xt7wh707xb96 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7wh707xb96/data/mets.xml Hovey, Horace Carter, 1833-1914. 1912  books b92-134-29324031 English J. P. Morton & Co., Inc., : Louisville : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Mammoth Cave (Ky.) Mammoth Cave of Kentucky (Hovey and Call)  / with an account of colossal cavern ; by Horace Carter Hovey ... ; with historical notes ; scenic accounts ; descriptive and scientific matters of interest to visitors, based upon new and original explorations. text Mammoth Cave of Kentucky (Hovey and Call)  / with an account of colossal cavern ; by Horace Carter Hovey ... ; with historical notes ; scenic accounts ; descriptive and scientific matters of interest to visitors, based upon new and original explorations. 1912 2002 true xt7wh707xb96 section xt7wh707xb96 






























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             Mammoth Cave

                 of

              Kentucky




with an account of colossal cavern

            revised edition







                  by

          Horace Carter Hovey





               Louisville

        John P.Morton  company

                 1912

 
This page in the original text is blank.
 









PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION



   In 1897 two cave-hunters, Horace Carter Hovey and
Richard Ellsworth Call, at first separately then jointly,
prepared a manual of the Mammoth Cave. Both of them
had made frequent and prolonged visits to the Cave,
and were able to say that they had personally seen
every part of it then known. They had previously
written articles for popular and scientific periodicals,
and their membership in scientific societies in this and
other lands aided their research. Originally their work
was of composite authorship, in the sense that any
chapter written by one would be revised by the other.
Their aim was to give the latest and most exact word
as to cavern history and scenery, heights, depths, dis-
tances, and magnitudes. Facts not for the first time
found here in print were compiled from authentic
sources with acknowledgments.
   During the fourteen years that have elapsed since
then changes and discoveries have been made that de-
manded a revision of the original manual, and by mutual
agreement this task fell to the lot of the senior author.
Numerous alterations have been made in the text, sub-
ject-matter has been rearranged, and much new material
has been added. Throughout this revision it has been
my desire to give ample credit to my former co-laborer,
though it has not been deemed essential to give by name
the exact authorship of the several chapters, further
than by means of the preliminary Synopsis. Many of
the drawings and photographs of cave fauna were pre-
pared by or for Dr. Call, though for those of the blind fish
we are indebted to Dr. Eigenmann and the courtesy
                                                  (t)

 







PREFACE.



of the Carnegie Institution. Thanks are due to Messrs.
Albert C. Janin and Henry C. Ganter for the use of
copyrighted cuts (mainly by the late Ben Hains), as
well as for personal attentions. Renewed recognition
is given to the officials of the Louisville  Nashville
Railroad for transportation and other facilities accorded
in the earlier and the later work done in preparing this
volume.
   The general Guide-Map of the Cave, made by me
after consulting former maps, and with certain cor-
rections suggested by Mr. Max Kaemper, trings Cave
cartography down to the present time. As the Cave is
now exhibited by four routes, instead of by two, this
has been indicated, as far as practicable, by textual
changes and foot-notes; and it is made still more clear
by the special charts of these routes.
   Any one wishing a less expensive Manual, prepared
expressly for the guidance of visitors over the regulation
routes, is referred to my small Handbook, published by
John P. Morton  Company. For terms of exhibition
and hotel rates, apply to the Manager of the Mammoth
Cave, Kentucky.
                          HORACE CARTER HOvEY.
  Newburyport, Mass.



iv



 













               SYNOPSIS



1. GENERAL MIAP; AND ROUTE CHARTS. (Hovey.)

2. THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY, AND CAVE-
     MAKING. (IHovey.)

3. HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT. (Hovey
     and Call.)

4. THE ROUTE OF PITS AND DOMES. (Call.)

5. THE MAIN CAVE ROUTE; TO CHIEF CITY AND VIOLET
     CITY. (Hovey.)

6. TIHE RIVER ROUTE, TO THE MAELSTROM AND HOvEY'S
     CATHEDRAL. (Hovey.)

7. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE CAVE; ITS FAUNA AND
     FLORA. (Call.)

8. BLIND ANIMALS; THEIR ENVIRONMENT AND DEVOLU-
     TION. (Hovey.)

9. THE COLOSSAL CAVERN. (liovey.)



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    THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY
               AND CAVE-MAKING


   ARGE caverns are limited to regions favorable to
 L the process of cave-making. Kentucky is pecul-
     iarly such a region.    Along rocky sea-coasts
grottoes are numerous and often beautiful.  But the
mighty billows that carve the granite into natural tun-
nels, or spouting horns, or fantastic arches, also break
down their own products, and transform grottoes into
chasms, embayments, or straits.     This destructive
agency has been so vigorously active along the Atlantic
coast that not a cavern can be found, from the Bay of
Fundy to the Gulf of M'exico deep enough to exclude
the daylight. With ice caves, and those formed in
lava-beds, or among em al islands, and in granitic regions,
we need not here ecneern ourselves.
   Limestone regions vary according to their exemp-
tion from or exposure to mountain-making forces.
The limestones of Virginia, for instance, have been
upheaved and shaken by orogenic action until they are
cracked and fissured by seams running in every direc-
tion. These were easily enlarged by the action of water,
and were thus developed into countless grottoes, some of
which have gained a world-wide celebrity. But the
fractured condition of the rocks limited the process of
cave-making; and in size the Virginia caves are insignifi-
cant, compared with the enormous excavations found
in the homogeneous and nearly undisturbed limestone
regions of Kentucky and other States of the central West.
   Then, again, the conditions of the country rock vary
as we descend the valley of the Ohio. About Cincin-
nati and Covington the Lower Silurian limestones are

 






2MAMMOTH CAVE.



presented in thin, fragile strata, with variable layers of
shale between; and in these it would be almost impos-
sible for even small grottoes to grow. But when this
terrane meets the Upper Silurian, as at Madison, Indi-
ana, the massive upper ledges resist decomposition,
while the underlying softer strata are easily eroded;
and the result is seen in some of the most picturesque
grottoes in the world. Rising in the geological horizon
while descending the valley, we enter the most exten-
sive cave region on the globe. The Ohio River tran-
sects this territory in such a manner that three fourths
of it lies in Kentucky, while the remaining fourth is
divided between Indiana and Tannessce. In Indiana is
the wonderful Wyand.1, Cave, and in '1Tennessee the
formidable Nicajack; which are worthy rivals of Ken-
tucky's greatest cavern.
   The main line of the Louisville  Nashville Railroad
runs through the reglon ia whl.cLl Mammoth Cave is
located. And as we ride swiftly and comfortably along
we can observe from the cars the more conspicuous re-
sults of the complex erosive process by which the
landscape has been wrought into its present features.
   Imagine a vast plain, which in its entirety covers
quite eight thousand square miles, and that plain, during
successive ages, slowly and gently uplifted, as a whole,
by geological agencies. Extensive erosion necessarily
would ensue. For, previous to this uplifting, this part
of the continent was submerged; but since the Carbon-
iferous period the region has been dry land. Unlike
the areas to the remote West and South, there are here
no Cretaceous nor Tertiary rocks. The hills are all
Carboniferous; though in many places, as in the vicinity
of Louisville, these eminences have been worn away, and



2

 






THE CAVERN -REGION OF KENTUCKY.



the underlying Devonian and Silurian now form the
country rock.
   Meanwhile the falling rains have run over the slight-
ly tilted limestone rocks, wearing their surface into fur-
rows and undermining the harder ledges. Additional
to this mechanical agency -chemical forces have been at
work. From the air and the soil the rain-water gathers
into itself carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) which attacks
the limestone, dissolves it slowly or rapidly, as the case
may be; after which the water runs away with its
mineral burden. The region once level now becomes
undulating; the surface waters find, or make, under-
ground channels, and finally the region is honey-combed
with caverns. Where less soluble rocks occur, or form
the surface, the process of erosion is less rapid. Hills
are thus formed, their very tops refusing to yield to
solution. The environs become lower, and finally coni-
cal masses remain, testifying by their geologic structure
to the processes that have been at work.
   The problem is complicated, so far as the region
around the Mammoth Cave is concerned, by the fact
that the compact Chester Sandstone overlies the St.
Louis Limestone, -which is here largely oolitic. The
sandstone yields slowly to the mechanical action of the
running water, but resists its chemical action; while
the limestone yields to both these agencies. It thus
happens that there are visible thousands of "knobs"
and myriads of "sink-holes."    Knobs are eminences,
sometimes several hundred feet high, and frequently
perfect pyramids, left by the erosion of the weaker
rocks, the original strata being diminished horizontally,
but undisturbed in position, even to the apex of the
pyramidal -peak. The sink-holes, on the other hand,

 







MAMMOTH CAVE.



are usually oval depressions, of every conceivable size
and of variant depths, without inlet or outlet, except
through funnels which communicate with subterranean
passages. These pits were, in former times, and some-
times still are, natural animal-traps, into which has
fallen many a wild denizen of the forest. In order to
save domestic animals from a similar catastrophe
numerous sink-holes have been artificially plugged, thus
transforming them into deep pools. So extensive has
been the undermining by the process now described,
that one may travel on horseback all day, through cer-
tain parts of Kentucky, without crossing a single run-
ning surface stream; all the rain-water that falls being
carried down through the sink-holes into caverns below,
where are the gathering-beds that feed the few large
open streams of the region, of which the Green River is
an example.
   It is reported that there are four thousand sink-holes
and five hundred known caverns in Edmonson County
alone. The Mammoth Cave Railway, that leads from
Glasgow Junction directly to the cave, passes a number
of them. The largest sink-hole known is the Eden
Valley, along whose margin the road runs. This charm-
ing valley is adorned by fertile farms, and occasional
ponds that mirror the passing clouds, and it is flanked
by the virgin forest; but after all it is a true sink-hole,
without inlet or outlet. Its area is certainly not less
than two thousand acres, and this enormous depression
must have been made by the falling in of a series of
great caverns.
   The reader will not expect us in this Manual, which
is meant to describe a single famous cavern, to offer a
catalogue of the other known caverns of the county.

 





THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY.



Some of these, like the Diamond, the Grand Crystal,
Proctor's, and the recently opened Colossal Cavern,
have gained more than a local celebrity. Another large
cavern, the Salt Cave, belongs to the Mammoth Cave
estate, and has interest for scientific men on account of
its prehistoric relics. It is now very difficult of access;
and being absolutely dry, the explorer needs to carry
his own water supply. Hence it is rarely visited.
   The White Cave belongs to the same estate, and is
well worth visiting. It gets its name from the brilliant
whiteness of its stalactitic formations.  It is really a
branch of the Mammoth Cave, being connected with it
by a passage, now occluded, leading to Klett's Dome
and the Mammoth Dome, of which the former is a por-
tion, separated therefrom by the thin floor at the end
of Little Bat Avenue, through which Crevice Pit leads
-connecting thus the two domes that are practically and
geologically identical.
   The entrance to the White Cave is guarded by an
iron gate, beyond which is an oval chamber, irregular in
outline, beneath whose low, flat roof we proceed to the
second chamber. Here is exhibited a splendid piece of
stalactitic drapery, called the Frozen Cascade. It is
fretted and folded in a thousand fantastic forms, and
well deserves its name. The resemblance of this mass
of onyx to the gigantic columns formed in winter around
great waterfalls, such as Niagara, is indeed striking.
The roof is covered with pendants, from the largest
stalactites down to those as small as a quill; each one
of which is hollow, and from whose tips hang tremulous
drops of water sparkling like diamonds. The floor is
intersected with shallow, crooked channels, in which



5

 







