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Updated: September 24, 2025
Sometimes the stalagmites took strange forms, presumably where the dropping of the water had not always been on the same spot. Thus, one huge mass, which must have weighed a hundred tons or so, was in the shape of a pulpit, beautifully fretted over outside with a design that looked like lace.
Of the cave he says: "This cave is a quarter of a mile east of Cave Spring Creek, and has a wide and elevated entrance; passing into it a hundred yards or more, the passage narrows, and in order to go further a stream of water has frequently to be waded through; this passage has been followed by some persons several miles without finding any object of interest; but a few hundred yards from the entrance, by diverging to the right, we enter a large chamber, studded with stalactites and stalagmites, many uniting and forming solid columns of support.
Standing up from its bottom were half a dozen slim formations, like idealized stalagmites; they were made of some semitransparent rock, apparently, the tint being a reddish yellow. Finally, perched on the top of each of these was a stone; and surrounding these six "landmarks," as Van Emmon called them, was the most prodigious display of wealth imaginable.
Upton, and other heads of the settlement, "that some of our hunters have reported the existence of great caves to the southwestward and that they have brought back from them wonderful stalactites and stalagmites and also dust from the cave floors. I find that this dust is strongly impregnated with niter; from niter we obtain saltpeter and from saltpeter we make gunpowder.
From this the hot mineral waters drip over into lower basins, of gracefully curved and scalloped outline, the minerals deposited on the lips of the basin forming stalagmites of variegated hue, yielding a brilliant and beautiful effect.
The climate is remarkably healthy, and diseases of locality are unknown. Land can be purchased for eight shillings per acre on terms of deferred payments. One curious feature of Selangor, as of Perak, is the occurrence of isolated hills of limestone varying from eighty to one thousand feet in height. At Batu there are magnificent limestone caves, richly adorned with stalactites and stalagmites.
For carbonate of lime is a widely-spread substance, and is met with under very various conditions. All sorts of limestones are composed of more or less pure carbonate of lime. The crust which is often deposited by waters which have drained through limestone rocks, in the form of what are called stalagmites and stalactites, is carbonate of lime.
Stalagmites in strange fantastic forms rose to meet them. Vivid brightness and beauty were on every side, but of that kind that threw a chill on the beholder. All was of cold blue ice, and so natural was it that the eye seemed to penetrate its clear crystal. To the right was an opening in the grotto, through which was caught a glimpse of a summer landscape, a vivid contrast to the icy cave.
I then came to a round hole, apparently artificial, opening through a curtain of stalagmitic formation into a great cavern beyond, which was quite animated and festal with flashes, sparkles, and diamond-lustres, hung in their myriads upon a movement of the eye, these being produced by large numbers of snowy wet stalagmites, very large and high, down the centre of which ran a continuous long lane of clothes and hats and faces; with hasty reluctant feet I somehow passed over them, the cave all the time widening, thousands of stalactites appearing on the roof of every size, from virgin's breast to giant's club, and now everywhere the wet drip, drip, as it were a populous busy bazaar of perspiring brows and hurrying feet, in which the only business is to drip.
During the old stone period in England and other European countries, these caverns were the only abodes of man, and in them have been found layers from twenty to thirty feet thick, of successive accretions of bone, stalagmites and various articles of human manufacture."
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