Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-01-25
IN NEW SOUTH WALES.
Wonderful Caverns and chin.


A correspondent of the San Francisco Chroni-
Gle gives an interesting account of visit to
some remarkable caves in New South Wales.
They are near Mount Victoria, station about
rs miles from Sydney. Says the writer:
We left our conveyances and penetrated q
rift in the great sandstone wall on foot. In
the bottom of the gorge, perhaps 100 feet
below us, was a bold limestone dixie. built
squarely across the valley. We reached
this after an arduous climb of half an hour
among rocks and trees and debris, made
slippery by the drip from the over hanging
walls. The lower face OF this natural bridge
is pierced by n double arch, and from each
archway issues turbulent stream of ice
cold water, that originates in some unknown
subterranean passage farther up the noun
tain. The first of these arches is known as
the Grand Arch and is of noble proper
tions. 1t is fully 500 feet long, GO feet in
height and 80 feet WIDE Inside it is a mass of
huge blocks of limestone, which have fallen
from the walls and lie around in frightful con-
fusion. At the entrance to the cave they have
been worn smooth by the passage of wild ami
mails, and these surfaces exhibit some of the
most curious fossils that have ever been en-
banned in stone. Corals. lilies, molluscs and
fossil fish all shown in sections in this COM
pact gray marble, showing conclusively that
this rock was at one time nothing but spongy
coral, which, through icons of pressure, has
assumed its present form. Near the back of
the cavern we entered apartment about
forty by sixty feet, whose entrance was fringed
with curtain stalactites, and here, from the
roof, hung group of staactites which had as
sumod the form of chime of bells. These,
when struck, gave forth the sound of sonorous
metal and the place was appropriately named
The Belfry. The Brides chamber was veri-
table fairyland. small apartment, with
domed roof and vertical walls it fairly biazed
as the light was reflected back from the crystal
facets OF walls and ceiling. Slender icicles
depended from the ceiling until nearly met
by the growing stalagmites below them, and
the electric light dancing on their crystal
surface was broken into all the colors of the
prism. as it encountered the edge of some
intrusive ledge OF quartz or a greensboro
porphyry set in the wall. In the Carlotta
Arch we saw the ''crown jewels and the
queens MANTLE" The first is o splendid
stalagmite of white and gray carbonate of
lime, disposed in short, blunt crystals. and
reposing On cushion of porphyritic quartz.
This lights up with startling splendor, and
no real jewels could vie in brillancy with
that majestic crystal. In the same forma-
ton is tilmy stalactite which hangs curtain
wise from projection on the main wall.
torch placed behind this develops the delicate
tracery OF lace mantle and the dolusion is so
complete that we had to touch the cold stone
before We could be convinced that some cheat
had not been attempted by the guide. In the
Bone Cave we were shown some colossal bones,
which the guide insisted were the fossil re-
mains Of the cave bear and cave line of pre-
historic times, but they were SO heavily over
laid with carbonate of lime that we were not
quite prepared to accept this theory.
On the eastern shore of Tasmania, swept BY
turbulent ocean both from east and west, stands
a series of rocky headlands. which eliminate in
q frowning promontory known as Tasman's
Head. Into the face of the basaltic masses
ncrt a Tod iba
ocean has bored numerous caverns. some of
which penetrate hundreds of feet landmarks
The most prominent of these caves has received
the not inapt designation of The Devils Blow
hole, and after penetrating deeply into the
heart of the cliff it suddenly finds relief for
its pentup energies in a vertical shaft
through which its column of spray mounts to
height OF more than 500 feet in rough weather,
drenching the surrounding vegetation with
salt and forming pillar of dazzling foam
which is visible. even in the darkest night. to a
considerable distance. On quiet morning
the fiat shelving rock at the base of the caverns
may be reached from boat, but the gigantic
rollers heave dangerously and extreme caution
is requisite to avoid accident. On landing we
found that the bold and apparently solid es-
carpment is honeycombed with assures in
every direction. Under an immense rocky arch
hung with the tapestry of the ocean, peers out
the black mouth of a waterway, which proved
to be subterranean passage through the
mountain, terminating at the base of the cele-
brated blow-hole. Into this gaping arch, about
10 feet from wall to wall and extending down.
ward in bottomless, awesome fissure, glitter
ing with black water, is concentrated all the
resistiess force of the mighty combers of the
Australian ocean; and the compressed and
pent-up waters burst with terrific violence into
Willing, seething cloud of spray and spume
as they expand in the more extensive proper
tions of the central cavity. Around this central
abyss runs roughly arcaded gallery, chan
neled in to the porous face of the rock and
provided with an occasional loophole into the
gorge.