Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852 - Various - Страница 13

At one point in the eastern face of the Usdum mountain, that is the face which is turned toward the sea, there is a cavern. This cavern seems to have been formed by a spring. A spring of water issuing from among soluble strata will, of course, always produce a cavern, as its waters must necessarily dissolve and wear away the substance of the rock, and so, in the process of ages, form an open recess leading into the heart of the mountain. The few European travelers who have ever passed the road that leads along the base of this mountain, have generally stopped to examine and explore this cavern. It is irregular in its form, but very considerable in extent. The mouth of it is ten or twelve feet high, and about the same in breadth. Robinson and his party went into it with lights. They followed it for three or four hundred feet into the heart of the mountain, until at length they came to a place where it branched off into two small fissures, which could not be traced any farther. A small stream of water was trickling slowly along its bed in the floor of the cavern, which, as well as the walls and roof, were of solid salt. There were clear indications that the quantity of water flowing here varied greatly at different seasons; and the cavern itself was undoubtedly formed by the action of the stream.