woods into the pure and deep cerulean lakes
of Wochain and Wurzen, and pursuing its course amidst pastoral meadows so
ornamented with plants and trees as to look the garden of Nature. The
subsoil or strata of this part of Illyria are entirely calcareous and
full of subterranean caverns, so that in every declivity large funnel-
shaped cavities, like the craters of volcanoes, may be seen, in which the
waters that fall from the atmosphere are lost: and almost every lake or
rives has a subterraneous source, and often a subterraneous exit. The
Laibach river rises twice from the limestone rock, and is twice again
swallowed up by the earth before it makes its final appearance and is
lost in the Save. The Zirknitz See or Lake is a mass of water entirely
filled and emptied by subterraneous sources, and its natural history,
though singular, has in it nothing of either prodigy, mystery, or wonder.
The Grotto of the Maddalena at Adelsberg occupied more of our attention
than the Zirknitz See. I shall give the conversation that took place in
that extraordinary cavern entire, as well as I can remember it, in the
words used by my companions.

_Eub_.--We must be many hundred feet below the surface, yet the
temperature of this cavern is fresh and agreeable.

_The Unknown_.--This cavern has the mean temperature of the atmosphere,
which is the case with all subterraneous cavities removed from the
influence of the solar light and heat; and, in so hot a day in August as
this, I know no more agreeable or salutary manner of taking a cold bath
than in descending to a part of the atmosphere out of the influence of
those causes which occasion its elevated temperature.

_Eub_.--Have you, sir, been in this country before?

_The Unknown_.--This is the third summer that I have made it the scene of
an annual visit. Independently of the natural beauties found in Illyria,
and the various sources of amusement which a traveller fond of natural
history may find in this region, it has had a peculiar object of interest
for me in the extraordinary animals which are found in the bottom of its
subterraneous cavities: I allude to the Proteus anguinus, a far greater
wonder of nature than any of those which the Baron Valvasa detailed to
the Royal Society a century and half ago as belonging to Carniola, with
far too romantic an air for a philosopher.

_Phil_.--I have seen these animals in passing through this country
before; but I should be very glad to be