A Visit to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky

by John Wilson

A VISIT
TO
THE MAMMOTH CAVE OF KENTUCKY.

BY JOHN WILSON,

THE SCOTTISH VOCALIST.

EDINBURGH: 1849.

A VISIT
TO
THE MAMMOTH CAVE OF KENTUCKY.

Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, May 20, 1849.

We left the City of Rooks, as Nashville is called, on Thursday morning at half-past four, and travelled ninety miles to our place of destination for the night, which occupied 19 hours. The stages in this part of the country lose a great deal of time needlessly by stopping for meals a great deal oftener than people require them. During our ride we had breakfast at 21 miles from Nashville, at a place called Tyree Springs, and that was acceptable enough; but before it was well digested we had to stop for dinner, and then again for supper, in three hours more; and as the people in this last hotel, which was at a pretty little town called Bowling Green, did not wish to be at the trouble of making one supper for their own boarders and another for the coach travellers, we were compelled to “bide their time” though not any of us wanted supper at all, and here we lost an hour and a half. In our journey we were interested in the day time by the great variety of wild flowers we saw, and after dark by the crowds of fire-flies in the air, in the trees, in the fields. We reached Bell’s,[1] where we were to stay for the night, at half-past 11, where we might have had another meal, but we did not like. Bell, a civil old fellow, is famed for making a kind of Atholl brose, of old peach brandy and honey, which we had a tasting of, and then went to bed; but Mr Bell’s brose I shall never taste again, for although it is pleasant enough to taste, yet I could not get the disagreeable flavour of the peach brandy out of my mouth the whole of the next day. After a capital breakfast, Bell sent us in a four horse stage to the Mammoth Cave, a distance of eight miles, over one of the roughest roads I ever encountered; but what we have seen in this wonderful place amply compensates for any trouble or difficulty we may have undergone. I am really quite at a loss how to begin to give you the least idea of the place, for it is almost beyond description; at all events I feel quite sure that any kind of description given in writing, by any mortal man, cannot afford to a stranger the smallest notion of the wondrousness, the sublimity, the awfulness of this cave—this stupendous work of Nature. First let me tell you, however, that it contains 226 avenues; at least that number has been discovered, for there are more than that; forty-seven domes, eight cataracts, pits innumerable, and eight rivers, only three of which have been explored. It was first discovered by the whites in 1802, and during the last war with England immense quantities of saltpetre were made in it, the remains of the utensils for the manufacture of which are still to be seen at a short distance from the entrance, and even the marks of the hoofs of the oxen the miners used can be traced in the ground. It is only about ten years since the curious began to visit the cave, and every year the visitors increase in number, and they must continue to do so as the wonders of the place become more talked of. About the end of June is the time for crowds coming, and there is ample accommodation for more than two hundred people in a very comfortable hotel, with an obliging and intelligent host, named Mosher. There is no other visitor here at present but ourselves. Having given you so much preliminary, I shall endeavour to give you an inkling of what we saw during our

FIRST DAY’S VISIT TO THE MAMMOTH CAVE.

