190 THE MAMMOTH CAVE. 



efforts to advance, as though hoping thereby to 

 escape from some desperate pursiier. 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- 