6  MAMMOTH CAVE.



run transparent rills. A stately shaft, named Hum.
boldt's Column, appears to support the low arch.
   In the third chamber are huge blocks of limestone
cemented together and encumbering the floor. And
around all is kindly drawn a wide veil / I the purest ala-
baster. Attempts have been made to break through
this mighty curtain, with the hope of finding a passage
into the Mammoth Cave. With the same wish cer-
tain deep pits in the vicinity have been thoroughly
explored, but thus far in vain.
   Some ninety years ago Mr. J. D. Clifford, a Ken-
tuckian, exhumed from the floor of the White Cave
certain bones, that, after passing through several hands,
finally came into the possession of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia. It has been stated
that among them were the remains of bisons, stags, a
bear, a megalonyx, and also a human skeleton. This
remarkable statement is open to serious question, be-
yond the megalonyx bones; and it is mentioned here
merely because some degree of paleontologic impor-
tance has been attached to the story.
   Dixon's Cave, also belonging to the same estate, is
supposed to have been, at some remote prehistoric
time, the original mouth of the Mammoth Cave.
However this may be, the cave is well worth visiting
for its own sake. Its mouth is a yawning gulf, some-
what larger than that by which one enters Mammoth
Cave. In its present condition it is obstructed by fallen
  See a reference to the Megalonyx of the White Cave, Kentucky, by Doctor
Richard Harlan, American Journal of Geology, Vol. I, page 76; and a more full
account of the same on page 17i, by Professor William Cooper, who distin.
guishes it from the specimen found at Big-Bone Lick, Kentucky, and in the
Big-Bone Cave, in White County, Tennessee. See also Transactions of the
Geological Society of Pennsylvania, August, 1884, pp. 67-70 and pp. 144-x46.-
-H. C. H.



6

 





THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY.



forest trees, over or under whose trunks and sprawling
branches we must climb or creep. We are rewarded
by finding ourselves in the mightiest subterranean hall
yet discovered. The cavern is a single immense tem-
ple with one eternal arch of limestone. By our meas-
urement it is fifteen hundred feet long, from sixty to
eighty feet wide, and from eighty to one hundred and
twenty-five feet high. It gradually curves from south-
east to due south; and     the dimensions are quite
uniform  throughout. The roof is decorated here and
there by numerous stalactites, none of them very large;
and other parts of it are blackened by myriads of bats,
especially in winter, clinging together like swarms of
bees. Every foot of the floor was searched and over-
turned long ago by the industrious miners, who carried
the niter-bearing earth outside to the vats and boiling-
tubs whose ruins are yet visible. The miners left the
rocky fragments within the cavern piled in what might
be described as transverse stony billows, of which we
counted eighteen; each wave being forty feet through
at the base, and rising thirty or forty feet above the
true floor. At the extreme end the mass of earth and
rock does not seem to have been disturbed. Gver this
we can climb to the very roof, amid whose nooks we
sought in vain for access to Mammoth Cave. Doubt-
less by suitable excavation the desired connection might
be made.   Igniting a series of Bengal lights simultane-
ously, we were able to take in at a glance the dimen-
sions of this enormous hall of Titanic magnitude.
   Green River is the only openly running stream in
the immediate region, and its waters are wholly fed
from subterranean reservoirs. Its bluffs are gashed
here and there by rifts, or wide arches, from some of



7

 






MAMMOTH CAVE.



which issue streams that serve as modes of exit for
underground waters.    Were it practicable to enter
them, we might climb through a series of rocky galler-
ies, till at last we emerged in some one of those oval
valleys already  described  as sink-holes.  The usual
mode of entrance to caverns, however, is at some place
where the roof has broken through, and whose rocky
fragments, partly filling the subterranean dome, serve
as convenient stepping-stones down into darkness.
   Such a break is the present entrance to the Mam-
moth Cave. It is one hundred and eighteen feet below
the crest of the bluff, one hundred and ninety-four
feet above the level of Green River, and seven hundred
and thirty-five feet above the level of the sea. The
limestone bed measures three hundred and twenty-
eight feet in thickness, from its upper limit, where it is
in contact with the sandstone, down to the drainage
level of the cave, and doubtless extends below many
feet further. The sandstone, which is Subearbonifer-
ous, with occasional layers of conglomerate, rises at the
surface in irregular elevations. This geological fact
accounts for the vast area of the cavern, and also for the
paucity of its stalactitic decoration compared with other
caverns; as for instance with the adjacent White Cave,
from above which the sandstone has been entirely strip-
ped away.
   The British Association for the Advancement of
Science, and also the Smithsonian Institution of this
country, took much interest a few years ago in a series
of observations for determining the mean temperature of
the crust of the earth. They justly reasoned that by
ascertaining the temperature of the immense and nearly
stationary body of air confined in Mammoth Cave



