Near Jiangkou Town in Wulong County in Chongqing, halfway up the mountain on the left bank of the Furong(Lotus)River, a branch of the Wujiang River there is a place called ¡°Panjia Yan." This is the location of a "Vapor Cave", that gives off steam in winter and cool air in summer. All year round it is wreathed in mist, accompanied by a thundering sound. For centuries, creepy stories about this ¡°Vapor Cave¡± have abounded and locals did not dare enter£®In May l993, several villagers braved to explore it with torches£®0ne year after their first exploration, on May l, l 994. This ¡°Vapor Cave¡± was renamed the ¡°Furong Cave¡± and was officially opened to tourists.

Entering Furong Cave for the first time, the first thing I saw was layer upon layer of silvery white stone curtains like clusters of clouds; below the stone curtains were tiers of stone "fields" and pillars like tall trees towering into the sky. What a beautiful scene...like a scroll painting. By a crystalline clear pool, calcites glittered under colorful lights; drooping down over the pond were two jade-like stalactites. This pool, one of the biggest and most beautiful speleothem pools is called "Jasper Lake of Corals."

The opening of the Furong Cave was big news in Chongqing that year and immediately drew the attention of speleologists. Before it was opened, no one had found its natural entrance. Later, an international cave exploration team carried out five large-scale scientific investigations over l08 days. They discovered a huge secret: that there were 108 perpendicular shafts within a l0-kilometer radius of the Furong Cave and that the Vapor Pit Cave, at 920 meters deep, was the deepest in China. And all of them were connected to the Furong Cave! They also found that the Furong Cave had more than l 00 kinds of speleothems, a veritable cave science museum.

One day in l997, during the Chinese New Year holiday, a retired official, Wang Chengyun, round a cave entrance near the Longhe Valley. 12 kilometers from Fengdu county seat. He immediately went home and invited some compamons to explore it further. After two or more weeks' investigation, they discovered lots of white stalactites in the cave. They reported it to the local government and Professor Zhu Xuewen came to investigate it. Later, he gave a Very high assessment of the cave's value in terms of tourism and of scientific research and named it Xueyu(Snow Jade)Cave. In the autumn of 2001, my friends in Fengdu invited me to visit the cave and Professor Zhu Xuewen volunteered his services as guide.

Torch in hand. I followed him into the Xueyu Cave. Everywhere I shone the torch was a staggeringly beautiful calcium deposit a shimmering stone "flag," translucent and fine as a cicada's wings, snow-white stalagmites, a white and immaculate stone "shield"shaped like a penguin...To me, caked in mud, their delicacy and purity was a reminder of teenage natural beauty.

In March 2005, when Professor Elery Hamilton-Smith, Chairman of the Special Cave Working Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN)visited the Xueyu Cave, he commented that of all ten thousand caves he had investigated, the Xueyu Cave was the most beautiful.

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