These pendant sinter formations are known as stalactites and are thus formed of concentric layers arranged like a series of nested cornucopias with a perforation of nearly uniform caliber along the axis of the structure (Fig.
When the process is long continued, stalactites and stalagmites may grow together to form columns which may be ranged with their neighbors like the pipes of an organ, and like them they give out clear tones when struck lightly with a mallet.
Can you explain why slender stalactites formed by the drip of single drops are often hollow pipes?
I have specimens of chalk formed at the root of several stalactites, and in their central parts; and of other stalactites which are hollow like quills from a similar cause, viz.
This surmise was strengthened by observing the absence of stalactites depending from the roof in these situations.
A long train of half-dipped candles hung like so manystalactites from the frames on which the rods rested, and the two were patiently dipping set after set and replacing them again on the frame.
It is filled with large beautiful stalactites of various forms, as well from the roof of the vault as on the bottom.
Rock crystal, all precious stones, white or coloured, and even diamonds, may be regarded as stalactites of this kind.
Vague, flitting forms haunted the gloom among the stalactites of the distorted ceiling--hints of the things that lived in the terrible silence of this nether world.
Long irregular spears of stalactites hung from the unseen ceiling; others, the drippings of ages, pronged up from the floor, shredding their clothes as they jarred into them.
They could dimly see the fantastic shapes of hundreds of stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
Hanging our lamps to the incrustations on the columns, the grove of Stalactites became faintly lighted up, disclosing a scene of extraordinary wildness and beauty.
Stalactites surround this in the richest fringe of icicles, and lie scattered about the walls in all shapes, as if arranged for a museum.
The stalactites fall in rich festoons, strikingly similar to the highly ornamented chapel of Henry VII.
He says, "This cave is more remarkable for extent, than the variety or beauty of its productions; having none of the beautiful stalactites found in many other caves.
If none existed, they would make them, by piling up stones at such places, or chipping a piece from the stalactites with the hatchet.
The sparkling stalactitesprojecting downward from the roof, with here and there the drops of clear filtered water, gave back the glare from the torches in a thousand coruscations.
Two of the stalactites in this chapel, called the Pillars of Hercules, are said to be thirty feet in circumference.
These stalactites being peculiar to caves, it may interest the general reader to note their formation.
Many other things of interest, but too numerous to mention, are pointed out before we reach Lake Purity, a pool of shallow water, so perfectly transparent that stalactites are seen at the bottom.
The stalactites descending from the roof, and resembling columns suspended in the air, are relieved on a back-ground of verdure.
On examining the internal structure of the stalactites which line the walls of caverns, we find in them all the characters of a chemical precipitate.
We are immersed in a wilderness of blocks, roofed and festooned with huge plates and stalactites of ice, so large that one is half disposed to seize hold and clamber up them.
To our left the glacier was greatly torn, exposing fine vertical sections, deep blue pits and chasms, which were bottomless to vision; and ledges, from whose copings hung vaster stalactitesthan those observed below.
We crossed crevasses and bergschrunds, mounted vast snow-basses, and doubled round walls of ice with long stalactites pendent from their eaves.
From the coping and the ledges of this beautiful wall hung long stalactites of ice, in some cases like inverted spears, with their sharp points free in air.
Exposed to the air, the carbonic acid partially escapes, and the simple carbonate of lime, which is hardly at all soluble in water, deposits itself as a solid, forming stalactites and stalagmites.
The stalactites in many places form solid columns of transparent crystals, which meet the stalagmites, and extend to the earth.
Stalactites are also found in a very large cave (Winoca) on Findley's fork, one of the tributaries of White river, Arkansas.
The stalactitesare found in concretions resembling icicles hanging from the roof, or in columns reaching to the floor.
It proved interesting, although of no great extent; but it contained stalactitesdepending in clusters from the walls.
The dissipation of the dissolved carbon dioxide results in the formation of "fur" in kettles or boilers, and if the solution is falling, as from the roof of a cave, in the formation of stalactites and stalagmites.
On this also depends the formation ofstalactites and calc-sinter.
In the narrowest part of it, the stalactites formed a sort of reversed grove, with the roots in the roof.
In one place, the stalactites had enclosed a room, leaving only small openings between the columns, precisely like the grating of a prison.
He sat upon a rude Gothic chair, not unlike the big pulpit seat which the minister sits in on Sundays, which had been formed, by some freak of the cave Sprites, from the interweaving and massing of stalactites and stalagmites.
Just then Dewpoint came out of a pavilion or chamber which was contrived by using stalagmites as pillars and stalactites as supports.
The wax candles, burned to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the chandeliers.
Stalagmites and stalactiteson the roof and floor of a cavern, 257.
Stalactites and stalagmites on roof and floor of a cavern.
The glinting of the sun's rays through the crevices in the cave, and the sparkling of the stalactites on the walls, first awakened Sybil.
There was but a faint sparkling of light in the cave, coming from a crevice in the roof through which the moonlight entered, and glancing down, struck here and there upon the stalactiteson the walls.
Stalactites were first seen here, and involuntarily we cast sly glances around to discover the bodies of kings preserved beneath such droppings in "King Solomon's Mines.
Beautiful views of stalactitesand stalagmites stand out in bold relief against snow white walls.
The lime of which the stalactites are formed being mixed with various oxides and other impurities, they are all of a dark brown, or gray, or muddy color.
I was somewhat disappointed in the display of stalactites and other similar formations of the protocarbonate of lime found in the cave.
These are an entirely different formation from the stalactites, being formed only in a perfectly dry atmosphere, while the stalactites are necessarily formed in a moist one.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "stalactites" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
