THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 193 
have obtained a copy of “The Monthly Magazine; or, British 
Register; reprinted, with American Intelligence, in Boston, 
U.S.” In the number for April, 1816, under the head of Ameri- 
can Intelligence, is given a “ Description of the Great Cave in 
Warren [now Edmonson] County, Kentucky.—Extract of a 
letter from Dr. Nahum Ward, formerly of Shrewsbury, Massa- 
chusetts, now resident in the Western country, to his friend in 
Worcester, giving an account of an excursion in Kentucky in the 
fall of last year; dated Marietta, April 4, 1816.” 
This account appears to be copied from a newspaper called the 
“Worcester Spy;” and this is the original publication of the 
history of the mummy which we have extracted from ‘ Collins’ 
Kentucky.” “The Monthly Magazine,” however, did not copy 
the details relative to the mummy (dress, ornaments, ete.) which 
we have seen was so fully copied by Mr. Collins. We find 
nothing in this article the quotation of which would afford addi- 
tional interest to our readers. In a subsequent number of the 
same magazine, July, 1816, Dr. Ward furnished a map of the 
Cave, together with an engraving of the mummy which was 
therein found, and. with which he had been presented. 
The map, of course, is chiefly drawn from imagination: at that 
early date no surveys had been attempted. Nearly all the names 
by which the various parts of the Cave were then described have, 
since that date, been changed. 
As might naturally be expected in describing a curiosity so 
extraordinary in its dimensions and characteristics, and of which 
so little was known at that day, we find considerable exaggera- 
tion and some misstatements in the account of Dr. Ward. He 
speaks of various chambers which constitute an area of from szx 
to eoght acres, and estimates that he explored a continuous avenue, 
to the distance of eleven miles. The ‘ Bottomless Pit” was not 
crossed.for more than twenty years afterward; and the extreme 
length of the “ Long Route,” now known, does not exceed nine 
miles. ‘The writer also speaks of Green River as passing over 
several of the avenues of the Cave, the incorrectness of which 
statement has long since been established. 
17 
