All the way you might have heard us exclaiming,
"Wonderful, wonderful! O, Lord, how manifold are thy works!" With
general unity of form and appearance, there is considerable variety in
"the Cabinet." The "_Snow-ball Room_," for example, is a section of
the cave described above, some 200 feet in length, entirely different
from the adjacent parts; its appearance being aptly indicated by its
name. If a hundred rude school boys had but an hour before completed
their day's sport, by throwing a thousand snow-balls against the roof,
while an equal number were scattered about the floor, and all
petrified, it would have presented precisely such a scene as you
witness in this room of nature's frolics. So far as I know, these
"snow-balls" are a perfect anomaly among all the strange forms of
crystalization. It is the result, I presume, of an unusual combination
of the sulphates of lime and magnesia, with a carbonate of the former.
We found here and elsewhere in the Cabinet, fine specimens of the
sulphate of Magnesia, (or Epsom salts,) a foot or two long, and three
inches in thickness.
Leaving the quiet and beautiful "Cabinet," you come suddenly upon the
"Rocky Mountains," furnishing a contrast so bold and striking, as
almost to startle you. Clambering up the rough side some thirty feet,
you pass close under the roof of the cavern you have left, and find
before you an immense transverse cave, 100 feet or more from the
ceiling to the floor, with a huge pile of rocks half filling the
hither side--they were probably dashed from the roof in the great
earthquake of 1811.
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