rence that this cathedral designed by nature was loftier
and wider than any built by man. But its stupendous size was the least
of the wonders of the place, for running in rows adown its length were
gigantic pillars of what looked like ice, but were, in reality, huge
stalactites. It is impossible for me to convey any idea of the
overpowering beauty and grandeur of these pillars of white spar, some
of which were not less than twenty feet in diameter at the base, and
sprang up in lofty and yet delicate beauty sheer to the distant roof.
Others again were in process of formation. On the rock floor there was
in these cases what looked, Sir Henry said, exactly like a broken
column in an old Grecian temple, whilst high above, depending from the
roof, the point of a huge icicle could be dimly seen.

Even as we gazed we could hear the process going on, for presently with
a tiny splash a drop of water would fall from the far-off icicle on to
the column below. On some columns the drops only fell once in two or
three minutes, and in these cases it would be an interesting
calculation to discover how long, at that rate of dripping, it would
take to form a pillar, say eighty feet by ten in diameter. That the
process, in at least one instance, was incalculably slow, the following
example will suffice to show. Cut on one of these pillars we discovered
the crude likeness of a mummy, by the head of which sat what appeared
to be the figure of an Egyptian god, doubtless the handiwork of some
old-world labourer in the mine. This work of art was executed at the
natural height at which an idle fellow, be he Phoenician workman or
British cad, is in the habit of trying to immortalise himself at the
expense of nature's masterpieces, namely, about five feet from the
ground. Yet at the time that we saw it, which _must_ have been nearly
three thousand years after the date of the execution of the carving,
the column was only eight feet high, and was still in process of
formation, which gives a rate of growth of a foot to a thousand years,
or an inch and a fraction to a century. This we knew because, as we
were standing by it, we heard a drop of water fall.

Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the
dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one
huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the
shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that
looked like lace. Oth