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THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY.



they would- -approximate to the temperature of the
crust of the earth for the same latitude. Accordingly
they requested the senior author of this Manual to
make a series of observations, which he did with the
utmost care in 1881, not only here but in other caverns,
using for the purpose verified thermometers furnished
to him expressly by the Kew and the Winchester Ob-
servatories. The final result of more than a hundred
experiments was that the mean temperature of 'Mam-
moth Cave, and of other caverns in the same latitude, is
about fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The extremes of
external cold or heat may have to be allowed for. Every
summer visitor notices the strong current of air flowing
out from the mouth of Mammoth Cave, and that at
times amounts to a gale preventing our carrying lighted
lamps into the entrance. The cool air wells up like an
invisible fountain, and flows down like a stream toward
Green River. Into this aerial stream we step, we wade
knee-deep, we are finally immersed as we enter the great
cavern.
   But let us pause for a few moments longer, in order
to consider the natural history of this vast excavation.
First or last every intelligent visitor is sure to ask,
"How did it all come about What was the process of
cave-making" These excusable inquiries might as well
be met at the outset, although in doing so we shall have
to anticipate to some degree the phenomena to be brought
to notice later on.
   As already remarked, the entrance to the cave is at
a place where the roof has broken through. The term
"tumble-down" is used regarding such localities inside
the cavern. There are many of them; particularly at
the end of Rafinesque Hall, at the end of Gratz Avenue,



9

 






MAMMOTH CAVE.



at Sandstone Dome, in Violet City, and in a short hall
at the left of the Cataracts. All these tumble-downs are
where the overlying sandstone strata and the underlying
strata of thin limestone have been worn away, leaving
the weakened roof to fall in, carrying along rocky
fragments, and also a mass of clay and soil, whereby
the passage-ways are occluded. Besides blocking up the
galleries where they occur, they also betray the fact that
the surface can not be far away.
   One of the most curious and instructive of these
roof-breaks is just to the left of the Cataracts, where
what is known as the Main Cave abruptly terminates by
a crushing down of the superincumbent strata singu-
larly bent and folded in a direction the reverse of the
main arch. Doctor Call, who first attracted attention to
this mimic syncline, regards it as due to slight orographic
movements by which the rocks were cracked and fissured
till the thin limestone plates were bent by the great
weight of the sandstone strata overhead.
   Above the Cataracts is a sink now determining the
flow of the waters that enter from the surface at some
distance from the crushed limestone reversed arch, or
synclinal, which are worn away from it to the right, thus
steadily, though slowly, excavating a tunnel that will
ultimately become a narrow avenue under the surround-
ing rocks.
   Pits and domes play their part in cave-making.
Dawkins and Shaler regard them as tubes cut down by
whirling water using sand and pebbles as teeth for cut-
ting through from the highest to the lowest level. We
are convinced that this theory is untenable. Were it
correct the pits should be wider at the top than at the
bottom. But, with rare exceptions, as for instance in the



10

 






THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY.



