Cavern

“ The gloom of this vast cavern, the whirlwind that ever plays in it, the deafening roar, the vast abyss of convulsed waters beneath you, the falling columns that hang over your head, all strike, not upon the ears and eyes only, but upon the heart. For the first few moments, the sublime is wrought to the terrible. ”

“ A wild picture that must have formed on a dark night--the glow of the fire, the circle of crouching savages around it seen through the smoke, the dead game, and the weird darkness and half-darkness of the walls of the cavern, a picture of cave-dwellers at home in the stone age! ”

“ Wondrous noises the sea is making now, as, with the heaves of a dead calm, even—heaves that in their very quietude suggest a terrible reserve of power—it laps into and out of this awesome cavern—moans, rumblings, sullen sounds that want and seem to crave a name. ”

“ And in this world, in a gem-encrusted cavern, is a pool of shimmering, iridescent matter, guarded by creatures from outer space. Into this unexplored region go two men following the shadowy trail of a vanished girl; searching down the corridors of time for a fragment of a departed age. Intent upon their quest they do not heed the silent voice that warns them of the great peril in the secret recesses of the cavern land. ”

“ At one spot the waves had worn out a deep cavern, where a dozen men could sleep, protected from the air, and often under foot could be heard the smothered rumbling of the water as it rushed into deep holes out of sight. ”

“ There is an immense cavern where one sits down to rest; weird shadows cast by the lamps dance upon the walls, and falling drops of water tinkle loudly in the silence. There are precipices and bottomless pits—into which the guide tosses stones—and atmospheric lakes, into which one is liable to walk unawares—the surface of the water being invisible to the sharpest scrutiny. ”

“ A cavern, you know, is a hollow or den, and old ocean holds many a cavern or den full of interest and beauty. But I will take you first to a kind of grove.
My home, where I spend most of my time, is in deep water. But not in the deepest, oh, no! That is said to be two thousand fathoms down. Think of it! More than two miles below the surface. There probably is but very little life at that depth. But when I visit some groves, or the region of a reef, I must first sail and sail until I reach water that is not deep at all.
Do you think you have ever seen coral, real coral? ”

“ It is to be seen only on a brilliantly sunny day, where the contour of the space around the stem and below the branches takes the form of an arched cavern, flooded by a single shaft of sunlight, piercing the foliage at one particular spot, lighting up the floor carpeted with last year's red-brown leaves, and emphasizing the gloom of the walls and roof. ”

“ Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the trickling rain-drops are filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace. ”

“ The sight is not a cheerful one. Surrounding me are the walls of a vast cavern, possessed of none of that beauty of caverns about which poets and novelists love to rave. There are no snowy stalactites nor glittering stalagmites, nothing but the black, ragged rock, all dripping with moisture where the gloom permits my eyes to penetrate. ”

“ It receives light that filters down the aven through the network of foliage above, and long trails of leaves fall from above as though to decorate the unsounded abyss that opens below. Now this cavern was a habitation of neolithic man, as has been shown by finds there of his handiwork. ”

“ During the interment of these relics of some of the perhaps earliest members of our race, the rippling of running water on the cavern floor, the monotonous drippings from the roof, the growling perhaps of wolves, or the barking of foxes, and the bellowing of the wind through the gloomy chambers of the cavern, would form the only requiem. ”

“ The sound filled the vast cavern and penetrated to many caverns beyond, where countless thousands of nomes were working at their unending tasks, hammering out gold and silver and other metals, or melting ores in great furnaces, or polishing glittering gems. ”

“ Moreover, the largest cavern of all has the unusual property of sometimes emitting whistling sounds like interrupted human voices. The shepherds on the mountain summits listen terror-stricken to this bellowing of its rocky throat. ”

“ The gloom of the cavern (for I speak always as if under the Table Rock) needs no assistance from the shade of evening; and the terrible grandeur of the whole is not felt the less for being distinctly seen.
We again visited this wonder of nature in our return from Lake Erie; and have now gazed upon it in all lights, and at all hours,—under the rising, meridian, and setting sun, and under the pale moon when
“riding in her highest noon.” ”

“ This river finds its only outlet in a cavern which it has gradually cut out of the rocks, and into which it falls with the impetuosity of a tide-race or a whirlpool. Where does it go as it passes under the town? No one knows. ”

“ It was not a room but a cavern, a cave that extended far into the distance, the roof supported by stone pillars, set at regular intervals. As far as my light would carry I saw the long rows of white columns.
And to each pillar was bound a man, by chains. They were resting on the stone floor, twenty or more of them, and all asleep. ”

“ Do not imagine you will see the sides of the cavern sparkling like diamonds: there may be an abundance of shining spar, but the constant dripping of water down the rocks, covers every part of the cavern with a slime, which must deaden the lustre of the stones, were they of ever so shining a nature; but, notwithstanding there is no glitter in the cave, there is much to be admired, particularly wherever there are any smooth parts on the sides of the rocks ”

“ The interior remains fluid. It may continue running until the tongue is all emptied, leaving a cavern. Such a cavern, whose upper end reaches the cold air of the mountains, might be like a chimney, down which freezing air would descend, turning into ice the water that trickled into the cave, even at the lower end. ”

“ Looking toward the entrance to the cavern, nothing could be observed but the fronts of the fierce animals, all fighting desperately to get at the opening, all eager beyond expression to reach the serene hunters within, but restrained by the glowing fire beyond, to which they dared not go. ”

“ The sides of the cavern rise around us in curved planes, washed smooth and slippery by the dashing of the waves of ages, and gradually merge into the massive angles and projections and groins of the broken roof, whence a tuft or two of what looks like samphire depends. ”

