me miles further. The Rotunda is
cylindrical in shape, fifteen feet in diameter, and one hundred feet in
height.

We were now in a little room six miles from the mouth of the cave, and
thought the present a good opportunity to try the effect of the absence
of light and sound on the mind. Extinguishing our lights, therefore, we
resigned ourselves to the influences of darkness and silence. To realize
such a state fully, one must find one's self in the bowels of the earth,
as we were, where the beating of our own hearts alone attested the
existence of life. We were glad to relight our lamps and begin our
return to upper air.

I have already mentioned Annexation Rock; near it is another curious
freak of nature, called the Tree of the World's History. It resembles
the stump of a tree two feet in diameter, and cut off two feet above the
ground, upon which a portion of the trunk, six feet in length, is
exactly balanced. A singular type of the changes which time makes in the
world above-ground.

In the Museum, whose examination we had postponed till our return, we
were lost in a world of wonders. It were vain to attempt to describe or
even enumerate half of the various objects that met us at every turn.
Churches, towers, complete with doors and windows, as if finished by the
hand of an architect; an organ, its long and short pipes arranged in
perfect order; Lot's Wife, a figure in stone, life size; in another
place two women, in long, flowing garments, standing facing each other,
as if engaged in earnest conversation, and a soldier in complete
armor,--these were among the most striking of the larger objects. The
vegetable world was also well represented. Here was a bunch of carrots,
fresh as if just taken from the ground, sheaves of wheat, bunches of
grain and grass hanging from the walls and roofs. Interspersed were
birds of every species, doves in loving companionship, sparrows, and
hawks. I noticed also in one place a pair of elephant's ears perfect as
life. Indeed it was not difficult to believe that these stony semblances
had once been endowed with life, and, ere blight or decay could change,
had been transmuted into things of imperishable beauty.

While waiting for our guide to unmoor the boat, which was to take us
over the lake a second time, I ran up the bank to look at the
stalactites that hung in the greatest profusion above the water. The
light of my lamp shining through them produced an effect as surprising
as