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RAMBLES IN THE MAMMOTH CAVE,
DURING THE YEAR 1844,
BY A VISITER.
By
Alexander Clark Bullitt
LOUISVILLE, KY.:
MORTON & GRISWOLD.
1845.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by
MORTON & GRISWOLD,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Kentucky.
Printed by MORTON & GRISWOLD.
ERRATA.
Page 11th, fifth line from the bottom; for _faltering_, read pattering.
Page 46th, eighth line from the top--"They are well furnished, and,
without question, _would with_ good and comfortable accommodations,
pure air, and uniform temperature, cure the pulmonary consumption.
_The_ invalids in the Cave ought to be cured, &c.,"
_read_,
They are well furnished, and, without question, _if_ good and
comfortable accommodations, pure air, and uniform temperature, _could_
cure the pulmonary consumption, _the_ invalids in the Cave ought to be
cured.
Page 101, last line: read, "It has no brother: it _is like_ no brother."
PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT.
To meet the calls so frequently made upon as by intelligent visitors
to our City, for some work descriptive of the Mammoth Cave, we are, at
length, enabled to present the public a succinct, but instructive
narrative of a visit to this "Wonder of Wonders," from the pen of a
gentleman, who, without professing to have explored ALL that is
curious or beautiful or sublime in its vast recesses, has yet seen
every thing that has been seen by others, and has described enough to
quicken and enlighten the curiosity of those who have never visited
it.
Aware of the embarrassment which most persons experience who design
visiting the Cave, owing to the absence of any printed itinerary of
the various routes leading to it, we have supplied, in the present
volume, this desideratum, from information received from reliable
persons residing on the different roads here enumerated. The road from
Louisville to the Cave, and thence to Nashville, is graded the entire
distance, and the greater part of it M'Adamized. From Louisville to
the mouth of Salt river, twenty miles, the country is level, with a
rich alluvial soil, probably at some former period the bed of a lake.
A few miles below the former place and extending to the latter, a
chain of elevated hills is seen to the South-East, affording beautiful
and picturesque situations for country seats, and strangely overlooked
by the rich and tasteful. The river is crossed by a ferry, and the
traveler is put down at a comfortable inn in the village of West
Point. Two miles from the mouth of Salt river, begins the ascent of
Muldrow's Hill. The road is excellent, and having elevated hills on
either side, is highly romantic to its summit, five miles. From the
top of this hill to Elizabethtown, the country is well settled, though
the improvements are generally indifferent--the soil thin, but well
adapted to small-grain, and oak the prevailing growth. Elizabethtown,
twenty-five miles from the mouth of Salt river, is quite a pretty and
flourishing village, built chiefly of brick, with several churches and
three large inns. From this place to Nolin creek, the distance is ten
miles. Here there is a small town, containing some ten or twelve log
houses, a large saw and grist mill, and a comfortable and very neat
inn, kept by Mr. Mosher. Immediately after crossing this creek, the
traveler enters "Yankee Street," as the inhabitants style this section
of the road. For a distance of ten or twelve miles from Nolin toward
Bacon creek, the land belongs, or did belong to the former Postmaster
General, Gideon Granger, and on either side of the road, to the extent
of Mr. G.'s possessions, are settlements made by emigrants from New
York and the New England States. From Bacon creek to Munfordsville,
eight miles, the country is pleasantly undulating, and here, indeed
the whole route from Elizabethtown to the Cave, passes through what
was until recently a Prairie, or, in the language of the country,
"Barrens," and renders it highly interesting, especially to the
botanist, from the multitude and variety of flowers with which it
abounds during the Spring and Autumn months. Munfordsville, and
Woodsonville directly opposite, are situated on Green river, on high
and broken ground. They are small places, in each of which, however,
are comfortable inns. Boats laden with tobacco and other produce,
descend from this point and from a considerable distance above, to New
Orleans. About two and a half miles beyond Munfordsville, the new
State road to the Cave, (virtually made by Dr. Croghan, at a great
expense,) leaves the Turnpike, and joins it again at the Dripping
Springs, eight miles below, on the route to Nashville. This road, in
going from Louisville to Nashville, is not only the shortest by three
and a half miles, but to the Cave it is from ten to twelve miles
shorter than the one taken by visiters previous to its construction.
