| 959 Roman letters, no one knows their age: they are as old as the Etheopic, Celtic, or Greek, for each have some of those letters in it, and who knows when they were first invented? The work goes on; and so to the story:
ANOTHER MAMMOTH CAVE.
A very remarkable cave, recently discovered in Missouri, is thus described by the Boonville (Mo.) Statesman. We fear the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, will have to look out for its laurels. Neighbor Bullitt of the Picayune, what have you to say in the premises?
A most extraordinary cave was recently discovered in Howard county, between Glasgow and Cooper's bottom. One of the farmers of the neighborhood, wanting rock to build, we believe, a chimney, went to an adjacent hill-side for the purpose of quarrying there. In striking the earth with a hoe or some similar implement, a sound was emitted plainly indicating that the hill-side was hallow beneath, and proceeding to remove the dirt covering the surface, he discovered a wall built of stone, and built evidently by human hands. This wall he displaced, and it gave him entrance to the mouth of a cave, which, upon subsequent examination, he found a most extraordinary natural curiosity. The cave has been explored to the distance of 300 yards. Twenty-five or thirty yards from the entrance is a sort of room, the sides of which, according to an account in the 'Glasgow Pilot,' present a most brilliant and wonderful appearance. The writer, who entered the cave with a lantern says:
"I had not proceeded far, before I entered the principal chamber that by a single light presented the most magnificent scene that I ever beheld. The ceiling of the most splendid cavern is some eighteen or twenty feet high, and of a hectagon form, the whole ceiling presenting a shiny surface as though it was set with diamonds."
Very near the mouth, another writer says, there is a stone shaped like a horse, but not so large, being only about three feet high.
"The head, neck and the body are entirely finished, and part of one hind leg and all the rest is solid stone. The neck is made of three pieces, and stuck or fastened together something like cabinet makers put the corners of drawers together, (dovetailed,) the rest is all solid."
In another part of the cave the walls on one side are very smooth. On these walls numerous letters, figures and hieroglyphics appear, most of which, however, are so defaced as to render them unintelligible. Nevertheless the figures 1, 2, 5, and 7 are quite plain. Just above these figures the letter D O N and C A R L O are legible. Further on, the letters J. H. S. appear on the wall. An arm of the main cavern has also been discovered, and has been explored some two hundred yards. A writer says:
The walls and ceiling of this extraordinary cave are pretty much the same as in the other rooms. The walls have a peculiar and extraordinary brilliancy, occasioned, I discovered, from the fact that instead of stone as we first believed, we found them to be of a metal, very much resembling sulphate [sulfate] of iron but of a silvery appearance. We had not proceeded very far before we heard a rumbling noise that occasionally broke upon our ears in notes the most thrilling and melodious I ever heard. We stood for a considerable time in breathless silence to catch the most enchanting sounds that ever greeted the ear of man, and it was only at an interval that we could summon courage enough to explore its source, which we did, and were much surprised to find it proceeded form a gushing spring in the side of the wall. The sounds we heard we found to be produced by the fall of water, and varied by the current of air before alluded to, which we then found to be very strong. We each took a hearty draught of the limped water of this gushing spring, and, after surveying the diamond walls of the greatest natural curiosity in the world, we commenced retracing our steps to its mouth, when we found it to be quite dark and eight o'clock at night.
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