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.
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