Whitewashing Kilkenny Marble

Saturday, July 10.--We rode to Kilkenny, one of the pleasantest and the most ancient cities in the kingdom and not inferior to any at all in wickedness, or in hatred to this way. I was therefore glad of a permission to preach in the Town Hall, where a small, serious company attended in the evening. Sunday, 11. I went to the cathedral, one of the best built which I have seen in Ireland.

The pillars are all of black marble; but the late Bishop ordered them to be whitewashed. Indeed, marble is so plentiful near this town that the very streets are paved with it.

Monday, 12.--I went to Dunmore Cave, three or four miles from Kilkenny. It is fully as remarkable as Poole's Hole, or any other in the Peak. The opening is round, parallel to the horizon and seventy or eighty yards across. In the midst of this there is a kind of arch, twenty or thirty feet high. By this you enter into the first cave, which is nearly round and forty or fifty feet in diarneter. It is encompassed with spar-stones, just like those on the sides of Poole's Hole. On one side of the cave is a narrow passage which goes under the rock two or three hundred yards; on the other, a hollow which no one has ever been able to find an end of. I suppose this hole too, as well as many others, was formed by the waters of the deluge retreating into the great abyss, with which probably it communicates.

Monday, 26.--In some respects the work of God in Dublin was more remarkable than even that in London. 1) It is far greater, in proportion to the time and to the number of people. That society had above seven-and-twenty hundred members; this not a fifth part of the number. Six months after the flame broke out there, we had about thirty witnesses of the great salvation. In Dublin there were about forty in less than four months. 2.) The work was more pure. In all this time, while they were mildly and tenderly treated, there were none of them headstrong or unadvisable; none that were wiser than their teachers; none who dreamed of being immortal or infallible or incapable of temptation: in short, no whimsical or enthusiastic persons; all were calm and sober-minded.