Trans. N. Y. Ac. Set. 64 Dec. 12 



few yards, a hall is found, in the floor of which is a pit 175 feet deep^ 

 The corresponding dome overhead is scarcely noticeable as such, for 

 the surface of the ground is not more than 30 or 40 feet distant. The 

 end of the Long Route has been reached. 



fn returning, the passage through Fat Man's Misery is avoided, and 

 nearly two miles of walking are saved by climbing through a very 

 steep, narrow, winding " Corkscrew" pass {t, Fig. 2), starting from the 

 neighborhood of Great Relief and terminating at the side of the Great 

 Rotunda. The vertical ascent is about 140 feet. To even stout- 

 hearted mountaineers, if stout-bodied also, this Corkscrew is an in- 

 tensified Fat Man's Misery, and upon them it rarely fails to leave 

 strong and deep impressions, which may be of more kinds than one. 



In regard to the animal life of the Mammoth Cave, conflicting 

 opinions have been expressed by those who have made a special study 

 of this subject. The bats, lizards and rats that have been found can- 

 not be strictly called cave-dwellers, as they are always at points not so 

 far removed from the outer light as to make this inaccessible. The 

 cave crickets and blind crawfish have particularly long antennae and 

 acute powers of hearing. Most of the crawfish are pale in color, 

 some of them almost white ; and this feature has been attributed to 

 the continued absence of light. Crawfish, however, with well developed 

 eyes and of dark color have been often found. These are without 

 doubt either wanderers from Green River or the immediate descendants 

 of such ; and many generations of cave-dwelling are required to bring 

 about such changes as have caused the appUcation of a specific name, 

 Cambarus pelliicidtis, to the White variety with only rudimentary 

 eyes. 



In regard to the blind fish it is a significant fact that the rudimentary 

 eyes of the young are apparently less atrophied than those of the 

 mature fish. Although to these cave-dwellers also a specific name. 

 Amblyopsh spelaeus, has been given, they are by no means the only fish 

 found amid this Stygian darkness. The existence of fish with perfect 

 eyes, apparently prospering where eyes are useless, shows how much 

 less dependent these creatures are than more highly organized verte- 

 brates upon approximate uniformity in external conditions. To those 

 who have already accepted evolution, there is far less difficulty in 

 believing that the colorless blind fish are the modified descendants of 

 dark-colored ancestors with perfect eyes, which have wandered from 

 Green River into Echo River, than in concluding that they have always 

 constituted a separate species, as held by Prof. L. Agassiz, and subse- 

 quently contended by Prof. F. W. Putnam.* Nevertheless, Prof 



*The Mammoth Cave and its Inhabitants. By A. S. Packard. Jr., and F. W. Putnam. 

 Salem, Mass., 1879. 



