At last perserverance is rewarded with a view of the cave buildings and the summit of the hill rising yet higher beyond, and tall, straight pines swaying in the rising wind over all.

One of the two houses was entered and preparations quickly made for entering the cave, the artificial tunnel entrance being only a little distance further on.

The door was unlocked, candle-sticks taken from a shelf within, candles from the guide’s supply lighted, and we went forward at last, into Crystal Cave.  At the end of the new tunnel, a second door was passed through, which is locked on the inside during the visiting season by the last guide to enter, in order that no chance late arrival may enter alone and be lost.

The first room is a small one at the junction of the natural and artificial entrances, from which we go upstairs to the Resting Room, in the highest level of the cave, and perfectly dry but otherwise of no special interest.  After a short rest here we went down stairs at the side opposite that on which we entered, into a passage leading to the cave’s first beauty, the Red Room.  As the name indicates, the walls are vividly colored and represent the uncertain line which separates the Carboniferous strata from the Triassic rocks.  The color is handsomely brought out here in contrast with masses of calcite crystal, so as to present by the combination a charmingly beautiful room, from which we retired, feet first, down a “squeeze” to the Bridal Chamber, where we found ourselves perched on an irregular narrow ledge, high up on the wall, and cherishing a private conviction that exploration had met a checkmate; but the guide reached the floor and my nephew, Herbert, scrambled down with as much ease as the chipmunk he had chased to the house top a while before; so a little application settled the difficulty and re-united the party.  The room is an artistic study in red, and the only reason for its being called the Bridal Chamber is that the way out is decidedly more rough and difficult than that by which the entrance is effected; this, however, is an observation not based on official information.

Off to one side of this room is Lost Man’s Paradise, also in red and crystal, named in honor of the timely rescue of one who had faced the possibility of becoming a lost soul.

Another Fat Man’s Misery, on a lower level, leads from the Bridal Chamber to the Big Dome, a large room with a fine dome-shaped ceiling from which heavy masses of crystals have fallen to the floor; and down a steep incline from here is Reef Rock, an immense fallen rock with box work on the under side, which at one time served to ornament the ceiling; and now this rock marks the beginning of Poverty Flat, a broad, low passage of great extent, that has been robbed of all its wonderful treasure of crystal and ends in a steep, rough declivity named Bunker Hill by the guides who dreaded to mount it when going out loaded with specimens.  At the foot of the Hill is a bowlder of enormous size and with a pointed top, known as Pyramid Rock and giving the same name to the large room in which it stands.