It therefore lessens the inconvenience, delay and consequent expense
to which travelers were formerly subjected. The road itself is an
excellent one, the country through which it passes highly picturesque,
and Dr. Croghan has entitled himself to the gratitude of the traveling
community by his liberality and enterprise in constructing it.
Persons visiting the Cave by Steamer, (a boat leaves Louisville for
Bowling-Green every week) will find much to interest them in the
admirable locks and dams, rendering the navigation of Green river safe
and good at all seasons for boats of a large class. Passengers can
obtain conveyances at all times and at moderate rates, from
Bowling-Green, by the Dripping Spring, to the Cave, distant twenty-two
miles. Fifteen miles of this road is M'Adamized, the remainder is
graded and not inferior to the finished portion. The last eight miles
from the Dripping Spring to the Cave, cannot fail to excite the
admiration of every one who delights in beholding wild and beautiful
scenery. A visit to the Cedar Springs on this route, is alone worth a
journey of many miles. Passengers on the upper turnpike, from
Bardstown to Nashville, can, on reaching Glasgow, at all times procure
conveyances to the Cave, either by Bell's or by Prewett's Knob.
Arrived at the Cave, the visitor alights at a spacious hotel, the
general arrangements, attendance and _cuisine_ of which, are adapted
to the most fastidious taste. He feels that as far as the "creature
comforts" are necessary to enjoyment, the prospect is full of promise;
nor will he be disappointed. And now, this first and most important
preliminary to a traveler settled to his perfect content, he may
remain for weeks and experience daily gratification, "_Stephen_ his
guide," in wandering through some of its two hundred and twenty-six
avenues--in gazing, until he is oppressed with the feeling of their
magnificence, at some of its forty-seven domes,--in listening,
until their drowsy murmurs pain the sense, to some of its many
water-falls,--or haply intent upon discovery, he hails some new vista,
or fretted roof, or secret river, or unsounded lake, or crystal
fountain, with as much rapture as Balboa, from "that peak in Darien,"
gazed on the Pacific; he is assured that he "has a poet," and an
historian too. Stephen has linked his name to dome, or avenue, or
river, and it is already immortal--in the Cave.
Independent of the attractions to be found in the Cave, there is much
above ground to gratify the different tastes of visiters. There is a
capacious ball-room, ninety feet by thirty, with a fine band of
music,--a ten-pin alley,--romantic walks and carriage-drives in all
directions, rendered easy of access by the fine road recently
finished. The many rare and beautiful flowers in the immediate
vicinity of the Cave, invite to exercise, and bouquets as exquisite as
were ever culled in garden or green-house, may be obtained even as
late as August. The fine sport the neighborhood affords to the hunter
and the angler--Green river, just at hand, offers such "store of
fish," as father Walton or his son and disciple Cotton, were they
alive again, would love to meditate and angle in!--and the woods!
Capt. Scott or Christopher North himself, might grow weary of the
sight of game, winged or quadruped.
INTERESTING FACTS.
1. Accidents of no kind have ever occurred in the Mammoth Cave.
2. Visiters, going in or coming out of the Cave, are not liable to
contract colds; on the contrary, colds are commonly relieved by a
visit in the Cave.
3. No impure air exists in any part of the Cave.
4. Reptiles, of no description, have ever been seen in the Cave; on
the contrary, they, as well as quadrupeds, avoid it.
5. Combustion is perfect in all parts of the Cave.
6. Decomposition and consequent putrefaction are unobservable in all
parts of the Cave.
7. The water of the Cave is of the purest kind; and, besides fresh
water, there are one or two sulphur springs.
8. There are two hundred and twenty-six Avenues in the Cave;
forty-seven Domes; eight Cataracts, and twenty-three Pits.
9. The temperature of the Cave is 59° Fahrenheit, and remains so,
uniformly, winter and Summer.
10. No sound, not even the loudest peal of thunder, is heard one
quarter of a mile in the Cave.
* * * * *
The author of "Rambles in the Mammoth Cave," has written a scientific
account of the Cave, embracing its Geology, Mineralogy, etc., which we
could not, in time, insert in this publication.
TABLE OF DISTANCES.
FROM LOUISVILLE TO MAMMOTH CAVE.
Medley's 10 miles.
Mouth Salt River 10
Trueman's 8
Haycraft's 7
Elizabethtown 9
Nolin 9
Lucas 11
Munfordsville 10
Mammoth Cave 14-1/2
------
88-1/2 miles.
