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.
In looking from the ruins of the nitre works, to the left and some
thirty feet above, you will see a large cave, connected with which is
a narrow gallery sweeping across the Main Cave and losing itself in a
cave, which is seen above to your right This latter cave is the Gothic
Avenue, which no doubt was at one time connected with the cave
opposite and on the same level, forming a complete bridge over the
main avenue, but afterwards broken down and separated by some great
convulsion.
The cave on the left, which is filled with sand, has been penetrated
but a short distance; still from its great size at its entrance, it is
more than probable, that, were all obstructions removed, it might be
found to extend for miles.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GOTHIC AVENUE.
On Stone by T. Campbell
Bauer & Teschemacher's Lith.]
While examining the old saltpetre works, the guide left us without our
being aware of it, but casting our eyes around we perceived him
standing some forty feet above, on the projection of a huge rock, or
tower, which commands a view of the grand gallery to a great extent
both up and down.
Leaving the Main Cave and ascending a flight of stairs twenty or
thirty feet, we entered the Gothic Avenue, so named from the Gothic
appearance of some of its compartments. This avenue is about forty
feet wide, fifteen feet high and two miles long. The ceiling looks in
many places as smooth and white as though it had been under the trowel
of the most skilful plasterer. A good road has been made throughout
this cave, and such is the temperature and purity of its atmosphere,
that every visitor must experience their salutary influences.
In a recess on the left hand elevated a few feet above the floor and
about fifty feet from the head of the stairs leading up from the Main
Avenue, two mummies long since taken away, were to be seen in 1813.
They were in good preservation; one was a female with her extensive
wardrobe placed before her. The removal of those mummies from the
place in which they were found can be viewed as little less than
sacrilege. There they had been, perhaps for centuries, and there they
ought to have been left. What has become of them I know not. One of
them, it is said, was lost in the burning of the Cincinnati museum.
The wardrobe of the female was given to a Mr. Ward, of Massachusetts,
who I believe presented it to the British Museum.
Two of the miners found a mummy in Audubon Avenue, in 1814. With a
view to conceal it for a time, they placed large stones over it, and
marked the walls about the spot so that they might find it at some
future period; this however, they were never able to effect. In 1840,
the present hotel keeper Mr. Miller, learning the above facts, went in
search of the place designated, taking with him very many lights, and
found the marks on the walls, and near to them the mummy. It was,
however, so much injured and broken to pieces by the heavy weights
which had been placed upon it, as to be of little interest or value. I
have no doubt, that if proper efforts were made, mummies and other
objects of curiosity might be found, which would tend to throw light
on the early history of the first inhabitants of this continent.
Believing, that whatever may relate to these mummies cannot fail to
interest, I will extract from the recently published narrative of a
highly scientific gentleman of New York, himself one of the early
visitors to the Cave.
"On my first visit to the Mammoth Cave in 1813, I saw a relic of
ancient times, which requires a minute description. This description
is from a memorandum made in the Cave at the time.
"In the digging of saltpetre earth, in the short cave, a flat rock was
met with by the workmen, a little below the surface of the earth in
the Cave; this stone was raised, and was about four feet wide and as
many long; beneath it was a square excavation about three feet deep
and as many in length and width. In this small nether subterranean
chamber, sat in solemn silence one of the human species, a female with
her wardrobe and ornaments placed at her side. The body was in a state
of perfect preservation, and sitting erect The arms were folded up and
the hands were laid across the bosom; around the two wrists was wound
a small cord, designed probably, to keep them in the posture in which
they were first placed; around the body and next thereto, was wrapped
two deer-skins. These skins appear to have been dressed in some mode
different from what is now practised by any people, of whom I have any
knowledge. The hair of the skins was cut off very near the surface.
The skins were ornamented with the imprints of vines and leaves, which
were sketched with a substance perfectly white. Outside of these two
skins was a large square sheet, which was either wove or knit. This
fabric was the inner bark of a tree, which I judge from appearances to
be that of the linn tree. In its texture and appearance, it resembled
the South Sea Island cloth or matting; this sheet enveloped the whole
body and the head. The hair on the head was cut off within an eighth
of an inch of the skin, except near the neck, where it was an inch
long. The color of the hair was a dark red; the teeth were white and
perfect. I discovered no blemish upon the body, except a wound between
two ribs near the back-bone; one of the eyes had also been injured.
