gleaming white hall of
marble which some writers for reputable journals have allowed their
imaginations to create.

In winter the Spring of Youth Room takes on a complete coating of ice,
with icicles of all sizes hanging from the ceiling and projections. The
effect is described as being wonderfully beautiful.

Further down Total Depravity Passage we were not urged to go, because at
that season of the year it is wet and difficult, without any sufficient
promise of a brilliant compensation for the achievement of such a
journey. But the Spring of Youth Room, or as it is generally called, the
Spring Room, is more than ample justification for the existence of the
passage, and would still be if that passage were several miles in length
and the attraction located at the most distant limit.

[Illustration: Wall in Spring Room. Page 32.]

The various passages in Marble Cave are by no means alike or even
similar; some having been opened by the action of water assisted only by
acid carried in solution; while others are the unmistakable crevices of
earthquake origin, afterwards enlarged, or perhaps only remodeled, as we
might say, by the water's untiring energy in changing the position of
rock masses without obliterating evidences of original design.

A glance at the map