Trans. N. ¥. Ac. Sez. Be tte: Dee. 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, tor 
the surface of the ground is not more than 30 or 40 feet distant. The 
end of the Long Route has been reached. 
In 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 (¢, 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 trom the outer light as to make this inaccessible. ‘he 
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 application of a specific name, 
Cambarus pelluctdus, 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 tne 
mature fish. Although to these cave-dwellers also a specific name; 
Amblyopsis 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. 