The necessary alterations having been made in the costume of my two daughters, namely, the petticoats being shortened, and trousers being donned—pants, I ought to have said, for trousers are never named here, and breeches are never made—and caps being placed upon their craniums, a gentleman, who accompanied us from Nashville, and myself, having been provided with coats that had been coats once, and low-crowned soft hats, we set off for the cave. We were fortunate in getting the services of the favourite guide Stephen, to whom we had a letter from a lady in Nashville. He is an active, intelligent, attentive, capital fellow, and after walking some 200 yards through an avenue of shady trees, we found him near the entrance, with his lamps ready to light, his flask of oil on his back, and one basket of provisions. We descended by about thirty rude steps to the entrance, where our lamps being lighted, we bade farewell for a while to the light of day. In a very short time we come to a wall that had been built by the miners, and in which there is a door-way, inside of which we are fairly in the cave. The temperature of the cave is always at sixty, and when the temperature out of doors is higher, the air rushes out at this doorway, so as to blow out the lamps, if the command of the guide is not obeyed to keep your lamps before you. At first one cannot see very well—the eyes are not yet accustomed to penetrate the darkness—the lamps only tended to make the darkness more visible. By and by we get more used to it. The “Church,” as it is called, is the first apartment where we make a halt. It is very large, with galleries round it, and a projection of rock at one side, called the pulpit. Being told by the guide to put our lights behind us, he set fire to a Bengal light, and then we were struck with wonder and awe at the splendour and the vastness of the rocky apartment. For size, Exeter Hall is nothing to it. During the season service is performed in it by some of the clergymen visitors, and the effect must be very sublime, to see each worshipper sitting with his lamp, listening to the Word, joining in prayer to the Lord of all, and singing his praises. Each person enters with his lamp, of course, but on coming to the church the lamps are all placed together, so as to make one general grand light. The church is in the “Main Cave,” which is five miles in extent, and as we move along we see the marks of the action of the water upon the rocks in every part. The average height is 50 feet, its width 100 feet; at one place, however, it is 340 feet wide. We leave the Main Cave, and enter the “Gothic Avenue,” where the first apartment we come to is called the “Haunted Chamber,” from two mummies having been found there by the miners in 1809. They were in a sitting position, and clothed with deer-skins. One of them is now in a museum in New York; the other was burned by the museum in Cincinnati taking fire. The friend who was with me being somewhat of a utility sort of a person, wishes everything to be made proper use of, and suggested that the cave would be a capital place for keeping meat, vegetables, &c., when he was told by Stephen, much to his satisfaction, that the hotel people used it for that purpose. We go along farther, and soon find ourselves in the “Register Room,” which has, or rather had, a beautiful white ceiling, but it is now considerably defaced by many persons wishing to immortalise themselves by writing their names on the roof with the smoke of a candle. They must have had the candle attached to a pretty long pole, for the roof is high. I. B. of old England is one of the names; I suppose John Bull is meant. There is also a Mr John Smith—it does not state where his locale is, but it is not unlikely that it was Mr Smith of the United States. After passing “Vulcan’s Forge,” so called from the stone resembling very much the refuse of a forge, we come to the “Gothic Chapel.” Before entering it, however, Stephen takes our lamps, and leaves us in the dark for a time, while he goes and places them on the stalactite pillar in the chapel. He calls out to us to “come on—there’s nothing to stumble over,” and we advanced towards the chapel. How splendid! how beautiful! The stalactite pillars are all opposite to each other, as if they were really supporting the roof. It reminded me of the crypt under the Cathedral at Rochester, in Kent, excepting that here the pillars were translucent. About ten or twelve feet high are the pillars, and the stalactite formations are still going on in some of them. It has been ascertained, it seems, that it takes thirty years to form the thickness of a wafer, then how many times thirty years must it have taken to form these pillars! It was a solemn scene, the stillness was indeed quite awful. I broke the silence by singing Luther’s Hymn, while those around me stood like statues. We came next to what is called “Napoleon’s Breastwork,” an immense block of limestone, that has evidently fallen away from the roof at some time or other, and now lies in a slanting form. It is about 60 feet long, 20 feet to the top, and looks over into a deep ravine. Now we come to his Satanic Majesty’s “Armchair,” which is the name given to a splendid stalactite column in the centre of a chamber, and which on one side forms an excellent seat. The back is round, and like one of the old fashioned chairs stuffed, and covered with silk. You may have an idea of the size of it when I tell you that it takes three men’s arms to go round it. Not far from it is another stalactite formation called the “Elephant’s Head,” from its exact resemblance to one—the eyes, ears, and trunk, are perfect—some barbarian, however, has defaced the trunk. Now we approach the “Lover’s Leap,” where any hapless swain may have an opportunity of getting rid of all his earthly cares by taking a dismal leap of 50 feet, but no one has yet been desperate enough to do it. We descend to the left of the “Lover’s Leap” and presently enter an extraordinary passage in the rock, called the “Devil’s Elbow;” it is about three feet wide and twelve high, and leads to the lower branch of the Gothic Avenue. The stone of the passage bears evidence of water having rushed through it with tremendous force, though how long ago it is impossible to ascertain. One of the guides got a terrible fright here some time since, by a gentleman who was gifted with ventriloquial powers. He had arrived at the hotel in the evening, and requested a guide to accompany him to the cave. While they were standing over the “Lover’s Leap” he made a cry for “lights and some water,” which seemed to come through the “Devil’s Elbow” from the apartment below. The guide, fancying it was some one of his companions whose lamp had gone out, called out to him to stay where he was and he would come to him immediately; as he was descending by the Devil’s Elbow the voice came from another part in front of them. He returned, and was ascending again to the Lover’s Leap, when the voice once more came through the Elbow, at which he became considerably alarmed, and it was with great difficulty the gentleman could prevent him from running fairly off out of the cave, and leaving him in the lurch, which perhaps he deserved. On their return to the hotel the guide told the landlord a woful story, in the midst of which, however, he was stopped by some one coming in to say there was a maniac about the grounds, when they went out and heard a voice calling out for some tea and bread and butter. “That’s it!” he said, “that’s the same voice that was in the cave.” The ventriloquist made the landlord aware of the trick, and the mysterious affair ended with a hearty laugh at the poor alarmed guide’s expense. As we enter this part of the Gothic Avenue, we come to a basin of beautiful clear water, called the “Cooling Tub.” It is about six feet wide, and a stream of the purest water is falling constantly into it from the ceiling, which is here about thirty feet high. In various parts of the cave there are streams of this description, and the sound of this falling water is the only thing that breaks the awful stillness that constantly reigns. After passing “Napoleon’s Dome,” which is about sixty feet in height, we come to another little pool, called “Lake Purity,” the water in which is delicious to drink, so pure that no disturbance can thicken it. Now we retrace our steps to the “Main Cave,” where at almost every step we take some new wonder is opened up to us. We are in an apartment called the “Ball Room,” for it is frequently used as such by the visitors during the season. The floor is smooth and level, and continues so for several hundred feet, so that there is plenty of room for a large party. There are spacious galleries above, too, formed by the ledging rocks; and there is an orchestra, capable of holding twice the number of the Philharmonic Band. As we go along gazing in wonder at everything, the eye suddenly rests on a nice little niche in the wall, just like the niche that is at the door of a Roman Catholic Cathedral for holding the holy water. It has been formed by the trickling down of the water, and is called Wandering Willie’s Spring; as I have considerable regard for all Wandering Willies, I partook of the water of his spring, and can vouch for its purity and refreshing qualities. The “Standing Rocks” that we by and by approach, are immense blocks of stone that have evidently fallen from the roof, some of them twenty feet long, and six or eight feet thick, and many of them even larger, and what is something remarkable, it is the thinnest part of the stone that has sunk into the earth. The next very prominent object we come to is the “Giant’s Coffin,” an immense block of limestone that has evidently fallen away from the side, and which perfectly resembles a coffin, but may well be called a giant’s, for it is sixty feet long and about twenty feet thick. It has the curved lid which I have observed in the fashionable coffins in the south, and which I heard an auctioneer, who was selling some by auction, recommend as being much more accommodating than the plain lids, for the person could turn round whenever he felt inclined to do so. At some distance beyond this, perhaps 150 yards, the cave takes a gigantic turn, called the “Acute Angle,” or “Great Bend,” which the guide illumines by one of his Bengal lights, and displays to the astonished spectator one of the most wonderful sights that ever mortal eyes beheld. It has the appearance of a vast amphitheatre. It must be about seventy feet high. In front of us is the great cornerstone or bend, and on each side the avenue looms away into unfathomable darkness. The Bengal light dies, and we trudge along to the right, with our lamps in our hands, single file, with Stephen at the head, and ere long he says, “Stop, we are now in the ‘Star-Chamber.’” Wonders will never cease, for here is something more wonderful than anything we have yet seen. How can I convey to you an idea of it? Let me see. It is as if we were at the bottom of a deep ravine or pass, about sixty