“ At its first tremendous blow on the seething surface of the basin, the column of water seems to make a great cavern, into which it plunges bodily, only to come up in myriad millions of foaming particles, very small, bright, and distinct, like minute, highly-polished shot. ”

“ From somewhere in its mysterious ascent, an auroral boy, with a tallow candle, produces a so-called effect of sunrise, and sheds a sad, disheartening radiance on the lake and the cavern sides, which is to sunlight about as the blind creatures of subterranean waters are to those of waves that laugh and dance above ground. But all caverns are much alike in their depressing and gloomy influences, and since there is so great opportunity to be wretched on the surface of the earth, why do people visit them? ”

“ The rocks forming the top of the cavern are piled up so loosely that the smoke rises through them almost as easy and natural as from a chimney. He had nothing to do but to throw himself on the bottom, to be out of its way, and breathe as good air as the best of us. ”

“ A rugged path leads to this beautiful and spacious cavern, which may well, in former days, have been the place of refuge supposed in the foregoing poem. The brook which runs through it is broken by the pointed rock into many waterfalls, and also feeds several small lakes; a spring trickles from the roof, and the sides are covered with a profusion of moss, and weeds, and wild flowers. Like most of these caverns, the walls are covered with sparry incrustations. ”

“ The roof must be full of holes, for a thread of water was flowing on to his shoulder and wetting him to the skin. The cold became icy, and they were buried in black humidity when they passed through a sudden flash of light, the vision of a cavern in which men were moving. ”

“ And I entered, alone....
'Behold a cavern of stone carven, and in the midst
A brazier that hissed with tongued flames, leaping
Over whitened embers of gummy frankincense,
Into a fume of dense and fragrant vapour, creeping
Over the roof to spread a milky coverlet
Softer than the woof of webby spider's net. ”

“ Frank resumed, “the cavern where the gold is, is not a cavern at all! There was once a cavern there, but it was filled with gold and the wash of the mountains, so it now presents a level surface to the eye of one entering the crater.” ”

“ This cavern, which thus dimly lingered in the memories of nations, occasionally expanded to a nether world, imagined to underlie this of ours, and still inhabited by beings of our kind, who have never been lucky enough to discover its exit. ”

“ The dripping of the ardent spirits from the worm was hardly to be distinguished from the ripple of the rill of water in the troughs led down from one of the subterranean springs to its mission of utility in the condenser and the big burly mash-tubs, or the occasional irregular trickling from the roof of the drops with their solution of lime charged with the building of the fantastic architecture of the cavern. ”

“ Standing there against the invisible cavern wall, with the earth almost constantly quivering and with low, gruff, distant detonations dinning upon our ears, we found it difficult, almost impossible to exchange ideas. ”

“ Right beneath us is a cavern cut through the solid rock from side to side, and into this the sea scours at its height, the breakers from each end meeting with a shock in the middle. The rocks, which are so black and frigid outside, are rounded within, and coloured a strange sea-green, with almost a wan look, while the floor is composed of myriads of flat stones, round and oval, all sizes, from a sixpence to a soup-plate, making a natural pavement easy to the tread. ”

“ Here a singular combination is produced human habitations and manufacturing machines (the appendages of some twine-makers, who have fixed their residence within this cavern) blending with the sublime features of the natural scenery. After penetrating about thirty yards into the rock, the roof becomes lower, and a turning to the right obliged us to follow a descent for the distance of one hundred and twenty feet more, to a spot where the light of day disappears, and candles were put into our hands to illuminate our farther progress through the Stygian darkness of the cavern. ”

“ At a considerable distance from the mouth of the cavern is a wide lake, with a boat upon it, and voyaging to the centre of the pool your attention is drawn to the dome above you, which contracts into a shaft rising upward to a height as yet unmeasured and even unpierced by light. ”

“ You can not go in at all when the tide is up. Once within, you find yourself in an arched cavern about one hundred and sixty feet long, one hundred and twenty wide, and about seventy high. How deep it is no man knows. ”

“ The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so massy that no man could without the help of engines open or shut them.
From the mountains on every side, rivulets descended, that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. ”

“ If the cavern mouth were totally submerged, should she be suffocated; or if not, might she otherwise too surely die of cold, and lie there till some holiday explorer, or some boy in search of puffins' nests, found her remains? ”

“ The cavern is formed by nature in a beautiful granite rock; its interior is covered on all sides with figures of mountain goats drawn with charcoal in the rudest manner; they are done by the shepherd boys and girls of the Towaras. ”

“ Our faithful companion, the water, guided us through the remainder of the cavern, where the rock is arched for the last time, and then sinks till it touches the water, which here forms a semicircle, and thus the cavern closes, so that no mortal can go one step farther. ”

“ At about one-third of the distance inward, I would advise the tourist to halt, and survey the singular locality in which he is placed. The inequality of breadth in the long chink that divides the dome above, admits the light in very different proportions, and presents objects in a variety of aspects. The first impression which occupies the mind is caused by the cavern itself, with reflection on the portentous convulsion of Nature which split the marble rock in twain, and opened a gigantic aqueduct for the mountain torrent. ”

“ Although a journey by way of the sink holes through a cavern system is to be commended for the reason that it is the course of the caverning waters, it is, on the whole, best to approach the cave through their exits along the banks of a stream or through the chance openings which are here and there made by the falling in of their roofs. One advantage of this cavity of entrance is that we can thus approach the cavern in times of heavy rain when the processes which lead to their construction are in full activity. ”