een unfortunately broken, by being struck too powerfully.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GOTHIC GATE.]

The porch of columns leads to the Gothic Chapel, which has the circular
form appropriate to a true church. A number of pure stalactite columns
fill the nave with arches, which in many places form a perfect Gothic
roof. The stalactites fall in rich festoons, strikingly similar to the
highly ornamented chapel of Henry VII. Four columns in the centre form a
separate arch by themselves, like trees twisted into a grotto, in all
irregular and grotesque shapes. Under this arch stands Wilkins'
arm-chair, a stalactite formation, well adapted to the human figure. The
Chapel is the most beautiful specimen of the Gothic in the cave. Two or
three of the columns have richly foliated capitals, like the Corinthian.

If you turn back to the main avenue, and strike off in another
direction, you enter a vast room, with several projecting galleries,
called the Ball Room. In close vicinity, as if arranged by the severer
school of theologians, is a large amphitheatre, called Satan's Council
Chamber. From the centre rises a mountain of big stones, rudely piled
one above another, in a gradual slope, nearly one hundred feet high. On
the top rests a huge rock, big as a house, called Satan's Throne. The
vastness, the gloom, partially illuminated by the glare of lamps,
forcibly remind one of Lucifer on his throne, as represented by Martin
in his illustrations of Milton. It requires little imagination to
transform the uncouth rocks all around the throne, into attendant
demons. Indeed, throughout the cave, Martin's pictures are continually
brought to mind, by the unearthly effect of intense gleams of light on
black masses of shadow. In this Council Chamber, the rocks, with
singular appropriateness, change from an imitation of Gothic
architecture, to that of the Egyptian. The dark, massive walls resemble
a series of Egyptian tombs, in dull and heavy outline. In this place is
an angle, which forms the meeting point of several caves, and is
therefore considered one of the finest points of view. Here parties
usually stop and make arrangements to kindle the Bengal Lights, which
travellers always carry with them. It has a strange and picturesque
effect to see groups of people dotted about, at different points of
view, their lamps hidden behind stones, and the light streaming into the
thick darkness, through chinks in the rocks. When the lights begin t