CURIOSITIES OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MINES.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3957, 3 September 1881, Page 4

CURIOSITIES OF ANCIENT MEXICAN MINES.

A gontleman who recently had occasion to l!lefiplb're l|th >c' chambers, drifts, and caverns of the old deserted Mexican and Ophir mines says v jybat .fungi of everyimaginableOjduMthave ta&eh^poß'session of the old levels. In these old mines undisturbed for years/ is found a fungus world in, which are to, be seen counterfeits of almost everything seen in our daylight, world. Owing to the warmth of the old levels and to the presence in them of a certain amount of moisture, the timbers have been-jpafde^to^ growijfoipejcurious crops. Sotn'e" of the fungi in the old chambers are several feet in .height, s and being snow white resemble sheeted ghosts.-.■! In places are what at a little distance appear to be white owls, and there are representations of goats with long beards, all as white as though carved in the purest marble. The rank fungus growth'has almost closed some of the drifts. The fungj ar ; e of almost every imaginable variety^ ,Some kinds hang down from the timber Jike great bunches of snow white hair, and others are great pulp masses. Thesejast, generally, rise;,,from ;the .rocks forming the'floor of the drifts, and seem, to bdVe grb^frbln'something dropped or' spilled on the ground at the time work was in progress years ago,. There growths have-in-several places raised from the ground rocks weighing from 10 to 50 andeven lOOlbs. Some of the rocks have thus been ( ,.lifted .more than| three feet; In thfih higher levels, iwbere the-air is comparitively dry, ,the 4 .fungijare less massive in structure than" below and are much firmer in texture. Some resemble rams' horns r -as4hey grow-in a spiral or twisted shape, while others, .four or five feet in length and about thethickness oi a broomhandle, hang from thecap timbers like soj many snakea jsnspended;by, the tails. One kind after sending out a stern the thickness ~6t&'jien6i\'ib' the length of a foot or two, appears .to, blossom —at least :pr(iduces |at the «nd'bf a; bulbdus mrfss? what has some resemblance to a flower. In all the infinite variety of these underground fungi itj is somewhat-Strange that not one was seen: at all likei. $p§s<j) growing upon the, surface';in the iig'ht'of iJay. Nothing in the nature; of toadstools or mushtopms were,found. .