. Perfect pearls of poetry and prose; the most unique, touching, inspiring and beautiful literary . is particularly celebrated on account of the size anddiversity of form of these deposits. It extends nearly a thousand feetbeneath the surface, in primitive limestone, and is aecei^sible by a narrowentrance which is often very steeply inclined, but divided by level landingplaces. After a series of descents, the traveler arrives at the Great Hall,AS it is called, the sides and roof of which are covered with immense in-crustations of calcareous matter. The purity of the surrounding sto
. Perfect pearls of poetry and prose; the most unique, touching, inspiring and beautiful literary . is particularly celebrated on account of the size anddiversity of form of these deposits. It extends nearly a thousand feetbeneath the surface, in primitive limestone, and is aecei^sible by a narrowentrance which is often very steeply inclined, but divided by level landingplaces. After a series of descents, the traveler arrives at the Great Hall,AS it is called, the sides and roof of which are covered with immense in-crustations of calcareous matter. The purity of the surrounding stone,and the thickness of the roof in which the unfiltered water can deposit allimpure fidmixtures, give to its stalactites a beautiful whiteness. Tallpillars stand in many places free, near each other, ajid single groups ofBtalagmitos form figures so strongly resembling plants, that Tournofort en-deavored to prove from them a vegetable nature in stone. The remark ofthat intelligent ti-avcler is an amusing example of over (confidence:âUncxj again I rejieat it, it is impossible this should t»e done by the. GKuIiU Uk A2»iIi:^Ai:uS. THE ANGELS STORY, 037 droppings of water, as ia pretended by those who go about to explainthe formation of congelations in grottoes. It is much more probable thatthese other congelations we speak of, and which hang downwards or riseout different ways, were produced by one principle, namely, vegetation. The sight of the whole is described, by those who have visited thiscavern, as highly imposing. In the middle of the Great Hall, there is aremarkably fine and large stalagmite, more than twenty feet in diameter,and twenty-four feet high, termed the Altar, from the circumstance of theMarquis de Nointel, the ambassador from Louis XIV. to the Sultan, hav-ing caused high mass to be celebrated here in the year 1673. The cere-mony was attended by five hundred persons; the place was illuminated bya hundred large wax torches; and four hundred lamps burned in
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectenglishliterature
