nearly 2 acres in extent, containing
formations which are at once most curious and strikingly beautiful. This
cavern, which lies in the above-mentioned Straczena valley, was
discovered in 1870. The place was founded in the first half of the 14th
century by German miners.

DOBSON, HENRY AUSTIN (1840- ), English poet and man of letters, was
born at Plymouth on the 18th of January 1840, being the eldest son of
George Clarisse Dobson, a civil engineer, and on his grandmother's side
of French descent. When he was about eight years old the family moved to
Holyhead, and his first school was at Beaumaris, in the Isle of
Anglesea. He was afterwards educated at Coventry, and the Gymnase,
Strassburg, whence he returned at the age of sixteen with the intention
of becoming a civil engineer. He had a taste for art, and in his earlier
years at the office continued to study it at South Kensington, at his
leisure, but without definite ambition. In December 1856 he entered the
Board of Trade, gradually rising to a principalship in the harbour
department, from which he withdrew in the autumn of 1901. He married in
1868 Frances Mary, daughter of Nathaniel Beardmore of Broxbourne, Herts,
and settled at Ealing. His official career was industrious though
uneventful, but as poet and biographer he stands among the most
distinguished of his time. The student of Mr Austin Dobson's work will
be struck at once by the fact that it contains nothing immature: there
are no _juvenilia_ to criticize or excuse. It was about 1864 that Mr
Dobson first turned his attention to composition in prose and verse, and
some of his earliest known pieces remain among his best. It was not
until 1868 that the appearance of _St Paul's_, a magazine edited by
Anthony Trollope, afforded Mr Dobson an opportunity and an audience; and
during the next six years he contributed to its pages some of his
favourite poems, including "Tu Quoque," "A Gentleman of the Old School,"
"A Dialogue from Plato," and "Une Marquise." Many of his poems in their
original form were illustrated--some, indeed, actually written to
support illustrations. By the autumn of 1873 Mr Dobson had produced
sufficient verse for a volume, and put forth his _Vignettes in Rhyme_,
which quickly passed through three editions. During the period of their
appearance in the magazine the poems had received unusual attention,
George Eliot, among others, extending generous encouragement to the
anonymous author. Th