feet wide, and one hundred feet high, the top of the ravine being terminated by jutting-out rocks, and above those projecting rocks we see the blue firmament of heaven, as it were, with the stars shining above us. The rocks at the top are white in many places, and cloud-like, which shows the starry firmament to greater advantage. The stars are formed by the sparkling gypsum in the dark limestone, and a more complete optical illusion dame Nature never called into existence. We felt as if we should never tire gazing on this, and expatiating to each other upon its wonders. Stephen asked us how we should like to have all the lights extinguished, to try the effect of it in that way, which we readily agreed to; but not a particle of anything could we see. There was, of course, not the smallest ray of light—there could not be, for we were two miles from the mouth of the cave, and 170 feet below the surface of the earth. I put my finger close to my eye but could see nothing. When no one spoke the silence was awful. I don’t know what the others were thinking of in the midst of this total eclipse, but I could not help thinking, now, if Stephen should have forgot his matches we shall be in a fine fix. I spoke to him of this afterwards, when he said he should soon have got lights for us if he had forgot his matches, for he knows the cave so well, having been a guide in it for thirteen years, that he could have forced his way to the mouth. This Star-Chamber is one of the most pleasing sights in the cave. Not far from it are the remains of some small houses that were built some years ago for consumptive patients. The air is so pure and the temperature so equal, that they enjoyed very good health while they remained in the cave, but as soon as they went above ground they became as bad as ever; the idea, therefore, of making the cave an hospital for consumption has been abandoned. I forgot to say that while we were admiring the wonder of the Starry Chamber we sang a sacred trio, the effect of which was beautiful, for everything was so still—no interruption by whisperers, or those persons who are not aware that it is the height of rudeness to speak while any one is singing—the voices sounded large and full. The sublimity of the scene could not altogether withdraw the attention of our utility friend from the things of this earth, for while we were gazing in astonishment on the scene around us, he asked me whether, as I came from London, I had ever seen a work on the art of brewing by fermentation, and without yeast! The Star-Chamber was the extent of our walk in the Main Cave to-day. We returned as far as the Giant’s Coffin, behind which we entered an avenue, and descended some 12 or 14 steps, then through a very low and narrow passage into the “Deserted Chambers,” which we got to by crawling some part of the way on our hands and knees. The first of the Deserted Chambers is called the Wooden Bowl, from the fact of a wooden bowl having been found in it by the miners some years ago. At a short distance from this bowl we stopped to dine, sitting on the edge of a large flat rock, which we used as a dining-table. Close by there was a spring of clear delicious water. We enjoyed our repast amazingly; drank, in the pure, unadulterated water, to all our friends round St Paul’s; had some songs after dinner, then resumed our walk. Our attention was first directed to the “Sidesaddle Pit,” which is about 60 feet deep; and to prevent one’s having a chance of falling into it, it is railed round by spars of sassafras tree, on one of which are two sprouts, which made their appearance about a month ago, and are looked upon with interest, for there is no other sign of vegetation within the place. The ceiling here, from water oozing through the stone, is just like honeycomb. A little further on we come to the “Bottomless Pit,” a frightful chasm with a fragile wooden bridge across it. A piece of lighted paper thrown from the bridge into the pit, shows us the depth of it, which, from the water to the top of the dome above us, is 280 feet. As we found that the splendid dome over head had no name, we called it St Paul’s, and insisted that Stephen should henceforth call it by that name, and no other.

As we go along we see on the roof of the avenue the most beautiful stalactite formations—rosettes, &c., in innumerable variety; there is indeed here a mixture of the sublime and beautiful. We come to the “Wild Hall,” well named from its appearance, go through the “Arch,” which is one of the most-beautifully formed natural arches that can be seen, return through what is called the Labyrinth, and go to “Gorin’s Dome.” Much as we had seen to astonish us, we were not prepared for the magnificence of the scene we were now to witness. Stephen placed us at an aperture about the ordinary size of a window, told us to lay down our lamps behind us, then he left us. By and by we discovered him on a point a considerable way above us, and he lighted one of his Bengals and unfolded the wonders of the dome to us. It is nearly 300 feet in height, and we were standing about half way up. The sides of the dome are fluted, and have the appearance of having been polished, for the water is still trickling down. It is utterly impossible to give any idea of the splendour of this place when lighted up. We had not seen half enough of it. We called for another Bengal light, but Stephen had not one more left, so we were obliged to leave, which we did, expressing our determination to visit the dome again in our next ramble.