FROM LEXINGTON TO MAMMOTH CAVE.
Harrodsburgh 20 miles.
Perryville 10
Frosts 12
Young 4
Lebanon 7
New Market 12
Barbee 6
Somerville 3
Carters 5
Moss 5
Mitchell 12
Curls 7
Greens 10
Dickeys 8
Mammoth Cave 9
---
130 miles.
FROM GLASGOW TO MAMMOTH CAVE, via
Dickeys 18 miles.
FROM NASHVILLE TO MAMMOTH CAVE.
Gees 9 miles.
Tyree Springs 13
Buntons 12
Franklin 10
Bowling Green 20
Pattersons 12
Dripping Springs 3
Mammoth Cave 8
--
87 miles.
FROM BARDSTOWN TO MAMMOTH CAVE.
New Haven 15 miles.
McDougals 10
McAchran (Cobb's stand) 12
Bear Wallow 20
Dickeys (Prewett's Knob) 7
Mammoth Cave 9
--
73 miles.
FROM BARDSTOWN TO MAMMOTH CAVE,
via. MUNFORDSVILLE.
McAchran (Cobb's stand) 37 miles.
Munfordsville 12
Mammoth Cave 14-1/2
------
63-1/2 miles.
FROM GLASGOW TO MAMMOTH CAVE, via.
Bells 18 miles.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Mammoth Cave--Where Situated--Green River--Improved Navigation--Range
of Highlands--Beautiful Woodlands--Hotel--Romantic Dell--Mouth of the
Cave--Coldness of the Air--Lamps Lighted--Bones of a Giant--Violence
of the Wind--Lamps Extinguished--Temperature of the Cave--Lamps
Relighted--First Hopper--Grand Vestibule--Glowing Description--Audubon
Avenue--Little Bat Room--Pit two hundred and eighty feet deep--Main
Cave--Kentucky Cliffs--The Church Second Hopper--Extent of the
Saltpetre Manufacture in 1814.
CHAPTER II.
Gothic Gallery--Gothic Avenue--Good Road--Mummies--Interesting
Account of Them--Gothic Avenue, once called Haunted Chamber--Why so
named--Adventure of a Miner in former days.
CHAPTER III.
Stalagmite Pillars--The Bell--Vulcan's Furnace--Register Rooms--
Stalagmite Hall or Gothic Chapel--Devil's Arm-Chair--Elephant's
Head--Lover's Leap--Napoleon's Dome--Salts Cave--Annetti's Dome.
CHAPTER IV.
The Ball-Room--Willie's Spring--Wandering Willie--Ox-Stalls--Giant's
Coffin--Acute-Angle or Great Bend--Range of Cabins--Curative Properties
of the Cave Air long known.
CHAPTER V.
Star Chamber--Salts Room--Indian Houses--Cross Rooms--Black Chambers--A
Dinner Party--Humble Chute--Solitary Cave--Fairy Grotto--Chief City or
Temple--Lee's Description--Return to the Hotel.
CHAPTER VI.
Arrival of a large Party--Second Visit--Lamps Extinguished--Laughable
Confusion--Wooden Bowl--Deserted Chambers--Richardson's
Spring--Side-Saddle Fit--The Labyrinth--Louisa's Dome--Gorin's
Dome--Bottomless Fit--Separation of our Party.
CHAPTER VII.
Pensico Avenue--Cheat Crossings--Pine Apple Bush--Angelica's Grotto
Winding Way--Fat Friend in Trouble--Relief Hall--Bacon Chamber
Bandits Hall.
CHAPTER VIII.
Mammoth Dome--First Discoverers--Little Dave--Tale of a Lamp--Return.
CHAPTER IX.
Third Visit--River Hall--Dead Sea--River Styx--Lethe--Echo
River--Purgatory--Eyeless Fish--Supposed Level of the Rivers--Sources
and Outlet Unknown.
CHAPTER X.
Pass of El Ghor--Silliman's Avenue--Wellington's Gallery--Sulphur
Spring--Mary's Vineyard--Holy Sepulchre--Commencement of Cleveland
Avenue--By whom Discovered--Beautiful Formations--Snow-ball
Room--Rocky Mountains--Croghan's Hall--Serena's Arbor--Dining
Table--Dinner Party and Toast--Hoax of the Guide--Homeward
Bound Passage--Conclusion.
CHAPTER I.
Mammoth Cave--Where Situated--Green River--Improved Navigation--Range of
Highlands--Beautiful Woodlands--Hotel--Romantic Dell--Mouth of the
Cave--Coldness of the Air--Lamps Lighted--Bones of a Giant--Violence
of the Wind--Lamps Extinguished--Temperature of the Cave--Lamps
Lighted--First Hoppers--Grand Vestibule--Glowing Description--Audubon
Avenue--Little Bat Room--Pit Two-Hundred and Eighty Feet Deep--Main
Cave--Kentucky Cliffs--The Church--Second Hoppers--Extent of the
Saltpetre Manufacture in 1814.
The Mammoth Cave is situated in the County of Edmondson and State of
Kentucky, equidistant from the cities of Louisville and Nashville,
(about ninety miles from each,) and immediately upon the nearest road
between those two places. Green River is within half a mile of the
Cave, and since the improvements in its navigation, by the
construction of locks and dams, steam-boats can, at all seasons,
ascend to Bowling Green, distant but twenty-two miles, and, for the
greater part of the year, to the Cave itself.
In going to the Cave from Munfordsville, you will observe a lofty
range of barren highlands to the North, which approaches nearer and
nearer the Cave as you advance, until it reaches to within a mile of
it. This range of highlands or cliffs, composed of calcareous rock,
pursuing its rectilinear course, is seen the greater part of the way
as you proceed on towards Bowling Green; and, at last, looses itself
in the counties below. Under this extensive range of cliffs it is
conjectured that the great subterranean territory mainly extends
itself.
For a distance of two miles from the Cave, as you approach it from the
South-East, the country is level. It was, until recently, a prairie,
on which, however, the oak, chestnut and hickory are now growing; and
having no underbrush, its smooth, verdant openings present, here and
there, no unapt resemblance to the parks of the English nobility.
Emerging from these beautiful woodlands, you suddenly have a view of
the hotel and adjacent grounds, which is truly lovely and picturesque.
The hotel is a large edifice, two hundred feet long by forty-five
wide, with piazzas, sixteen feet wide, extending the whole length of
the building, both above and below, well furnished, and kept in a
style, by Mr. Miller, that cannot fail to please the most fastidious
epicure.
The Cave is about two-hundred yards from the hotel, and you proceed to
it down a lovely and romantic dell, rendered umbrageous by a forest of
trees and grape vines; and passing by the ruins of saltpetre furnaces
and large mounds of ashes, you turn abruptly to the right and behold
the mouth of the great cavern and as suddenly feel the coldness of its
air.
It is an appalling spectacle,--how dark, how dismal, how dreary.
Descending some thirty feet down rather rude steps of stone, you are
fairly under the arch of this "nether world"--before you, in looking
outwards, is seen a small stream of water falling from the face of the
crowning rock, with a wild faltering sound, upon the ruins below, and
disappearing in a deep pit,--behind you, all is gloom and darkness!
Let us now follow the guide--who, placing on his back a canteen of
oil, lights the lamps, and giving one to each person, we commence our
subterranean journey; having determined to confine ourselves, for this
day, to an examination of _some_ of the avenues on this side of the
rivers, and to resume, on a future occasion, our visit to the fairy
scenes beyond. I emphasize the word _some_ of the avenues, because no
visitor has ever yet seen one in twenty; and, although I shall attempt
to describe only a few of them, and in so doing will endeavor to
represent things as I saw them, and as they impressed me, I am not the
less apprehensive that my descriptions will appear as unbounded
exaggerations, so wonderfully vast is the Cave, so singular its
formations, and so unique its characteristics.
At the place where our lamps were lighted, are to be seen the wooden
pipes which conducted the water, as it fell from the ceiling, to the
vats or saltpetre hoppers; and near this spot too, are interred the
bones of a _giant_, of such vast size is the skeleton, at least of
such portions of it as remain. With regard to this giant, or more
properly skeleton, it may be well to state, that it was found by the
saltpetre workers far within the Cave years ago, and was buried by
their employer where it now lies, to quiet their superstitious fears,
not however before it was bereft of its head by some fearless
antiquary.
