stalactites with which they are abundantly supplied; most of them being
snow white and from fourteen to twenty feet in length.

Unfortunately, most of the caves in this region have been deprived of
great quantities of their beautiful adornments by visitors who are
allowed to choose the best and remove it in such quantities as may suit
their convenience and pleasure. Those who own the caves, and those who
visit them, would do well to remember that if all the natural adornment
should be allowed to remain in its original position, it would continue
to afford pleasure to many persons for an indefinite time; but if
broken, removed, and scattered the pleasure to a few will be
comparatively little and that short-lived. The gift of beauty should
always be honored and protected for the public good.

We were not so fortunate as to discover fossils of any kind in this
locality, although the search was by no means thorough; but even if it
had been the result might have been the same, since that county and
others adjoining have been mapped as Cambrian. The greater part of the
exposed rock is a fine sandstone almost as white as gypsum on a fresh
fracture, and much of it is ripple-marked so as to show a beautifully
fluted surface of remarkable regularity. These ripple flutings are
sometimes more than an inch in width, and often less, but the variations
never appear on the same level, the smallest being seen on the hill-tops
and the larger outcropping on the downward slopes.




CHAPTER VII.