center.  The bed of the stream is eroded from strata of sandstone that is extremely hard, containing corundum, and so perfect is its continuity that it conveys sound distinctly for a distance far beyond the reach of the human voice, when tapped upon with a hammer.  The top of the arch is studded with lovely stalactites, clear as glass, that extend to the outer edge of the arch and form massive and beautiful groups there.  Above the arch is a large opening.  In truth the side of the room is out, and a great dark space appears like a curtain of black.  A natural path leads up over one side of the arch, and following the lead of the guide you go up above and learn that a room on the higher level extends off in that direction and gets larger and higher.  The walls are stalagmitic columns in cream color and decked in places with blood-red spots or blotches of Titanic size.  The ceiling you cannot see.  It is too high for the lights you have to reach.  On the left you are suddenly confronted by a stalagmitic formation so large and so grand that all others are dwarfed into insignificance.  You think of the dome of the Capitol at Washington.  You are standing at the sloping base but cannot see the top.  Just here the guide announces in an awestruck voice ‘Blondy’s Throne.’  And who is Blondy?  Only a fair-haired, blue-eyed, intrepid and daring fifteen-year-old boy, named Charles Smallwood, who assisted the writer in exploring the cave in the early days of 1883, and going on in advance, reported back that he had found another and a greater throne than the Great White Throne in the Auditorium.

[Illustration:  Blondy’s Throne.  Page 47.]

“Well, here we are at Blondy’s Throne at last, and surveying the base, we find that it is actually only half in the room we are in; the other half forms the side of another room.  In a word, the Great Throne divides the room into two parts and makes two rooms of it instead of one.  Yet the one half of the base has a measurement, by tape line, of one hundred and fifty feet.  The guide now makes preparations to ascend the Throne.  A chain has been fastened up towards the top, and by taking hold of this the climb can be made up the sloping sides of the Throne.  We pass on and up over the clearest and most ice-like formation, resembling the great icebergs seen at sea.  Reaching an elevation of sixty feet an opening into the dome is found, and stooping, you enter.  It is a room about twenty feet across, with a white ice-like floor, a roof or ceiling ten feet above, and from it hang thousands of brilliant stalactites and from the floor stalagmites rise up to meet them.  They are in all sizes, from an inch to two feet across.  The sides are of the same material joined and cemented lightly together.  Strike any of them and clear musical notes are given off; a musician has found two full octaves.  Water is dripping in many places, and in the center of the floor is a tank full of clear water.  It is four feet wide, twelve feet long and of unknown depth.