"Passing under the arch we enter Johnstone's Camp Ground, so named because Paul Alexander Johnstone camped in this room while accomplishing the third of his greatest mind-reading feats, during which he remained in the cave seventy-two hours. He was locked in his room at the Evans Hotel while a committee secreted the head of a gold pin in the cave. On their return, after being blindfolded, he led them to the livery stable, and securing a team drove to the cave and found the pin in the Standing Rock Chamber, beyond the Pearly Gates, and then drove back to the city still blindfolded.
"Down one short flight of stairs and we are in the Waiting Room, so called on account of persons waiting here while the rest of their party finished the trip by climbing up the Alpine Way. This difficult climb was made until the route was developed via the Marble Quarry. A steep pathway and one flight of stairs now bring us to the Ticket Office, and another short stairway leads into the room above, which is the Fair Grounds. We enter the right wing, which measures two hundred and six links in length and forty-nine in width at the narrowest place. We are now in the third level and no box work is seen, but the ceiling (which is low) shows many interesting fossils. The central dome is some fifty feet in height, and passing to the right the guide seats the party in such a position that the frost work on the wall can be seen to advantage. This is the largest part of the Fair Grounds and measures six hundred and forty-five links long, exclusive of the right wing, and has a width of fifty-three links, which with a number of wings added, makes it one of the largest under-ground rooms within American caverns.
"A great many visitors look at their cuff-buttons when told we have twenty-five hundred rooms included in ninety-seven miles of passageways. Of course they do not understand how we get the mileage. In going to the Fair Grounds we travel about three miles. In each fissure there are eight levels, which makes twenty-four miles of cave from the entrance to the Fair Grounds.
"Of the formations in the cave, the different kinds are on different levels, the stalactites and stalagmites nearest the surface on the second, the frost work on the third. This formation is in most instances as colorless as snow. The mode of its formation is not thoroughly understood, but is found in such positions as suggest its being formed by vapors overcharged as spoken of about the water. It is almost always on an over-hanging rock, over or near some fissure leading to a deeper portion of the cave. Box work in this level is scattering and fragile: in the fourth it is the prevailing formation: in the fifth it is heavier and a little darker; in the sixth it varies in style and color, and pop-corn appears, a queer formation resembling pop-corn ready to eat. It is not so purely white here as in the lower levels, seventh and eighth. In the seventh the box work is heavier than any seen on the Fair Grounds' Route and the color is nearly blue, having a faded appearance. In this tier is also found a good deal of mineral wool, which must not be mistaken for asbestos. It sometimes attains a length of eighteen inches and at one place where it seems to come out of a hole two inches in diameter, and drops down like a grey beard, we have named it Noah's Beard.
"In the eighth tier we find very beautiful formations of carbonate of lime, and the box work is decidedly blue, the boxes larger, and their partitions one half inch thick.
"We have been deeper than the eighth tier but in narrow crevices barely admitting a man of average stature. In these the calcareous coating is much thicker than in any higher portions of the cave, but very little sign of box work is seen.
"Sometimes we make a comparison between the cave and a sponge. Take for instance a sponge as large as an apple barrel and there would be holes in it as big as a man's thumb and closed hand. Now take a sponge, four miles square and five hundred feet deep with holes in proportion to the little sponge, and you have an illustration of The Wonderful Wind Cave, of Custer County, South Dakota."