"This caused them to think something was going wrong and one called out to know what was the matter: I heard him say 'He is weakening.' I assured them everything was right only I wanted to take a view; so they stopped. Off at a distance of perhaps twenty-five feet was an opening about ten feet or more wide and twelve feet high. The light from the opening struck it fairly, owing to the position of the sun at the time. Through this opening I saw into another room, large and magnificent. It brought to mind the White City. It was snowy white, and thickly studded with stalactites and stalagmites of immense size and in great numbers; some looking like spires of numerous churches, and many connected as with a lattice-work about the bottom. For a short time I gazed on that lovely scene, and examined the chances to reach it, but a great gulf intervened that we had no means of spanning, and I called to the men to lower me down. Approaching the bottom one of the walls trended in towards me and I stepped upon solid ground close to the wall, which half way up seemed fifty feet away. The opening above now looked like a small pale moon, and the next man who came dangling down to join us looked no bigger than a toy soldier. Gradually our eyes became accustomed to the twilight, and by the time our party was increased to six men, I could see quite distinctly.
"The room runs directly into the mountain and is about ninety feet high, and where we landed it proved to be twenty feet wide. It extended in both directions, but much the farthest towards the right hand. The outer room is encrusted in fine white water formations. It forms a Gothic ceiling from which hang pendant at all places brilliant and sparkling stalactites; some being of immense size and length, from ten to twenty-five feet. Others are not so large but are brilliant. We created a flood of artificial light with dozens of candles and lamps; and then and not until then, could we see the slope and contour of the roof. A few bats were flitting about, disturbed for the first time. To the left, a vast white pillar extended from floor to roof. It was pure white and about five feet in diameter all the way up. It was fluted, fretted, draped and spangled. I never in my life saw anything more chaste and lovely. I thought of the countless ages it must have taken to form that monument: of the streams of clear water that had fallen and left their calcite deposits, while it grew year after year, age after age, century after century, in this profound darkness, disturbed by no noises save the rhythmic sound of the falling drops and the dull flitting of the bats, who alone were the living witnesses of its construction. To the rear of this great pillar the room is divided into three galleries, one above another. With great difficulty and much danger we climbed into each of these. The floors were all like the pillar of pure white onyx, and extended back a distance of thirty or more feet. The floor of one formed the roof of another. They were brilliant with hanging pendants and the side walls were all veneered with the same white and crystalline formation. To entirely describe them is impossible. A day in each would still leave the observer short of words in which to tell of the wonders.
"Turning towards the right hand from the entrance we advance two hundred feet up an incline of dry clay, the room widening gradually until its width is forty feet, when we reach the top of an elevation thirty feet above the starting point, where a sudden steep descent brings us to a halt. A stone cast down strikes water and the sound of a splash comes back to us. With caution we seek our way down the hill and stand on the edge of a small lake or pond. Suddenly my son, who is in the lead, rushes back saying: 'Look out! I put my hand on a snake.' Some of us, being armed with hickory canes that had been thrown down, concentrated our lights and advanced. Sure enough, there is a snake a yard long coiled up on a section of rotten wood. It proves to be a copperhead, the most quarrelsome and vicious snake in this country; but his nature is changed so that he makes no effort to fight and is killed with a blow, and is sent to be hoisted up that we may examine him in daylight. No others were found, and probably he had fallen in at the opening, and spent a long, weary time in expiation of his upper-earth crimes.
"Examining the lake we find it to be about forty feet wide and the same long, and it fills the room from wall to wall. We cannot pass it so must either stop or wade through. We decide to wade, and on measuring the water find it only two or three feet deep, with a soft clay bottom, and in many places islands of stalagmite rise above the surface.
"On the sides of the lake there are formations in the shape of sofas and lounges, and they appear to be cushioned, but the cushions are found to be hard, solid rock. As the lights advance across the lake new wonders are revealed. Curtains and draperies hanging from the top almost touch the water and entirely cut off the view beyond. Passing under a curtain at one of the highest places, we emerge from the lake, and once more on dry land, advance up a slope. Here the water formations have taken human shapes of all sizes and several colors now appear and help to present a chaos of beauty.
"Two hundred feet more and the chamber ends in a vast waterfall, but the water has turned to stone. Above the waterfall is an opening, but it is twenty-five feet up a smooth wall and we have no ladder. The journey was at an end. Tired, wet and muddy, we started on our return trip; recrossed the dark lake, and retraced our steps to the place under the opening without realizing that we had spent six hours under ground. While the other members of the party, and the specimens, were being raised to the surface, the writer sought to learn the flora and fauna of this new region. The flora is blank. Even the white mold so common in many caves is absent; and no fungus grows on the poles, bark and rotten wood that have at some past time been cast in.
"In animal life the range is greater. I have mentioned the ever-present bats, and dozens of them were seen. There were also small, white eyeless salamanders, small, yellow, speckled salamanders, with signs of eyes but no sight; also a jet black salamander, which like the rest, was blind. The bats were of two species—the common brown bat and the larger light grey or yellow species. But this was not the time of the year to see many bats in caves. In the summer season most of them go out and remain until cool weather, and then return to the caves with their young; so I was rather surprised to see as many as we did.
"Down comes the rope for the last time, and taking my place, I soon feel myself spinning around and slowly rising. As I again pass the magic city I saw going down, a stronger wish than ever takes possession of me to go there, and I look for any chance to solve the problem of how such a journey can be made. 'Thou art so near and yet so far.'
"Suddenly I find myself emerging from the ground into a very hot world, with the evening sun blazing so that the air feels like the scorching heat of an oven; and my late companions are scattered about under the trees, no doubt wishing themselves back in the cool regions below the hot cliffs.
"My final conclusions in regard to Fairy Cave were that it was about six hundred feet long by from fifteen to forty feet wide and from eighty to ninety feet high: that in the upper story there are rooms that I could not reach, that will amply pay the scientist and explorer to investigate in the future: that probably we reached all the accessible parts in the level we traveled: that the temperature was fifty-six or very near that degree: that small as it is, it contains the finest formations and grandest scenery I have ever seen in a cave: and I have examined over one hundred of various sizes. I believe that for interior beauty its equal is not to be found in America, and I sincerely believe that the verdict of future exploration will establish the truth of the assertion, but as equally good judges differ on such matters, time will be required for a true and just decision. There are yet many promising caves to be explored in this region, and if my strength holds out a few years I hope to see them all.