Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 | Page 3

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,