rocks, but I presently observed an opening, where a stream flowed into the sea, and saw that our geese and ducks were swimming toward this place. I steered after them into the creek, and we found ourselves in a small bay or inlet where the water was perfectly smooth and of moderate depth. The ground sloped gently upward from the low banks of the cliffs, which here retired inland, leaving a small plain, on which it was easy for us to land.

THE CAVE

I was anxious to visit Tentholm, for I feared that much of our precious stores might have suffered. Fritz and I made an excursion thither. The damage done to Falconhurst was as nothing compared to the scene that awaited us. The tent was blown to the ground, the canvas torn to rags, the provisions soaked and two casks of powder utterly destroyed. We immediately spread such things The pin

as we hoped yet to preserve, in the sun to dry. nace was safe, but our faithful tub boat was dashed in pieces, and the irreparable damage we had sustained made me resolve to contrive some safer and more stable winter quarters before the arrival of the next rainy season.

Fritz proposed that we should hollow out a cave in the rock, and though the difficulties such an undertaking would present appeared almost insurmountable, I yet determined to make the attempt; we might not, I thought, hew out a cavern of sufficient size to serve as a room, but we might at least, make a cellar for the more valuable and perishable of our stores.

Some days afterward we left Falconhurst with the cart laden with a cargo of spades, hammers, chisels, pickaxes,

CH. LIT. V. -4

and crowbars, and began our undertaking. On the smooth face of the perpendicular rock I drew out in chalk the size of the proposed entrance, and then, with minds bent on success, we battered away. Six days of hard and incessant toil made but little impression; I do not think that the hole would have been a satisfactory shelter for even Master Knips; but we still did not despair, and were presently rewarded by coming to a softer and more yielding substance; our work progressed, and our minds were relieved.

On the tenth day, as our persevering blows were falling heavily, Jack, who was working diligently with hammer and crowbar, shouted :

"Gone, father! Fritz, my bar has gone through the mountain!"

"Run around and get it," laughed Fritz; "perhaps it has dropped into Europe - you must not lose a good crowbar."

66

But, really, it is through; it went right through the rock; I heard it crash down inside. Oh, do come and see!" he shouted excitedly.

We sprang to his side, and I thrust the handle of my hammer into the hole he spoke of; it met with no opposition. I could turn it in any direction I chose. Fritz handed me a long pole; I tried the depth with that. Nothing could I feel. A thin wall, then, was all that was between us and a great cavern.

With a shout of joy, the boys battered vigorously at the rock; piece after piece fell, and soon the hole was large enough for us to enter. As I stepped near the opening, and was about to make a further examination, a sudden

rush of poisonous air turned me giddy, and shouting to my sons to stand off, I leaned against the rock.

When I came to myself, I explained to them the danger of approaching any cavern or other place where the air has been for a long time stagnant. 66 Unless air is incessantly renewed, it becomes vitiated," I said, "and fatal to those who breathe it. The safest way of restoring it to its original state is to subject it to the action of fire; a few handfuls of blazing hay thrown into this hole may, if the place be small, sufficiently purify the air within to allow us to enter without danger." We tried the experiThe flame was extinguished the instant it entered. Though bundles of blazing hay were thrown in, no difference was made.

ment.

I saw that we must apply some more effective remedy, and sent the boys for a chest of signal rockets we had brought from the wreck. We let fly some dozens of these fiery serpents, which went whizzing in, and disappeared, apparently at a vast distance from us. Some flew round like radiant meteors, lighted up the mighty circumference, and displayed, as by a magician's wand, a sparkling, glittering roof. They looked like avenging dragons driving a foul, malignant fiend out of a beauteous palace.

We waited for a little while after these experiments, and then I again threw in lighted hay. It burned clearly; the air was purified.

Fritz and I enlarged the opening, while Jack, springing on his buffalo, thundered away to Falconhurst to bear the great and astonishing news to his mother. Great must have been the effect of Jack's eloquence on those at home, for the timbers of the bridge were soon again resounding

under the swift but heavy tramp of his steed; and he was quickly followed by the rest of our party in the car.

All were in the highest state of excitement. Jack had stowed in the cart all the candles he could find, and now we lighted these, shouldered our arms, and entered the cave. I led the way, sounding the ground as I advanced, with a long pole, that we might not unexpectedly fall into some great hole, or chasm. Silently we marched the mother, the boys, and even the dogs seeming overawed with the grandeur and beauty of the scene. We were in a grotto of diamonds — a vast cave of glittering crystal: the candles reflected on the walls a golden light, bright as the stars of heaven, while great crystal pillars rose from the floor like mighty trees, mingling their branches high above us and drooping in hundreds of stalactites, which sparkled and glittered with all the colors of the rainbow.

The floor of this magnificent palace was formed of hard dry sand, so dry that I saw at once that we might safely take up our abode there without the slightest fear of danger on account of dampness.

From the appearance of the brilliant crystals round about us I suspected their nature. I tasted a piece. This was a cavern of rock salt. There was no doubt about it - here was an unlimited supply of the best and purest salt!

We returned to Falconhurst with minds full of wonder at our new discovery, and plans for turning it to the best possible advantage.

Nothing was now talked of but the new house, how it should be arranged and fitted up. Light and air were to be admitted, so we hewed a row of windows in the rock. The cave was divided into four parts; in front a large

compartment into which the door opened. This was subdivided into sitting room, eating and sleeping departments; the right hand division contained our kitchen and workshop, the left our stables, while in the rear of all we had our storehouse and powder magazine. We contrived to build a fireplace and a chimney. For two months we worked steadily at our salt cave, in order to complete the necessary arrangement of partition walls, so as to put the rooms and the stalls for the animals in comfortable order

for the next long rainy season. We first leveled the floors with clay, then spread gravel, mixed with melted gypsum over that, producing a smooth hard surface. We now had a spacious and comfortable home for the rainy season when we could be in the open air but little.

TO THE KATYDID

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1809, the same year as Lincoln, Gladstone, Tennyson, and Darwin. Upon leaving college he studied law for a 'year and then abandoned it for the study of medicine. He became professor and lecturer in the Harvard Medical School, a position that he filled for thirty-five years. He died in 1894. The first of Holmes's poems to attract general attention was "Old Ironsides." Dr. Holmes is so noted as an author that we rarely remember that he was almost equally eminent as a physician. "The Autocrat at the Breakfast Table" is the most popular of all his prose works. He

HOLMES