Edna Dome, it is otherwise. As a rule, a small crevice,
four or five feet wide, expands into a pit that may be
several hundred feet wide. In cave terms this is a "pit"
if seen from above, and a "dome" if seen from below.
In many such shafts there is water; but it flows along the
floor or trickles down the sides, with not a sign of its
having ever been "whirled about with pebbles for
teeth," as asserted by Shaler. The grooving is invari-
ably vertical, with no marks of drilling or grinding.
Doctor Call and I examined many small domes that were
formed on exactly the same plan as the larger ones; and
in every instance their apex was solid, except for a tiny
crevice through which the water gently flowed.  In
most of them not a pebble or grain of sand was visible.
   We were impressed by the evidences of solution
greeting us on every hand. Not only amid the pits
and domes, but in the arid avenues and tortuous chan-
nels, signs of aqueous erosion abounded. The solvent
agency of water was evinced by the Pigeon-holes, the
Mummy's Niche, the Fat Man's Misery, as well as by the
rounded and worn bosses, and the smoothed wails and
curves of the spacious halls.
   With such signs in sight the genesis of Mammoth
Cave is quite simple and easy of explanation. It is with-
in the St. Louis Limestone and underneath the Chester
Sandstone; both being members of the Subearboniferous
period. Between these formations is often found a
layer of conglomerate, whence come the silicious pebbles
often found on the floor of the cavern Here and there,
as in the bed of Mystic River, appear masses of chert or
flintlike rock. The elevation from the low-water level of
Green River to the sandstone outcrop in the bluff is
about three hundred and twenty-five feet; from which



l1

 







MAMMOTH CAVE.



we infer that the lowest level of the cavern is that
distance from the superincumbent sandstone. We have
not found any hall or dome that measured more than
one hundred and sixty feet, and doubt if any exists as
high as two hundred feet. The tendency has been to
exaggerate cave heights as well as cave distances.
   Existing avenues began with small fissures where
the rock had been fractured, and the gently flowing or
wildly rushing waters have wrought the narrow or
broader passage-ways. Everywhere are signs of erosion
and solution. We doubt if the ancient streams in the
cavern were ever larger than they are now at high
water. Some of the so-called sand-beds are in reality
only the result of disintegration of oolitic limestone.
On the other hand the true sand when found is as
sharp as when it fell from the sandstone capping the
limestone overhead. Trickling and evaporating lime-
water explains the forming of stalactites and stalagmites;
while the crystals of gypsum, calcite, and various salts,
all tell their story of subterranean chemistry.  " In
brief," as Doctor Call remarks, "the visitor is to look at
the great work of excavation of the Mammoth Cave as
solely a problem hi solution." The limestone is usually
soft enough to be scratched by a knife, and in certain
places it readily disintegrates, its egglike particles being
separated by the solvent action of the water; and as
already observed some of the avenues have a floor en-
tirely made up of fine o6litic sand.
   At the end of Darnall's Way where it opens upon
the summit of Gorin's Dome, masses of limestone that
seemed solid and firm yielded like putty under the
hand, or crumbled at a touch. This was indeed such
an element of danger that Mr. Ganter had his men go



12

 






THE CAVERN REGION OF KENTUCKY.



with sledge-hammers and crowbars and break down or
pry off the jutting edges till rock was reached sufficiently
solid to support the timbers of the bridge he had them
build across the chasm.
   it has been customary to explain the great fallen
masses, like the Standing Rocks, the Giant's Coffin, the
Whale, and the huge blocks visible in the Corkscrew,
and elsewhere, as caused by earthquakes. Of course it
is possible, though we find few signs of seismic action
anywhere. It is more probable that these masses fell
by their own weight after having been loosened by solu-
tion along the joints caused by early continental up-
lifting.
   The subterranean rivers, after all, are the great cave-
makers. One who sees them at their lowest stage in
summer and floats over them at his leisure, amusing
himself by their echoes, can have no idea of their
tremendous volume and force in winter or early spring.
There are times when the Dead Sea, Styx, Lake Lethe,
Echo River and the Roaring River combine into a
swollen stream fully two miles long, and how much
further into inaccessible depths nobody knows, and with
a maximum depth of one hundred feet. Moreover this
flood has a strong current making navigation dangerous.
Rising, falling, sweeping under overhanging ledges, these
waters hollow out long horizontal passage-ways, sway to
and fro like liquid battering-rams, hammer down weak
walls, and undermine arches, thus making, during many
ages, those successive tiers, or galleries, for which the cave
is noted. Thus the mechanical force and action of run-
ning water must be reckoned into the account, as well as
the more silent energy of simple solution. As the process
goes on, the cave cuts down from high levels to lower