The finger and toe nails were perfect and quite long. The features
were regular. I measured the length of one of the bones of the arm
with a string, from the elbow to the wrist joint, and they equalled my
own in length, viz: ten and a half inches. From the examination of the
whole frame, I judged the figure to be that of a very tall female, say
five feet ten inches in height. The body, at the time it was first
discovered, weighed but fourteen pounds, and was perfectly dry; on
exposure to the atmosphere, it gained in weight by absorbing dampness
four pounds. Many persons have expressed surprise that a human body of
great size should weigh so little, as many human skeletons of nothing
but bone, exceed this weight. Recently some experiments have been made
in Paris, which have demonstrated the fact of the human body being
reduced to ten pounds, by being exposed to a heated atmosphere for a
long period of time. The color of the skin was dark, not black; the
flesh was hard and dry upon the bones. At the side of the body lay a
pair of moccasins, a knapsack and an indispensable or reticule. I will
describe these in the order in which I have named them. The moccasins
were made of wove or knit bark, like the wrapper I have described.
Around the top there was a border to add strength and perhaps as an
ornament. These were of middling size, denoting feet of small size.
The shape of the moccasins differs but little from the deer-skin
moccasins worn by the Northern Indians. The knapsack was of wove or
knit bark, with a deep, strong border around the top, and was about
the size of knapsacks used by soldiers. The workmanship of it was
neat, and such as would do credit as a fabric, to a manufacturer of
the present day. The reticule was also made of knit or wove bark. The
shape was much like a horseman's valise, opening its whole length on
the top. On the side of the opening and a few inches from it, were two
rows of hoops, one row on each side. Two cords were fastened to one
end of the reticule at the top, which passed through the loop on one
side and then on the other side, the whole length, by which it was
laced up and secured. The edges of the top of the reticule were
strengthened with deep fancy borders. The articles contained in the
knapsack and reticule were quite numerous, and are as follows: one
head cap, made of wove or knit bark, without any border, and of the
shape of the plainest night cap; seven head-dresses made of the quills
of large birds, and put together somewhat in the same way that feather
fans are made, except that the pipes of the quills are not drawn to a
point, but are spread out in straight lines with the top. This was
done by perforating the pipe of the quill in two places and running
two cords through these holes, and then winding around the quills and
the cord, fine thread, to fasten each quill in the place designed for
it. These cords extended some length beyond the quills on each side,
so that on placing the feathers erect on the head, the cords could be
tied together at the back of the head. This would enable the wearer to
present a beautiful display of feathers standing erect and extending a
distance above the head, and entirely surrounding it. These were most
splendid head dresses, and would be a magnificent ornament to the head
of a female at the present day,--several hundred strings of beads;
these consisted of very hard brown seed smaller than hemp seed, in
each of which a small hole had been made, and through this hole a
small three corded thread, similar in appearance and texture to seine
twine; these were tied up in bunches, as a merchant ties up coral
beads when he exposes them for sale. The red hoofs of fawns, on a
string supposed to be worn around the neck as a necklace. These hoofs
were about twenty in number, and may have been emblematic of
Innocence; the claw of an eagle, with a hole made in it, through which
a cord was passed, so that it could be worn pendent from the neck; the
jaw of a bear designed to be worn in the same manner as the eagle's
claw, and supplied with a cord to suspend it around the neck; two
rattlesnake-skins, one of these had fourteen rattles upon it, these
were neatly folded up; some vegetable colors done up in leaves; a
small bunch of deer sinews, resembling cat-gut in appearance; several
bunches of thread and twine, two and three threaded, some of which
were nearly white; seven needles, some of these were of horn and some
of bone, they were smooth and appeared to have been much used. These
needles had each a knob or whirl on the top, and at the other end were
brought to a point like a large sail needle. They had no eyelets to
receive a thread. The top of one of these needles was handsomely
scalloped; a hand-piece made of deer-skin, with a hole through it for
the thumb, and designed probably to protect the hand in the use of the
needle, the same as thimbles are now used; two whistles about eight
inches long made of cane, with a joint about one third the length;
over the joint is an opening extending to each side of the tube of the
whistle, these openings were about three-fourths of an inch long and a
quarter of an inch wide, and had each a flat reed placed in the
opening. These whistles were tied together with a cord wound around
them.
"I have been thus minute in describing the mute witness from the days
of other times, and the articles which were deposited within her
earthen house. Of the race of people to whom she belonged when living,
we know nothing; and as to conjecture, the reader who gathers from
these pages this account, can judge of the matter as well as those who
saw the remnant of mortality in the subterranean chambers in which she
was entombed. The cause of the preservation of her body, dress and
ornaments is no mystery. The dry atmosphere of the Cave, with the
nitrate of lime, with which the earth that covers the bottom of these
nether palaces is so highly impregnated, preserves animal flesh, and
it will neither putrify nor decompose when confined to its unchanging
action. Heat and moisture are both absent from the Cave, and it is
these two agents, acting together, which produce both animal and
vegetable decomposition and putrefaction.
