Now reader, we are among the beautiful formation of Cleaveland's [suc] Cabinet. Above the rivers the rough stone is bare of ornament, and stands grim and stern, but now we begin to find those fanciful specimens of gypsum, that the fairies, appearing to take under their particular supervision, carve into the most enchanting forms. Exquisitely perfect rosettes covered the walls, while fantastic formations were scattered wildly about, some still pendant, but many broken off and piled upon the ground. Our Irish friend went into ectasises, and long before we came to any of the more beautiful specimens, had collected huge masses of crystal gypsum, much to Stephen's amusement, who advised him to carry a piece of about two feet square, which, as it weighed near forty pounds, the poor man could scarcely lift. "Now," said Stephen, "lay all your beautiful collections carefully away upon this stone, and when you come back you will not touch one of them." McCarlin, while doing so, said he did not believe he cold find any thing prettier, in which opinion we half coincided. On our return, however, he cold hardly be convinced they were really the specimens he had a few h ours previous so extravagantly admire. As we advanced, our delight and surprise increased. We were in a castle of the Fairies. Those delicate flowers, whiter than snow; those harlequin shapes; those miniature turrets and domes and trees and spiries; those virgin rings of purest alabaster; all supported by a back-ground of huge grim rock. The ice palace of Russia was surpassed. It was against the law to break off any thing, though we might pick kup as much as we liked. Tom and I selected several pretty rosettes, while McCarlin wandered around, admiring those on the ceiling, and begging Stephen to let him have "only that rosette." Till the guide, at least out of humor by his companion, pointed to a beautiful one on the ceiling ten feet above our heads, and said he might take that. It was a beauty, so perfectly symmetrical and delicate with its long petal projecting from the cener. The Irishman as half deranged with delight. "What shall I cut if off with?" "I don't know; with your knife, perhaps." "Yes, of course; here is my knife. But how am I to reach it?" "This is your own affair. Had you not better roll that stone under it? pointing to a rock that weighed about two tons. McCarlin had only to look toward the stone to see he had been most emphatically "sold." To restore him to good humor, the guide offered to sell a specimen, that he had long kept, waiting for some such liberal person. He drew a huge common-place piece of gypsum from under a rock, saying: "There, that is a beauty. Is it not, Sir? appealing to Tom. Tom saw the way the current set, and remembering some hard words about Protestantism, eagerly rejoined. "Perfect; it is worth a fortune; so pure, so transparent." "How much? demanded the Irishman of Stephen. "Well, as my master told me to let you have some good specimens, you shall hae it for ten dollars." "Ten dollars!" That is outrageous. I will not pay so much." "Much? - it's dog cheap. But if you are are satisfied I will add another beauty that I have secreted over there." And diving round the rock, I heard him hunting among some old pieces of gypsum from whence he soon returned with one that I recognized as once as having been rejected scornfully by McCarlin some minutes before, when the guide had kindly picked it up and gratuitously offered it to him. Tom praised this one in still more extravagant terms, so that at length McCarlin submitting to imposition the second, paid the ten dollars. Words fail me to describe these gypsum formations. Go to your garden, cull the prettiest flowers, make them into a bouquet, and imagine them ten times handsomer and more delicate, then conceive the whole transformed into the whitest marble, and you will have some idea of what lay around us. The merry figures that Jack Frost paints upon our windows in the cold December nights are here converted into tangible permanent reality; while every beast, bird, bush and production of nature here finds a miniature copy of itself. There are elephants, tigers and camels, doves and hawks, trees of all varieties, and bushes and plants, sprouting from the bare surface of the rock, and nourished by silence and darkness. It reminded one much of the foam of a sea petrified. After leaving Cleaveland's Cabinet, the air became damper, and the walls were covered with moisture. We heard invisible streams of water tinkling along their hidden course. McCarlin walked up to his knees into a beautiful little pool of clear water, called Lake Purity. The water of all these ponds and rivulets is extremely transparent, and in the dim torch-light scarcely visible. I trode into one while admiring he scenery, and McCarlin measured the depth of half-a-dozen. Stephen kindly requested him to step out of Lake Purity, as we were to eat our dinner on its shore, and slake our thirst from its crystal wave. To be continued with their lunch time. Sandi --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com