UNDERGROUND EXPLORING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

UNDERGROUND EXPLORING.

It is just upon 10 years since the now well known explorer df underground regions, M. E. A. Martel, inaugurated his series of marvellous discoveries. Within thisperiod the intrepid Paris lawyer has traversed miles of underground rivers in a folding india-rubber canoe, bivouacked in caverns 2000 and odd feet below the earth's surface, visited natural marvels for the first time gazed upon by man: and, it is hardly necessary to add, immensely added to our knowledge of subterranean flora and fauna, to say nothing of new geological and palaeontological data. Indebted as is the scientific world, and as are all interested in scientific research generally, to M. Martel, we must not suppose-"that these 'hairbreadth' 'scapes and imminent deadly dangers are undertaken simply and solely from^ scientific ardour. For his favourite nether world, M. Martel claims sublimity o^y f™^' o.^ of the heavens above. And any of us who have seen the marvels of a stalactite cave only illuminated by a candle or two can WELL BELIEVE OUR EXPLORER Here is what the traveller in eastern France can see without any other risk than that of wetting his shoes:— We follow the windings of these sombre underground palaces. In some places the stalactite roofs are lofty, in others we have to bend our heads as we pass from-one vaulted chamber to another; here we see a superb column supporting an arch, there a pillar in course of slow formation, everywhere the strangest, most fantastic architecture—an architecture, moreover, that is the work of ages, one petrifying drop after another doing its apportioned work, arch, roof, and column formed by a process so slow that the lifetime of a human being hardly counts in the calculation. The caves thus described, and visited by the present writer some years since, are those of Baume-les-Dames, near Besancon, a modest adventure enough, and a comparatively tame experience compared to those of M. MarteJ, veritable Columbus of the nether world.— 'Temple Magazine.'