Conrad Gessner the Swiss naturalist who seed‑planted modern zoology was, in true Renaissance fashion, many‑sided: physician, botanist, linguist, and intrepid spelunker. In his 1555 Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati he recounts the ascent of Mount Pilatus and, more arrestingly, the hushed interior of its caves. By moonlight the cavern is transformed: silver pours in like a shaped mist, pooling along the ceiling and setting limestone stalactites alight. They weep slow, luminous droplets that fall into forever‑damp basins on the rockmoonmilk, a pale, otherworldly secretion that keeps the cave from ever quite drying.
Conrad Gessner the Swiss naturalist who seed‑planted modern zoology was, in true Renaissance fashion, many‑sided: physician, botanist, linguist, and intrepid spelunker. In his 1555 Descriptio Montis Fracti sive Montis Pilati he recounts the ascent of Mount Pilatus and, more arrestingly, the hushed interior of its caves. By moonlight the cavern is transformed: silver pours in like a shaped mist, pooling along the ceiling and setting limestone stalactites alight. They weep slow, luminous droplets that fall into forever‑damp basins on the rockmoonmilk, a pale, otherworldly secretion that keeps the cave from ever quite drying.
