south slope already mentioned shows a curious succession of changes in
cave affairs. By the slow action of acidulated waters, the grey
limestone deteriorated into a yellowish clay-bank, and now its particles
are being re-united into solid rock by the deposit of calcium carbonate
from the drip.

A careful test of the temperature of the atmosphere showed it to be
fifty-eight degrees.


PINE RUN CAVE.

This also is a small cave easily visited from Galena, being less than
two miles distant on the Marionville road. The entrance faces the road
and is on the same level, consequently it is one of the easiest to
visit. Just within is seen an opening in the ceiling, which we are told
is one of the two ways to an upper chamber whose chief attraction is a
dripstone piano, and the means of ascending is at hand in the form of a
Spanish ladder; but an attempt of that sort might even cause the new
woman to hesitate, and who hesitates is lost. The ascent was not made.
We advanced on a level with the road for a distance of perhaps twenty
feet, when the direction of the cave changed with a right angular turn
and we were in a straight gallery about two hundred and fifty feet long
and fifteen feet in width, the height gradually decreasing to about
three feet towards the upper end, where it widened out into a low but
broad chamber. The floor of this chamber is most beautiful. It is
composed of a series of connected calcite bowls whose beautifully fluted
rims are of regular and uniform height, and all are equally filled with
clear, still water. A great number of these basins are said to have been
destroyed by an ax in the hands of a poor witless creature for the