Proceeding onward about one-hundred feet, we reached a door, set in a
rough stone wall, stretched across and completely blocking up the
Cave; which was no sooner opened, than our lamps were extinguished by
the violence of the wind rushing outwards. An accurate estimate of the
external temperature, may at any time, be made, by noting the force of
the wind as it blows inward or outward. When it is very warm without,
the wind blows outwards with violence; but when cold, it blows inwards
with proportionate force. The temperature of the Cave, (winter and
summer,) is invariably the same--59° Fahrenheit; and its atmosphere is
perfectly uniform, dry, and of most extraordinary salubrity.
Our lamps being relighted, we soon reached a narrow passage faced on
the left side by a wall, built by the miners to confine the loose
stone thrown up in the course of their operations, when gradually
descending a short distance, we entered the great vestibule or
ante-chamber of the Cave. What do we now see? Midnight!--the
blackness of darkness!--Nothing! Where is the wall we were lately
elbowing out of the way? It has vanished!--It is lost! We are walled
in by darkness, and darkness canopies us above. Look again;--Swing
your torches aloft! Aye, now you can see it; far up, a hundred feet
above your head, a grey ceiling rolling dimly away like a cloud, and
heavy buttresses, bending under the weight, curling and toppling over
their base, begin to project their enormous masses from the shadowy
wall. How vast! How solemn! How awful! The little bells of the brain
are ringing in your ears; you hear nothing else--not even a sigh of
air--not even the echo of a drop of water falling from the roof. The
guide triumphs in your look of amazement and awe; he falls to work on
certain old wooden ruins, to you, yet invisible, and builds a brace or
two of fires, by the aid of which you begin to have a better
conception of the scene around you. You are in the vestibule or
ante-chamber, to which the spacious entrance of the Cave, and the
narrow passage that succeeds it, should be considered the mere
gate-way and covered approach. It is a basilica of an oval
figure--two-hundred feet in length by one-hundred and fifty wide, with
a roof which is as flat and level as if finished by the trowel of the
plasterer, of fifty or sixty or even more feet in height. Two
passages, each a hundred feet in width, open into it at its opposite
extremities, but at right angles to each other; and as they preserve a
straight course for five or six-hundred feet, with the same flat roof
common to each, the appearance to the eye, is that of a vast hall in
the shape of the letter L expanded at the angle, both branches being
five-hundred feet long by one-hundred wide. The passage to the right
hand is the "Great Bat Room;" (Audubon Avenue.) That in the front, the
beginning of the Grand Gallery, or the Main Cavern itself. The whole
of this prodigious space is covered by a single rock, in which the eye
can detect no break or interruption, save at its borders, where is a
broad, sweeping cornice, traced in horizontal panel-work, exceedingly
noble and regular; and not a single pier or pillar of any kind
contributes to support it. It needs no support. It is like the arched
and ponderous roof of the poet's mausoleum:
"By its own weight made stedfast and immoveable."
The floor is very irregularly broken, consisting of vast heaps of the
nitrous earth, and of the ruins of the hoppers or vats, composed of
heavy planking, in which the miners were accustomed to leach it. The
hall was, in fact, one of their chief factory rooms. Before their day,
it was a cemetery; and here they disinterred many a mouldering
skeleton, belonging it seems, to that gigantic eight or nine feet race
of men of past days, whose jaw-bones so many vivacious persons have
clapped over their own, like horse-collars, without laying by a single
one to convince the soul of scepticism.
Such is the vestibule of the Mammoth Cave,--a hall which hundreds of
visitors have passed through without being conscious of its existence.
The path, leading into the Grand Gallery, hugs the wall on the left
hand; and is, besides, in a hollow, flanked on the right hand by lofty
mounds of earth, which the visitor, if he looks at them at all, which
he will scarcely do, at so early a period after entering, will readily
suppose to be the opposite walls. Those who enter the Great Bat Room,
(Audubon Avenue,) into which flying visitors are seldom conducted,
will indeed have some faint suspicion, for a moment, that they are
passing through infinite space; but the walls of the Cave being so
dark as to reflect not one single ray of light from the dim torches,
and a greater number of them being necessary to disperse the gloom
than are usually employed, they will still remain in ignorance of the
grandeur around them.
Such is the vestibule of the Mammoth Cave, as described by the
ingenious author of "Calavar," "Peter Pilgrim," &c.
