In these Plutonian regions of perpetual night, where vegetation is only imaged by petrified efflorescence, many creatures find a congenial abode, and become so accustomed to this dark habitat that they cannot live elsewhere. Of the twenty-eight different species here found, the most remarkable are a blind and wingless grasshopper with extremely long antennae; a blind and colorless cray-fish, and a blind fish which grows to the length of six inches. These fish possess the additional curiosity of being viviparous, or producing their young in a living state, instead of by eggs. Occasionally other fish are caught in the running streams of the Cave which are identical with species common in Green River, thus proving the subterranean connection that exists between that river and the Cave streams.
The strongly marked divergence of these blind creatures from those found on the outside led Agassiz to believe that they were specially created for the limits within which they dwell; but the opinion now generally held is that they are modifications of allied species existing in the sunlight, and that their peculiarities are to be accounted for on the principles of evolution—the process of change being accelerated, or retarded, by their migration from the outer world to a region of silence and perpetual darkness.
Having concluded our examination of Mammoth Cave, we departed by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad for Louisville, at which city train was taken on the St. Louis Air Line for Wyandotte Cave, which was to be our last objective point in completing our extensive photographic tour of America. This very remarkable Cave, though not so generally known as Luray or Mammoth, is about ten miles south of the Louisville and St. Louis Air Line, in Crawford county, Indiana, and is only five miles from the Ohio River. We reached the Cave by way of Milltown, thence to Corydon, and from that point by private conveyance a distance of eleven miles. Entrance to the Cave is by way of a large opening in a hillside, the aperture being about six feet high and twenty feet wide, through which there is always a strong circulation of air like that noted at the mouth of Mammoth Cave, while the temperature is likewise uniformly 54° Fahrenheit. A short avenue leads into a chamber known as Fanueil Hall, whose dimensions are 200 feet long, 50 feet wide and 25 feet high; thence the route conducts through Twilight Hall into Columbian Arch, which resembles a railroad tunnel, so symmetrical is the excavation. Washington Avenue is next entered, which, followed, brings the visitor to Banditti Hall, where the ceiling rises to an immense height, and the walls are jagged, as is the floor, with protruding rocks, so that this chamber is both forbidding in appearance and difficult to traverse. At this point the main gallery branches, one avenue leading to what is known as the Old Cave, and the other conducting by a longer route to more interesting apartments than those before passed. Through a narrow crevice the visitor gains a room called the Bats’ Lodge, and beyond this is Rugged Mountain, which is in the center of a circular room, where Epsom salts of sparkling purity and vast quantities of gypsum in efflorescent beauty cover the arched vault. Seen under torch-light the effect is indescribably magnificent, and is the first striking intimation which the visitor receives of the extraordinary grandeur to which he will be presently introduced. Following the long route we cross a lovely sand-deposit known as the Plain, but find an abrupt termination of this level walk and are compelled to climb the rock-bestrewn Hill of Difficulty, then squeeze through a small passage-way from which we find present relief by emerging into Wallace’s Grand Dome, one of the most magnificent chambers, as well as the largest, in the Cave, being 245 feet high and 300 feet in diameter. In the center is Monument Mountain, a tremendous stalagmite formation above which is an immense dome beflowered with curling leaves of gypsum that bear a wondrous likeness to the foliage of the acanthus. At the apex of the mountain is a stalagmite one hundred and twenty feet in circumference, which has been broken by some force into three columns, which, viewed from the base, admirably counterfeit three monuments, or ghosts clad in robes of gleaming whiteness, from which fact the chamber takes its name. Visitors are usually treated to a superbly grand sight while examining the splendors of this hall, for the guide disposes his company about the base of the mountain, and ascending to the summit he extinguishes his torch in order to bring the visitors under the influence of dense darkness for a few moments. Suddenly the peak is lighted up with a dazzling splendor, as the guide touches off green, blue, red and orange lights, bathing the chamber in a sea of flaming beauty and bejewelling its lofty arch until Aladdin’s Cave of our imagination is reproduced.
THE RIVER STYX, MAMMOTH CAVE, KENTUCKY.—Some idea of the grandeur of the waterways of Mammoth Cave will be obtained from the following description: The largest body of water is called the Dead Sea, embraced within a basin formed by cliffs sixty feet high, above which a path has been made leading to a stairway and thence to the River Styx, which is forty feet wide and four hundred long. Lake Lethe is the next water-basin, enclosed by walls ninety feet high, below which is a path that conducts to a pontoon at the neck of the lake. Thence a beach of the finest yellow sand extends for five hundred yards to Echo River, the largest of all, being nearly one mile long, from twenty to two hundred feet broad, and varying in depth from ten to forty feet. Two or three boats ply this Stygian stream, in which visitors are taken from one end to the other, and the trip is of such novelty that the remembrance of it is imperishable.
ENTRANCE TO PILLARED PALACE, WYANDOTTE CAVE.—There are many grand and splendid halls in Wyandotte Cave, of which the most attractive is Pillared Palace, in which gypsum and stalactites occur in the most charming and imposing forms. This hall is particularly entrancing in its sumptuous and architecturally beautiful decorations. It is from five to six feet high, forty or fifty wide and several hundred long. The ceiling is a complete fringe-work of stalactites, while the floor is as thickly set with stalagmites, many of which uniting with the former produce pillars of the grandest proportions, beautiful beyond the power of imagination to describe. Drapery of every conceivable style is seen in the utmost profusion, some of it transparent as crystal and resonant as a silver bell when struck with a metal substance.