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known he was content to pass from human view. In those good old Kentucky- 

 days, when firearms were as much in vogue as they are in these later days, and 

 with worthier ends be it remarked in passing, gunpowder was a scarce article and 

 was husbanded beyond comparison. A roving Philadelphia chemist, Dr. Samuel 

 Brown by name, first taught the earlier settlers the methods of manufacture of 

 gunpowder, with probably as great acceptability as Latinus first taught the Latins 

 agriculture. But the nitre-bearing sheltered cliffs and caves of the Blue Grass 

 region could not alone furnish all the needed nitrate, originally obtained in the 

 form of calcium nitrate, from which the needed saltpetre, or potassium nitrate, 

 was procured through the medium of wood ashes in the clumsy chemistry of 

 nearly a century ago. Recourse was therefore had to other caverns, which were 

 assiduously sought after and many found. From these the needed nitrate was 

 obtained in abundance and a great industry was built up in Kentucky. Rumors 

 of the great cave in Warren County, for we may be sure that coupled with the 

 growth and size of that famous bear each time the story was recounted, Hutchins 

 did not fail to tell of the cave he had found, reached the ears of the middle Ken- 

 tucky folk and business enterprise soon made Mammoth Cave a fact of history. 



Mammoth Cave appears to have attracted great attention from the very first,, 

 though its chief value seems to have been connected with the manufacture of 

 saltpetre. When the war of 1812 came and the resources of the United States 

 were taxed to the utmost in securing materials for the making of powder because 

 the foreign supply was rendered uncertain through the exigencies of war, the 

 caverns of Kentucky furnished nearly all the saltpetre used in that memorable 

 conflict. With central Kentucky, and notably with Lexington, the great eastern 

 city of Philadelphia had intimate commercial relations. It resulted that the 

 caverns of this portion of the State soon were exhausted of their precious nitrate 

 and the new, stupendous Green River cave came prominently into view. A Phil- 

 adelphian of Hebrew descent, and a patriot, by name Hymau Gratz, associated 

 with one Charles Wilkins, of Lexington, leased Mammoth Cave from its earliest 

 owner and carried on in extensive scale the manufacture of saltpetre. Many 

 tons of "petre-dirt," as the miners called it, were brought from far within the 

 cave, the places where they last dug and the vats in which they leached the earth 

 still attesting the magnitude of their operations. With the development of this 

 industry came visitors, and with the visitors went wonderful stories of the great 

 cave. It thus happened that in August of 1814 a gentleman unknown to later 

 days wrote an extended account to "a respectable gentleman of New York,"^ 

 which was published in the Medical Repository, then under the editorial control of 

 the eminent Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchill, accompanied by a map. The account 