"In the ornaments, etc., of this mute witness of ages gone, we have a
record of olden time, from which, in the absence of a written record,
we may draw some conclusions. In the various articles which
constituted her ornaments, there were no metallic substances. In the
make of her dress, there is no evidence of the use of any other
machinery than the bone and horn needles. The beads are of a
substance, of the use of which for such purposes, we have no account
among people of whom we have any written record. She had no warlike
arms. By what process the hair upon her head was cut short, or by what
process the deer-skins were shorn, we have no means of conjecture.
These articles afford us the same means of judging of the nation to
which she belonged, and of their advances in the arts, that future
generations will have in the exhumation of a tenant of one of our
modern tombs, with the funeral shroud, etc. in a state of like
preservation; with this difference, that with the present inhabitants
of this section of the globe, but few articles of ornament are
deposited with the body. The features of this ancient member of the
human family much resembled those of a tall, handsome American woman.
The forehead was high, and the head well formed.
"Ye mouldering relics of a race departed,
Your names have perished; not a trace remains."
The Gothic Avenue was once called the Haunted Chamber, and owed its
name to an adventure that befell one of the miners in former days,
which is thus related by the author of "Calavar."
In the Lower Branch is a room called the Salts Room, which produces
considerable quantities of the sulphate of magnesia, or of soda, we
forget which--a mineral that the proprietor of the Cave did not fail
to turn to account. The miner in question was a new and raw hand--of
course neither very well acquainted with the Cave itself, nor with the
approved modes of averting or repairing accidents, to which, from the
nature of their occupation, the miners were greatly exposed. Having
been sent, one day, in charge of an older workman, to the Salts Room
to dig a few sacks of the salt, and finding that the path to this
sequestered nook was perfectly plain; and that, from the Haunted
Chambers being a single, continuous passage without branches, it was
impossible to wander from it, our hero disdained on his second visit,
to seek or accept assistance, and trudged off to his work alone. The
circumstance being common enough he was speedily forgotten by his
brother miners; and it was not until several hours after, when they
all left off their toil for the more agreeable duty of eating their
dinner, that his absence was remarked, and his heroical resolution to
make his way alone to the Salts Room remembered. As it was apparent,
from the time he had been gone, that some accident must have happened
to him, half a dozen men, most of them negroes, stripped half naked,
their usual working costume, were sent to hunt him up, a task supposed
to be of no great difficulty, unless he had fallen into a pit. In the
meanwhile, the poor miner, it seems, had succeeded in reaching the
Salts Room, filling his sack, and retracing his steps half way back to
the Grand Gallery; when finding the distance greater than he thought
it ought to be, the conceit entered his unlucky brain that he _might_
perhaps be going wrong. No sooner had the suspicion struck him, than
he fell into a violent terror, dropped his sack, ran backwards, then
returned, then ran back again--each time more frightened and
bewildered than before; until at last he ended his adventure by
tumbling over a stone and extinguishing his lamp. Thus left in the
dark, not knowing where to turn, frightened out of his wits besides,
he fell to remembering his sins--always remembered by those who are
lost in the Cave--and praying with all his might for succor. But hours
passed away, and assistance came not; the poor fellow's frenzy
increased; he felt himself a doomed man; he thought his terrible
situation was a judgment imposed on him for his wickedness; nay, he
even believed, at last, that he was no longer an inhabitant of the
earth--that he had been translated, even in the body, to the place of
torment--in other words, that he was in hell itself, the prey of the
devils, who would presently be let loose upon him. It was at this
moment the miners in search of him made their appearance; they lighted
upon his sack, lying where he had thrown it, and set up a great shout,
which was the first intimation he had of their approach. He started
up, and seeing them in the distance, the half naked negroes in
advance, all swinging their torches aloft, he, not doubting they were
those identical devils whose appearance he had been expecting, took to
his heels, yelling lustily for mercy; nor did he stop, notwithstanding
the calls of his amazed friends, until he had fallen a second time
over the rocks, where he lay on his face, roaring for pity, until, by
dint of much pulling and shaking, he was convinced that he was still
in the world and the Mammoth Cave. Such is the story of the Haunted
Chambers, the name having been given to commemorate the incident.