THE FAIRIES' RETREAT.
It is about 40 yards north-east from the Gem of the West to the Fairies'
Retreat. The passage is from 8 to 20 feet high and from 6 to 14 feet
wide, and rather damp. The visitor ascends a short ladder to a rocky
ledge, where there is a small opening and a narrow passage, along which
he has to wriggle his way in a recumbent posture and with his feet
foremost. Long before he has reached the immediate entrance to the
Retreat he begins to think Puck has led him a "pretty dance," and he has
gained some idea of the least pleasant sensations incident to cave
exploration. When he has completed the journey in a doubled-up posture,
and is placed in an attitude scarcely less uncomfortable, curved like a
boomerang, he feels as though he would give the world to be able to
stretch himself. But a slight pressure upwards reminds him of the
superincumbent mountain, and so he feels like a prisoner with billions
of tons above him and the rocky base below. He begins to grow hot, and
would give anything to be in a place capacious enough to enable him to
expand and breathe freely. However, the lamp is turned on, and for a
moment or two he is lost in admiration of the scene. He might fancy
himself Sindbad in the Diamond Valley, or think that the cave-keeper
possessed the lamp of Aladdin, or that he had come upon enchanted land.
This Retreat extends S.E. about 20 yards. Its entrance is about 2 feet
by 20 inches at the embouchure, and it widens a little towards the end.
It is about four feet wide and three feet high, and is filled with
glittering cave gems and alabaster flowers, and myriads of figures which
sparkle with brilliants. But what are the brightest jewels and the
choicest flowers to ease of body and mental serenity? Many of the fair
sex have visited this Retreat, carefully tutored and assisted by the
curator. It may be appropriately and pleasantly inspected by agile
sylphs and dapper little men who affect a contempt for muscular
development and insist upon being gauged by Dr. Watts's standard, but
ladies who are massive and gentlemen who are portly and plethoric will,
when making their exit, caterpillar fashion, think it very absurd that
so splendid a spectacle should have so mean and inconvenient an
approach.
THE QUEEN'S DIAMONDS.
After seeing the Fairies' Retreat there remains but one other surprise,
and that is "The Queen's Diamonds." These are in a casket easily
accessible, and the opening to which is about three feet wide by one
foot high. The jewel case itself is about four feet wide, three feet
deep, and 12 feet long. When the light is turned into it the brilliancy
of the scene is perfectly dazzling. The prismatic formations are
wonderful, and the blaze of magnificence mocks the descriptive power of
either pen or pencil. It is "labyrinth of light" which appeals to the
imagination with rare force. Edgar A. Poe worked up an excellent
sensation in his story of "The Gold Bug." The way in which Mr. William
Legrand became possessed of the scarabaeus with scales of bright metallic
lustre, and of the scrap of paper which contained mysterious directions
leading to hidden piratical plunder by Kidd, is not more interesting to
the general reader than cryptography is to the student. The enthusiastic
way in which the curator speaks of this cave and its distance and
measurements recalls to memory the exciting incidents connected with the
death's-head, the gold bug dropped through its eye-socket, the taping of
the distance from the fall of the scarabaeus to the hidden wealth, the
hurried digging, and the discovery of the buried treasure. "As the rays
of the lantern fell within the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a
glare from a confused heap of gold and of jewels that absolutely dazzled
our eyes." The feeling produced in that case was exhaustion from
excitement; but the sensation caused by a glance at the brilliance of
the Queen's Diamonds is one of intense gratification. It is a most vivid
and lustrous spectacle. The crystals are in clusters grouped together
like the petals of flowers, and these flower-shaped forms combine with
others of a similar kind, and constitute elaborate floral masses. They
are much more difficult to decipher than was the cryptography left by
the pirate Kidd. As Brewster puts it, "though the examination of these
bodies has been pretty well pursued, we can form at present no adequate
idea of the complex and beautiful organization of these apparently
simple bodies" Of the 1,500 or more different crystals known to science,
nearly half are composed of carbonate of lime, but "The Queen's
Diamonds" are certainly among the rarest. The crystallized forms in the
caves are very numerous. Some of them are irregular, on account of the
substance not having been sufficiently divided before its deposition, or
because of inadequate space or insufficient repose, but for the most
part they are regular and perfect of their kind. None, however, are more
regularly formed or more pronounced than "The Queen's Diamonds." It
would be difficult to describe their geometric shape. The separate
fragments of each cluster vary from about an inch to a fraction thereof.
They are like three-sided prisms, tapering to points at the ends. The
edges are sharp as knives from the centre to the upper point; but from
the centre to the end which is joined to others, the sharp edge is
replaced by a smooth surface, as though a cut had been made with a
razor. The upper ends of these prisms are clear as glass; the lower ends
are a little cloudy. The brilliancy of the combination is marvellous.