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The Mammoth Cave possesses few features
of interest for a geologist or naturalist. It
may be considered a great crack opened in
the thick bed of limestone, by some convulsion,
or series of convulsions, which have left
it in some places in its original condition,
while, in other parts, it has been worn and
altered by rushing floods that have swept
into it sand, gravel, and clay; while, also, the
infiltration of springs from above has, here
and there, destroyed the calcareous crust,
and exposed the superstratum of sandstone.
The earthquakes, that have left their visible
devastations in every part of the cave, must,
however, have been a thousand times more
violent than those of modern days. Many

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shocks—the concussions that succeeded the
great New Madrid earthquake of 1811—
were experienced by the nitre-diggers, while
at work in the cave; but, though sorely
frightened on each occasion, they never saw
a single rock shaken from the roof or walls.
The rock contains no fossils, or none that
we could discover; though shells abound in
the limestone in the vicinity. No fossil bones
have been discovered. Human bones in a
recent condition were dug up near the entrance;
but no mummies were found. The
mummy in one of the public museums said to
be from the Mammoth Cave, was taken, we
were told, from a cave in the neighbourhood—
we believe, the Pit Cave; though deposited
for awhile in the Mammoth Cave for exhibition.
There are vast numbers of rats in the
cave, though we never could get sight of any
of them. What they can find to live on may
well be wondered at. In winter, the roof of
the cave, as far in, at least, as the Black
Chambers, where we found them in numbers,
is seen dotted over with bats. In the low
and humid branches, there may frequently be
seen, galloping along over roof and floor, an
insect with long cricket-like legs, and body
like a spider; and a smaller insect, somewhat

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like that “strange bedfellow,” with which
misery makes us acquainted, may be sometimes
discovered.

I have frequently had occasion to speak of
the Indians, the original inhabitants of the
cave; and, indeed, this is to me one of the
most interesting subjects connected with the
Mammoth Cave. I use the word inhabitants;
for mere visiters, unless the cave was, in its
day, much more of a lion among the savage
Red-men than it is now, even among their
white successors, could never have left behind
them so many vestiges. We have seen what
vast quantities of broken, half-burnt canes lie
among the rocks of the Chief City. They
are scattered in other parts of the cave—I
might say, throughout the whole extent of the
Grand Gallery—in nearly equal profusion.
These, there can be little doubt, are the remains
of torches—in some cases of fires; for
which former purpose they were tied together
with strips of young hickory bark, into little
faggots. Such faggots are still occasionally
picked up, half-consumed, the thongs still
around them. Besides, there have been discovered
stone arrow-heads, axes, and hammers,
and pieces of pottery, with moccasins,

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blankets of woven bark, and other Indian
valuables; in short, evidence sufficient to
prove that these occidental Troglodytes actually
lived in the cave. No mere visiters
would have taken the trouble to build the
walls in the Grand Gallery near the Cataracts;
much less to clear away the rocks from
the floor of the Blue-Spring Branch, as we
find has been done, so as to make a good
path on the sand beneath. There are, in
several branches, places where the walls have
been picked and beaten with stone-hammers—
for what purpose no one can tell; in others,
rocks heaped up into mounds, and the earth
separated—the object of such labour, as we
cannot suppose the Indians did dig villanous
saltpetre, being equally mysterious; neither
of which could have been done by temporary
visitants. Nor could such visitants have
made themselves so thoroughly acquainted
with the cave; into every nook of which they
seem to have penetrated, leaving the prints
of their moccasins and naked feet in the sand
and clay of the low branches, and fragments
of their cane torches in the upper ones.
Even in the Solitary Cave, previously unknown
to the guides, we found, in one place,
the print of a naked foot. One would think

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the curious fellows had even entered some of
the pits; as there are long ropes, or withes of
hickory bark, sometimes found, which look
as if they might have been prepared for such
a purpose. At all events, it is quite plain
that the Mammoth Cave was once the dwelling-place
of man—of a race of the Anakim,
as some will have it, whose bones were disinterred
in the Vestibule; or, as common-sense
personages may believe, of a tribe of
the common family of Red-men, who, in ages
not very remote, occupied all the fertile valleys
along the rivers of Kentucky. Some
such clan, I suppose, dwelt on Green River,
at Cave Hollow, using the Mammoth Cave
as a kind of winter-wigwam, and—a more
common use of caves among Indians—a
burial place. The tribe has vanished, and
their bones, (to what base uses we may return!)
converted into gunpowder, have been
employed to wing many a death against their
warring descendants.

But of Indians, charnels, and caves no
more: we have reached the confines of day;
yonder it shines upon us afar, a twinkling
planet, which increases as we advance,
changing from pallid silver to flaming gold.

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It is the gleam of sunset playing upon the
grass and mosses at the mouth of the cave.

Oh, World, World! he knows not thy loveliness,
who has not lived a day in the Mammoth
Cave!

p018-414

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