CHAPTER X11. 
THE MAELSTROM.—A PERILOUS ADVENTURE. 
THE Maelstrom is a pit one hundred and 
seventy-five feet deep and twenty wide. There 
are avenues leading from the bottom, which 
may be seen when a light is lowered into it, 
but which have been, as yet, imperfectly ex- 
plored. 
In connection with the Maelstrom, we cannot 
refrain giving the graphic and thrilling account 
of the adventure, already alluded to, of William 
Courtland Prentice, son of George D. Prentice, 
the venerable editor of the “ Louisville Journal,” 
who was an officer in the Confederate Army, 
and was killed in a raid on the banks of the Ohio 
in 1862. In referring to his untimely death, the 
“Journal” said: 
“He loved to seek the wildest and loneliest 
portions of Kentucky. Repeatedly he went far 
up among the bald and desolate crags of the 
cliffs of Dix River, a region haunted by the 
bear, the wild-cat, and the catamount.. The 
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