In winter the Spring of Youth Room takes on a complete coating of ice, with icicles of all sizes hanging from the ceiling and projections. The effect is described as being wonderfully beautiful.
Further down Total Depravity Passage we were not urged to go, because at that season of the year it is wet and difficult, without any sufficient promise of a brilliant compensation for the achievement of such a journey. But the Spring of Youth Room, or as it is generally called, the Spring Room, is more than ample justification for the existence of the passage, and would still be if that passage were several miles in length and the attraction located at the most distant limit.
Wall in Spring Room. [Page 32.]
The various passages in Marble Cave are by >no means alike or even similar; some having been opened by the action of water assisted only by acid carried in solution; while others are the unmistakable crevices of earthquake origin, afterwards enlarged, or perhaps only remodeled, as we might say, by the water's untiring energy in changing the position of rock masses without obliterating evidences of original design.
A glance at the map shows the sudden breaking off of the various passages represented; the end, however, is not of the passages themselves, but only of the exploration or the survey of them, and there is a possibility that future developments will lead to the discovery of more caves than are yet known. However that may be, the glimpses already had into the beyond are said to be alluring.
To the north of the Auditorium, which was until recently called the Grand Amphitheater, there opens out a kind of alcove extension known as the Mother Hubbard Room, and spreading out from this is the corridor, a room about one hundred and twenty-five feet long and seventy-five feet in width, with a low, narrow passage, or crawl, leading from the northeast into the Grotto, a dome-shaped room formerly called the Battery, on account of the great number of bats that used to congregate in it. It is about forty feet in diameter and fifty feet in height. On one side of this room is a narrow "squeeze" opening into a passage several feet lower than the floor level of the Grotto and leading to the Spanish Room, which when discovered bore indications of having been occupied by a human being who had tried to escape by tunneling, or by reaching a hole in the roof; which is said to be impossible for him to have done without outside assistance. As no bones have been found we may hope the assistance arrived in time. When the discovery of the room was made, a quantity of loose rock was piled before the entrance, so if he ever escaped it was not by that way.
After crawling back to the Corridor, through the same small, but dry passage of seventy feet length, we saw a narrow ledge of fine crystals, a deposit of Epsom salts, and a few bats that in the dim light looked white but are a light tan color with brown wings. A good specimen hanging on a projecting ledge of the wall remained undisturbed by us and our lights, giving an opportunity for careful inspection so that we presently discovered it to be a mummy; which naturally suggests that this portion of the cave, being dry and opening out of the great temple-like Auditorium as an alcove, could be converted into an imposing crypt.
Making our way across the room to its southwest extremity over a varied assortment of bowlders and down a drop of eight or ten feet, we crawled into another tight-fitting dry passage lined with beautiful glittering onyx like clear ice banded with narrow lines of red, of which broken fragments covered the narrow floor and made a dazzling, but distressingly painful rug to crawl over. This is the West Passage and leads to the Grand Crevice, of which only a small portion has been surveyed; midway of the passage are the Epsom Rooms, two in number, and well supplied with epsomite or native Epsom salts; this is sometimes called the Windy Passage, on account of a rushing current of air met suddenly at the first bend and, no doubt, due to the meeting here of fresh air coming in from the outside with that chemically changed in the Epsom Rooms.
The cave contains a great many dangerous places, as we correctly surmised on the morning of our introduction; when Mr. Powell's blessing on the breakfast was lost in so fervent a prayer for the safe and successful accomplishment of our undertaking, it seemed inconsiderate not to present the reassuring appearance of inexhaustible endurance.