[Illustration:  The Bridal Veil.  Page 187.]

At some little distance from Crystal Lake, and not within the same range of vision, although in the same room, is Dry Lake, which to the surprise of the guide we found to be not dry, but full of limpid water through which we could distinctly see the delicate clusters of crystals it is depositing.  They are of a pale honey yellow and are called Gum-drops on account of the resemblance to that variety of confection.

The name Dry Lake was given because in blasting out a passage a misdirected shot went through the bottom of the Lake, which in consequence was soon drained; but the heavily charged water has sealed up the unfortunate break, and resumed its interrupted work.  The ceiling drops to a height of little more than three feet directly above the Lake margin, and is a beautiful crystal mass, which at a little distance down the sloping floor appears as the background for a fine piece of cave statuary called The Bridal Veil, and formed of cream-tinted dripstone.  Not a great deal of imagination is required to see a slender girlish figure completely enveloped in the flowing folds of a wedding veil that falls lightly about her feet.  The figure itself is three feet ten inches in height and stands on an almost flat circular base of the same material, that measures nine inches in depth and two feet eight inches in diameter.  At times the water rises sufficiently to cover the base, in proof of which it left a fringe-like border of small sharp crystals, such as could be formed only beneath the water’s surface.  Most of this border has, unfortunately, been chiseled off for specimens, but will be renewed in time if left undisturbed; and that condition can easily be secured with a few feet of wire netting.

To one side of this room is a most daintily beautiful alcove so profusely decorated with fragile forms of dripstone that a passage through it without causing damage is extremely difficult.  This alcove is about twenty-five feet in either direction, with a sloping floor almost covered with stalagmitic growths above the earlier deposit of sharp crystals, and many of these rise in slender columns to the glass-like ceiling, which varies in height from three to six feet and is thickly studded with small stalactites of both varieties—­the pointed, solid form, and those of uniform size, which are always hollow like a pipe stem.  The central ornament is the Chimes, a musical group of stalactites which is scarcely more beautiful than Cleopatra’s Needle, at a distance of a few feet to one side, a transparent column four feet in height and having an average circumference of seventeen inches.

[Illustration:  The Chimes.  Page 188.]

[Illustration:  The Needle.  Page 188.]

[Illustration:  Tower of Babel.  Page 189.]

The Abode of the Fairies is a similar, though smaller room, with The Tower of Babel for a handsome show-piece.  While this portion of the cave is extremely attractive, the measurements given show that in comparison with caves of other states the drip deposit here is too small to be reckoned an important feature in itself, but in conjunction with the miles of calc-spar that give the cave a character distinctly its own, it well repays all attention.