184 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
and had each a flat reed placed in the opening. 
These whistles were tied together with a cord 
wound around them. 
“<T have been thus minute in describing this 
mute witness from the days of other times, and 
the articles which were deposited within her 
earthly house. Of the race of people to whom 
she belonged when living we know nothing; and, 
as to conjecture, the reader who gathers from 
these pages this account can judge of the matter 
as well as those who saw the remnant of mor- 
tality in the subterranean chambers in which 
she was entombed. The cause of the preserva- 
tion of her body, dress, and ornaments is no 
mystery. The dry atmosphere of the Cave, with 
the nitrate of lime with which the earth that 
covers the bottom of these nether palaces is so 
highly impregnated, preserves animal flesh, and 
it will neither putrefy nor decompose when con- 
fined to its unchanging action. Heat and moist- 
ure are both absent from the Cave, and it is 
these two agents acting together which produce 
both animal and vegetable decomposition and 
putrefaction. 
‘¢<TIn the ornaments, etc. of this mute witness 
of ages gone we have a record of olden time, 
from which, in the absence of a written record, 
