FAIRY GROTTO, MAMMOTH CAVE.—There is a remarkable absence of stalactitic formations in Mammoth Cave, Fairy Grotto and the Maelstrom being the only points where they are found in any quantity. But on the other hand, it contains an unexampled wealth of crystals of endless variety and incomparable beauty. There are halls canopied with fleecy clouds, or studded with mimic snowballs, and others displaying various grotesque resemblances on the walls and ceilings. Two avenues, each a mile long, are adorned by myriads of gypsum rosettes and curiously twisted crystals, called “oulopholites,” or cave-flowers, which are unfolded by pressure like a sheaf of wheat forced through a tight binding. This charming embellishment of clusters and garlands is frequently seen curling outward, like roses, composing petrified bouquets that cover the snowy arches.
Having completed our work in New Orleans, and a tour of the Southeast, or at least that portion which is noted for its semi-tropical characteristics and great picturesqueness, we took train on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for Mammoth Cave, to make an inspection and photographic tour of that world-wonderful natural curiosity. To reach the Cave our route was northeast through Birmingham, Nashville, and thence to Glasgow Junction, at which point connection is made with a little spur of the Louisville and Nashville Road, which runs directly to the Cave, a distance of twelve miles from the Junction. Mammoth Cave is in the eastern part of Edmondson county, Kentucky, eighty-five miles south of Louisville, and its entrance is in a forest ravine nearly two hundred feet above Green River, where the banks are very steep and high. It is said to have been discovered in 1809 by a hunter named Hutchins, while pursuing a wounded bear that had taken refuge in a wide crevice that led directly into a broad chamber of the Cave. The history of this discovery is not sufficiently definite to enable us to know which one of the two points of entrance was thus accidentally found. The present opening used is in the ravine mentioned, but the original mouth is believed to have been the aperture that is nearly a quarter of a mile above, and leads into what is known as Dixon’s Cave, a disconnected branch of Mammoth Cavern.
Luray Caverns are lighted by electricity, so that photographing its many chambers and beautiful stalactitic formations is easily accomplished; but though Mammoth Cave is the largest and best known of the world’s great subterranean recesses, and visited by about 6,000 persons annually, no provision has been made for lighting, beyond the crude method of guides who carry torches and candles. To photograph its dark rivers, avenues, configurations, and strange sculpturings many attempts have been made by the aid of magnesium lights, but without satisfactory results until Mr. Ben. Hains, of New Albany, Indiana, made special and most careful preparations to do the work which had so often failed in the hands of others. Several weeks were spent in the cave testing the powerful artificial lights which he had provided, and by dint of perseverance he was at last rewarded by the most perfect results. To this enterprising gentleman we are indebted for the use of the photographs from which our reproductions are made.
Mammoth Cave first came into notice and importance about the year 1812, when it was discovered that the cave contained vast beds of niter, sufficient, as was stated at the time, to supply the whole population of the globe with saltpeter. Gratz and Williams were the owners, and established a very large industry in collecting the nitrous earth by means of ox-carts and shipping it to Philadelphia, where it was used in manufacturing the gun-powder that enabled us to triumph over England a second time. The region is essentially cavernous, as Professor Shaler estimates that in this carboniferous limestone district of Kentucky “there are at least 100,000 miles of open caverns,” but very few of the five hundred caves and grottoes of Edmondson county contain nitrous earth. On the other hand, there have been very few evidences of prehistoric occupancy discovered in Mammoth Cave, while in Salt Cave, its neighbor, and almost a rival in size, archæologic remains, such as fire-places, burnt torches, sandals, and moccasin-prints are numerous; and in Short Cave, also near-by, the mummified bodies of several small animals and a few human remains have been found. White Cave is half a mile from the Mammoth Cave entrance, and the two may be connected, though the communication has not been discovered. But there is a decided difference in the formations that characterize the two. White Cave is in some respects similar to Luray Caverns in its exquisitely charming variety of stalactites. In the first chamber, “Little Bat Room,” as it is called, we find many lovely creations and a few objects of great interest to paleontologists. In the second room is a piece of stalactitic drapery, which has been very appropriately called the “Frozen Cascade.” “Humboldt’s Pillar” and “Bishop’s Dome” are other wonderful examples of the effects of slowly percolating water bearing lime in solution. In this same cave, some seventy years ago, were found huge fossil bones, of the megalonyx, or giant sloth, bear, bison, and stag, and scattered among these animal remains were a few human bones.
But while the adjacent caves each possess an interest peculiar to themselves, Mammoth Cave must continue to remain the most remarkable cavern in our country, not only for its size, but likewise for the marvels which exploration of its labyrinthine avenues has revealed. To Professor H. C. Hovey’s admirable and scientific description of the Cave I acknowledge my indebtedness for a larger part of the information here imparted, from which, also, liberal extracts are made, though without quotation credit.
OLD STONE HOUSE, MAMMOTH CAVE.—The dry atmospheric condition of the galleries of Mammoth Cave led to a belief some forty years ago that a continuous residence within these dark precincts for a definite period would be beneficial to consumptives. The experiment was therefore made by building a number of stone houses or huts at a point about a mile within the cave, in which a colony of invalids took up their abodes and lived in deep seclusion until it was demonstrated by the death of several of the sufferers that they derived no benefit from the surroundings. Relics of two of these stone huts still remain, but they exist now only as curiosities, no one having spent a night in either of them for many years.