TJHI7WSITY 



THE MAMMOTH CAVE 



AND ITS 



INHABITANTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE FORMATION OF THE CAVE.* 



BY F. W. PUTNAM. 



AFTER the adjournment of the meeting of the American Associ- 

 ation for the Advancement of Science, held at Indianapolis, in 

 August last, a large number of the members availed themselves of 

 the generous invitation of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad 

 Company, to visit this world renowned cave, and examine its pe- 

 culiar formation and singular fauna. 



The cave is in a hill of the subcarboniferous limestone forma- 

 tion in Edmondson County, a little to the west and south of the 

 centre of Kentucky. Green river, which rises to the eastward in 

 about the centre of the state, flows westward passing in close 

 proximity to the cave, and receiving its waters thence flows north- 

 westerly to the Ohio. 



The limestone formation in which the cave exists, is a most in- 

 teresting and important geological formation, corresponding to 

 the mountain limestone of the European geologists, and of con- 

 siderable geological importance in the determination of the west- 

 ern coal fields. 



We quote the following account of this formation from Major S. 

 S. Lyon's report in the fourth volume of the Kentucky Geological 

 Survey, pages 509-10. 



"The sinks and basins at the head of Sinking creek exhibit 

 in a striking manner, the eroding effect of rains and frost some 

 of the sinks, which are from forty to one hundred and ninety feet 



*From the AMERICAN NATURALIST for December, 1871. 



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