Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 | Page 9

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