From the vestibule we entered Audubon Avenue, which is more than a
mile long, fifty or sixty feet wide and as many high. The roof or
ceiling exhibits, as you walk along, the appearance of floating
clouds--and such is observable in many other parts of the Cave. Near
the termination of this avenue, a natural well, twenty-five feet deep,
and containing the purest water, has been recently discovered; it is
surrounded by stalagmite columns, extending from the floor to the
roof, upon the incrustations of which, when lights are suspended, the
reflection from the water below and the various objects above and
around, gives to the whole scene an appearance equally rare and
picturesque. This spot, however, being difficult of access, is but
seldom visited.
The Little Bat Room Cave--a branch of Audubon Avenue,--is on the left
as you advance, and not more than three-hundred yards from the great
vestibule. It is but little more than a quarter of a mile in length,
and is remarkable for its pit of two-hundred and eighty feet in depth;
and as being the hibernal resort of bats. Tens of thousands of them
are seen hanging from the walls, in apparently a torpid state, during
the winter, but no sooner does the spring open, than they disappear.
Returning from the Little Bat Room and Audubon Avenue, we pass again
through the vestibule, and enter the Main Cave or Grand Gallery. This
is a vast tunnel extending for miles, averaging throughout, fifty feet
in width by as many in height It is truly a noble subterranean avenue;
the largest of which man has any knowledge, and replete with interest,
from its varied characteristics and majestic grandeur.
Proceeding down the main Cave about a quarter of a mile, we came to
the Kentucky Cliffs, so called from the fancied resemblance to the
cliffs on the Kentucky River, and descending gradually about twenty
feet entered the church, when our guide was discovered in the _pulpit_
fifteen feet above us, having reached there by a gallery which leads
from the cliffs. The ceiling here is sixty three feet high, and the
church itself, including the recess, cannot be less than one hundred
feet in diameter. Eight or ten feet above and immediately behind the
pulpit, is the organ loft, which is sufficiently capacious for an.
organ and choir of the largest size. There would appear to be
something like design in all this;--here is a church large enough to
accomodate thousands, a solid projection of the wall of the Cave to
serve as a pulpit, and a few feet back a place for an organ and choir.
In this great temple of nature, religious service has been frequently
held, and it requires but a slight effort on the part of a speaker, to
make himself distinctly heard by the largest congregation.
Sometimes the guides climb up the high and ragged sides, and suspend
lamps in the crevices and on the projections of the rock, thus
lighting up a scene of wild grandeur and sublimity.
Concerts too have been held here, and the melody of song has been
heard, such as would delight the ear of a Catalini or a Malibran.
Leaving the church you will observe, on ascending, a large embankment
of lixiviated earth thrown out by the miners more than thirty years
ago, the print of wagon wheels and the tracks of oxen, as distinctly
defined as though they were made but yesterday; and continuing on for
a short distance, you arrive at the Second Hoppers. Here are seen the
ruins of the old nitre works, leaching vats, pump frames and two lines
of wooden pipes; one to lead fresh water from the dripping spring to
the vats filled with the nitrous earth, and the other to convey the
lye drawn from the large reservoir, back to the furnace at the mouth
of the Cave.
The quantity of nitrous earth contained in the Cave is "sufficient to
supply the whole population of the globe with saltpetre."
"The dirt gives from three to five pounds of nitrate of lime to the
bushel, requiring a large proportion of fixed alkali to produce the
required crystalization, and when left in the Cave become
re-impregnated in three years. When saltpetre bore a high price,
immense quantities were manufactured at the Mammoth Cave, but the
return of peace brought the saltpetre from the East Indies in
competition with the American, and drove that of the produce of our
country entirely from the market. An idea may be formed of the extent
of the manufacture of saltpetre at this Cave, from the fact that the
contract for the supply of the fixed alkali alone for the Cave, for
the year 1814, was twenty thousand dollars."
"The price of the article was so high, and the profits of the
manufacturer so great, as to set half the western world gadding after
nitre caves--the gold mines of the day. Cave hunting in fact became a
kind of mania, beginning with speculators, and ending with hair
brained young men, who dared for the love of adventure the risk which
others ran for profit." Every hole, remarked an old miner, the size of
a man's body, has been penetrated for miles around the Mammoth Cave,
but although we found "_petre earth_," we never could find a cave
worth having.