when we stop to inspect some special marvel.
After leaving the Narrows, we soon enter the Rotunda, the ceiling of which is one hundred feet high, and its greatest diameter seventy-five feet. This chamber is said to be immediately under the dining-room of the hotel. The floor is strewn with the remains of vats, water-pipes, etc., used by the saltpetre miners in 1812. From the entrance to this point, wheel-tracks and the impressions made by the feet of oxen used to cart the saltpetre more than fifty years ago may still be seen. At the time these indentations were made by the cleft foot of the ox and the cartwheels, the earth was moist from the recent process of lixiviation in the saltpetre manufacture, and upon drying had attained the stony solidity of petrifaction; and the indentations aforesaid are yet distinct, though they have been walked over by thousands of visitors for many years. Leaving the Rotunda, we pass huge overhanging rocks, called Kentucky River Cliffs, and enter the Methodist Church, where services have been frequently held. The pulpit is formed by a ledge of rock twenty-five feet high: the logs used as benches were placed in the church fifty years ago, and are still in a good state of preservation. In this part of the cave, and in all the avenues near the entrance, millions of bats make their winter quarters. We saw only a few flitting about, but were told they returned in the autumn by hundreds. What wonderful instinct wakens these creatures from a winter’s sleep, with tidings that the glorious summer is at hand? Various objects of minor interest are noted, and we pass on to Giant’s Coffin, an immense rock, forty feet long, twenty wide, eight in depth—fit sarcophagus for one of the giants of old; but Kentucky has herself of late years produced
an individual who will nearly fill it. In many parts of the cave, and more particularly in this region, some striking effects are produced by the efflorescence of black gypsum upon a surface of white limestone. On the ceiling and walls these black figures thus produced stand out in bold relief. Quite startling is a gigantic family group—man, wife, and infant. Another is a very perfect representation of an ant-eater.
Soon we notice several enclosures, formerly occupied by invalids, who vainly imagined that this pure and unchanging atmosphere would restore them to health.
Up to this point walking has been an easy matter, the way quite level, a path winding among loose stones of some size, and in many places a smooth, broad avenue offering no obstruction; but when, one by one, we climb a steep ladder placed against the wall to the right of Giant’s Coffin, there is a realizing sense of “rocks ahead.”
The Gothic Arcade, which we have now entered, has a flat ceiling, smooth and white as if it had received a coat of plaster, and leads to Gothic Chapel—a very beautiful room, yet not purely Gothic in its style of architecture, the roof being quite flat, supported by gigantic stalactites, extending so nearly to the floor that they present the effect of fluted columns and graceful arches. Here was once performed a marriage ceremony under romantic circumstances. A young lady, having promised her mother that she would never marry Snooks “on the face of the earth,” evaded the letter of her contract by marrying the same in the bowels thereof. Two of the stalactites in this chapel, called the Pillars of Hercules, are said to be thirty feet in circumference. These stalactites being peculiar to caves, it may interest the general
reader to note their formation. If water, holding bicarbonate of lime in solution, drop slowly from the ceiling, exposure to the air allows one part of carbonic acid gas to escape, the lime is then deposited in the form of proto-carbonate of lime, and the stalactite, similar to an icicle, is slowly formed; if the deposit accumulate from below upward, it is termed a stalagmite; sometimes, meeting in the centre, they become cemented and form a solid column. An instance of this is given in the illustration of the Devil’s Arm-Chair. These forms are made more interesting from their variety of color: if the limestone is pure, the stalactite will be white, or semi-transparent; if it contain oxide of iron, the result will be a red or yellow color; black stalactites containing a large proportion of oxide of iron. Many other things of interest, but too numerous to mention, are pointed out before we reach Lake Purity, a pool of shallow water, so perfectly transparent that stalactites are seen at the bottom. Gothic Arcade terminating a short distance beyond the lake, we retraced our steps to the ladder by which we had reached this upper and older portion of the cave, and found ourselves again in the main cave near the Giant’s Coffin, passing behind which we enter a narrow crevice, where, half crawling and stooping, a descent is made to Deserted Chamber. At this point, the water, after it had ceased to flow out of the mouth into Green River, left the main cave to descend to the lower regions and Echo River. Here we again leave the regular route to visit Gorin’s Dome, to us far the most beautiful of the many so-called domes.
Passing over a small bridge, and ascending a steep ladder, we are, one by one, assisted by the guide to a point where it is not easy to retain a
foothold; but here is nothing to be seen—we seem to be against a black wall. “Why, Mat, what did you bring us here for?” But not so fast. Mat has been preparing blue-lights for an illumination, and now he directs us to grasp the rock, and, one at a time, peer through a small opening. What wondrous vision is this! A hundred feet above is the arched dome, from which depend stalactitic formations and shafts, of varying size and shape; facing us hangs a curtain-like mass, terminating abruptly in mid-air. In it you seem to trace the folds and involutions of drapery veiling this mysterious place from vision. Far below, more than two hundred feet, unfathomable depths are revealed by blue-lights thrown down, while shafts, curtain, and dome are frescoed in colors of pale blue, fawn, rose, and white. This dome is three hundred feet high, and sixty feet across its widest part; but, alas! the “lights departed, the vision fled,” and we are forced to descend from our eyrie. Leaving this sublime spectacle, we return to the main cave, and, following it around Great Bend, are soon in the famous Star Chamber. This is an apartment sixty feet in height, seventy in width, and about five hundred in length, the ceiling composed of black gypsum, studded with numberless white points, caused by the efflorescence of Glauber’s salts. This is what we learned of this remarkable spot after leaving the cave. We now will tell you what we saw. We were first seated on a narrow ledge of rock forming a bench on one side of the chamber, the guide taking away our lamps to a distant mass of rocks, behind which he leaves them, to shed a “dim, religious light” on the scene. As our eyes become accustomed to the change, we discover ourselves to be in a deep valley with gray, rugged sides, of
course outside of the cave, else why is the sky above so deeply, darkly blue? those countless stars shining?—shining, did we say? We vow they twinkled. The Milky Way is there; we will not vouch for the Dipper, but other constellations are visible, even a comet blazes across the heavens. The guide retires with his lamp to some mysterious lower region to produce shadows, and suddenly clouds sweep across the horizon, a storm is brewing, the stars are almost hidden, now they are out, utter darkness prevails, until we hear Mat stumbling about, a faint light is in the east, and a fine artificial sunrise, as he appears with his lamp. All this may read like child’s play, yet so complete is the optical delusion that, when the lamps were all returned to us, the mystery dispelled, we drew a long breath of relief that we were not really shut up in that lonely defile, looking up longingly to the stars, but actually several miles underground, and merely under the influence of Glauber’s salts! Beyond is Proctor’s Arcade, a natural tunnel, nearly a mile long, a hundred feet wide, forty in height; the ceilings and sides are smooth and shining, chiselled out of the solid rock. This tunnel leads past several points not specially interesting, to Wright’s Rotunda, which is four hundred feet in diameter. It is astonishing that the ceiling has strength to sustain itself, being only fifty feet below the surface of the earth; but no change need be anticipated, for at this point the cave is perfectly dry. A short distance beyond, several avenues branch off from the main cave, none worthy of note, except that which leads to Fairy Grotto, a marvellous collection of stalactites, resembling a grove of white coral. Here indeed might the fairies have held high revelry, with glow-worm lamps suspended from