1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULtUBE. 



35o 



0aR JJeMEg. 



Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or 

 hast thou walked in the search of the depth.— Job 

 38:16. 



'HEN we had got into the cave perhaps 

 a quarter of a mile, the guide point- 

 ed with liis cane to the tracks of 

 oxen, made by the saltpeter workers 

 more than sixty years ago. I stoop- 

 ed down with my knife to cut one of the 

 footprints, to see whether it had really 

 turned to stone, as it looked to be. Our 

 good friend Matt objected, however, remark- 

 ing that, if every visitor were allowed to do 

 that, the cave would soon be all whittled up. 

 Pretty soon we had good evidence of the 

 wisdom of his restrictions, for the ceiling to 

 the cave, where it came down so as to be 

 v.ithin reach overhead, wns 

 literally covered with names 

 dates, and inscriptions , in 

 fact, it reminded one of a 

 country schoolhouse with its 

 carvings and markings. The 

 guide remarked that tins 

 work w^as all done a gieat 

 many years ago. and that toi 

 some "time nothing of tin 

 kind has been allowed I 

 noticed one inscription some 

 thing like this: '-John Jones 

 1815." It was made h\ 

 holding a lamp so near the 

 white ceiling as to blacken 

 it with the smoke, and i ude 

 letters were made in this 

 way. Think of smoking uji 

 these beautiful white <eil 

 ings, just to let people know 

 that John Jones pii^sed 

 througli iiere I I am glad 

 this work has been stopix d 

 and as I shut my knife, and 

 put it back into my po( ket 

 I concluded we must all li\( 

 and learn. Further ba( K m 

 the newer explorations tht 

 eye is not pained by such un- 

 couth lettering. 



Now we come to the sta- 

 lactites. Some of them are 

 old and hard, and look as 

 though they had stood for 

 centuries. Others are damp, and a drop of 

 water hangs on the lower end. slowly evap- 

 orating, and adding to the length ifttle by 

 little, much in the way that an icicle in- 

 creases in size and length as the water runs 

 off from the roof from the melting snows on 

 a wintry day. You can tell by the taste of 

 this water as it trickles down, that it is 

 charged with rocky matter in solution. 

 Some of it tastes strongly of alum. When 

 the water drops slowly on to the tloor below, 

 it evaporates by the currents of air through 

 the cave, and thus piles up. By and by 

 these stalagmites and stalactites meet and 

 form great pillars, a view of which I give 

 you in the cut above. 



The trickling of the water has, during the 

 ages, formed these immense supports, as 

 tnev seem to be. This mammoth dome. 



which is the largest of all the domes yet 

 discovered in the Mammoth Cave, is about 

 400 feet long, and 1-50 feet in length. The 

 height varies from SO to 250 feet. At the 

 left of the picture we have a view of what 

 looks like cliffs. Some of the visitors have 

 climbed up part way of the cliff by means of 

 a ladder. In one place these cliffs look so 

 much like cliffs on the landscape that they 

 have been named ••Kentucky Cliffs." 



A little further along we found a place 

 where, back among the shelving in these 

 cliffs, Httle partitions have been left so as to 

 form veritalDle pigeon-holes, as if some giant 

 had had them made to tuck away his papers. 

 Some of the pigeon-holes, when reached by 

 a ladder, would make a very commodious 

 room for a moderate-sized family. 



And now we come to the Methodist 

 Church. I alwavs liked churches (that is, 



MAMMOTH DOME AXD COKIXTlIIAX I'lLLAUS. 



of late years); and when our guide i^oinled 

 to us the pulpit, and indicated that the logs 

 placed conveniently around before it were 

 the seats used by a" band of worshipers iifty 

 or sixty years ago it gave me a thrill of plea- 

 sure to til ink that our early fathers worship- 

 ed md reverenced the same God that we do 

 now . Services have been at different times 

 since held in this same old Methodist 

 Church, as I have been told. The log seats 

 are in a state of perfect preservation, and 

 look now just as they did when first put 

 there, only somewhat discolored by age. 

 From the absence of schoolhouses and 

 churches in the country around Mammoth 

 Cave. I am afraid that the present age is 

 hardly keeping up the devotional spirit of 

 fifty years ago when they had meetings here 

 regularly. 



