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. 



" ' I 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 frorai the Cave, and it is 

 these two agents acting together which produce 

 both animal and vegetable decomposition and 

 putrefaction. 



"'In 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, 