13

 








MAMMOTH CAVE.



ones, thus leaving the upper galleries dry as tinder, of
which Gothic Avenue is a conspicuous example.
    On the other hand a filling-up process also goes on.
Standing water deposits nitrous earth and various
mineral substances. Water trickling from crevices in
the roof slowly evaporates, thus creating stalactites and
stalagmites, by which the passages are finally occluded,
as is the case with the avenue beyond Olive 's Bower.
But it will take countless ages to obliterate the immense
cavity from whose ramifications it is estimated that
millions of cubic yards of limestone have been removed
by the chemical and mechanical action of the waters that
drip, trickle, flow or rush through the multiplied open-
ings of this subterranean realm which we are about to
explore.
   NoTU.-A word further as to air currents, which are some-
times quite violent. The theory that the air rushes into the
cave in winter and out in summer must now be modified. Mr.
A. M. Banta made observations with an anemometer in the
winter of 1903, and says, " The air currents were surprisingly
fitful." The air would run in for a few minutes and then flow
out again. He recorded the inward rates per hour in February
as varying from 56,556 feet to 77,396 feet. Eigenmann, who
made observations in November, reports the ingoing rates as
varying from 7,800 feet per hour to a maximum of 55,830 feet.
Again he says: " I have been at the entrance to Mammoth Cave
when the internal and external pressures were so equalized that
the anemometer would show ingoing and outgoing currents
alternating irregularly every few minutes." I find no record of
the force of outgoing currents in summer. Very decided air cur-
rents were observed by me in Gorin's Dome and the Mammoth
Dome, seeming to prove an outside opening.-H. C. H.



14



 










HISTORICAL SKETCH AND ENVIRONMENT



7     S many as twenty-eight limestone caverns were
       known in Kentucky by the year 1800, beside
       many "rock-houses." From these a certain
Mr. Fowler is said to have obtained "one hundred
thousand pounds of niter." It is stated, in the early
accounts of these localities, that solid masses of salt-
peter were found "weighing from one hundred to
sixteen hundred pounds." Byrem Lawrence, in his
Geology of the Western States, published in 1843,
corrects a popular error by saying of these deposits:
"False saltpeter is found in many caves, particularly
in the Mammoth Cave. It is but a nitrate of lime,
and has to be changed to the nitrate of potash by
leaching it through wood ashes."    Doctor Samuel
Brown, of Lexington, made a journey of a thousand
miles on horseback, in the year 1806, in order to lay
before the American Philosophical Society at Phila-
delphia the facts concerning these resources, which, he
declared, would be especially precious in case of warfare
with any foreign power. He enters into details as to the
manufacture of saltpeter, but does not mention Mam-
moth Cave. The records at Bowling Green designate
that cave as a corner of a section of land in 1797; which
antedates the statement by Bayard Taylor that it was
found in 1802, and of Frank Gorin that it was first
entered by Houchins in 1809. The fact that it was rich
in nitrous earth led to its purchase by a Mr. McLean,
in 1811, who bought the cave and two hundred acres of

 






MAMMOTH CAVE.



land about its mouth, paying for it the sum of forty
dollars. McLean soon sold it to Mr. Gatewood, who, in
turn, sold it to MIessrs. Gratz and Wilkins, whose agent,
Mr. Archibald Miller, made a fortune for them from it
during the War of 1812. The remains of their saltpeter
works are still to be seen at certain places within the
cave.
   Rebecca Gratz, daughter of the senior member of
this firm, was a beautiful Jewess, and a friend of Wash-
ington Irving, who related her romantic story to Sir
Walter Scott in 1817. Shortly afterward "Ivanhoe"
appeared, in 1819. Scott sent a first copy to Irving,
asking, "How do you like your 'Rebecca' Does the
Rebecca I have pictured [in Ivanhoe] compare well
with the pattern given by you" Miss Gratz was born
in 1781 and died in 1869, at Philadelphia.
   A few words are in place regarding the early crude
manufacture of one of the essen