190 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 
efforts to advance, as though hoping thereby to 
escape from some desperate pursuer. In the 
stern sits a white man holding in his hand, in 
front and above his head, a flaming torch, strain- 
ing his eyes as if in expectation of discovering 
in the impenetrable darkness before him the 
forbidding gnomes of this nether world. This 
picture is in striking contrast with the reality. 
Instead of the wild excitement manifested in 
the countenances of the boatman and voyager, 
this passage is one of the calmest, most placid, 
and dreamy that can be imagined; it is a quiet, 
though grand, embarkation “over the smooth 
surface of the summer sea,” where no fear is 
ever felt regarding the intrusion of evil spirits. 
Dr. Poucher’s notice of the Mammoth Cave, 
we are compelled to say, is full of errors: there 
is scarcely a paragraph that can be accepted as 
literally true. 
The discovery of so many errors upon this 
subject (the Cave) in such a pretentious and 
expensive work as that of Dr. Poucher’s Universe, 
at this late date (1870), the more clearly con- 
vinces us of the necessity for the publication of 
an historical narrative of the Cave which, while 
entering more fully into detail than any previous 
work on the subject, can be relied upon as accu- 
