58 



THE MUSEUM. 



was worse than the last as the 

 smoke-laden air was still thicker, the 

 chamber being at a lower level. This 

 was alarming and we all now realized 

 that we must hasten onward and 

 quickly attain a higher level or we 

 should suffocate. 



Had the way before us been other 

 than straight, had there been a maze of 

 side-passages to bewilder and confuse 

 us, we would have had considerable 

 trouble in keeping the right path. 

 But soon we worked our way to an 

 upper level where we happily found 

 but little smoke and were able to again 

 breathe in comfort. 



Here a new difficulty confronted us. 

 We were positively unable for some 

 little time to find the way out. 

 Though two of our party had been 

 through the cave before yet we were 

 all "at sea" for a few minutes. Some 

 retracing the path others vainly trying 

 the passage ahead. Another tried to 

 insert himself into a narrow crevice in 

 the floor of the passage, thinking no 

 doubt we had through some mistake 

 taken a higher level than we ought. 

 But folly! "Hitch your wagon to a 

 star." Why did we not look up? 

 Right over our heads, far up, lay the 

 pathway. We were just below the 

 difficult path. In fact we were in 

 Martin Carson's "Bottomless Pit." 

 From here upward and onward we 

 had no difficulty. A fine moral could 

 easily be taken from this latter in- 

 cident. 



The odd phenomenon noted, — the 

 unu"sual settling of the smoke and 

 fumes in the lower depths of the cav- 

 ern, may have been caused by the pe- 

 culiar configuration of the walls of 

 that portion of the cavern; compari- 

 tively narrow yet the cleft extends up- 

 ward to a great height. This parti- 

 cular shape of the opening, coupled 

 possibly with an absence of active cir- 

 culation there, may help to explain 

 the matter. A like occurrence I had 

 never noticed before, nor have I read 

 of any similar case. 



Mitchell's Cave possesses a mild 



mystery in the way of a vanishing por- 

 tal, an elusive rock-hole. "Now you 

 see it; now you don't." A number of 

 explorers have told of a certain my- 

 sterious round hole existing in the floor 

 of one of the chambers, an opening 

 leading to unknown depths of the cave. 



"Where the footsteps of mortal never trod." 



Those who have seen it describe it as 

 being a nearly round hole in the floor 

 at the end of small chamber; a round 

 hole like that in an old-time well-stone, 

 but not quite laige enough to admit a 

 person. The thickness of the rock 

 floor at the aperture is said to be 

 about 12 inches. The depth of the 

 opening below is unknown but is esti- 

 mated to be considerable judging from 

 the sound given back by stones drop- 

 ped into it. One explorer writes of it 

 thus, — "It seems as if it were an open- 

 ing through the ceiling of a large room. 

 The distance to the lower floor esti- 

 mated at from 40 to 100 feet, or more. 

 The room below seems to be of very 

 large size." There has been consid- 

 erable speculation as to what wonders 

 might be revealed could this opening 

 be enlarged sufficiently to permit ac- 

 cess to the unknown chambers below. 

 Various ways have been suggested of 

 accomplishing this. Some have plan- 

 ned to use dynamite. Others have 

 proposed chipping the hole to a larger 

 diameter by means of a heavy stone- 

 hammer. At our visit, in 1896, we 

 carried hammers, drill, powder and 

 fuse, etc., hoping to enlarge the open- 

 ing by drilling near its margin and 

 blowing out a section. To our disap- 

 pointment we were entirely unable to 

 find the place at all although two of 

 our party of five, Hartley and Van 

 Home, had visited the cave before on 

 different occasions and each had both 

 seen and remembered it well. 



It is possible that, within the past 

 few years, there has been some fall of 

 rock in the cleft concealing or closing 

 this opening, for Van Home, who was 

 much chagrined over our failure to find 

 the mystery, has made another attempt 



