264 SPORT IN NORTH AMERICA. 



Mammoth Caves, among a number of gray and bare 

 limestone rocks. There is a splendid hotel in the 

 vicinity, furnished with taste, and offering every 

 comfort and accommodation to the traveller. The 

 opening into the caves is within a very short distance 

 of the hotel. A limpid stream of water noiselessly 

 percolates down the rock and disappears in a kind of 

 basin below. 



I pass over many of the curiosities which render 

 those vast natural caverns so remarkable. One of 

 the passages is called Audubon^s Avenue. Its walls 

 are polished like marble, and it is rather more than 

 a mile long. At the farther end is a well or pond, 

 about twenty-five feet deep, filled with water as clear 

 as crystal. Returning, we found a passage called the 

 Great Gallery, which is a large tunnel measuring 

 some eighteen yards in height and width, and leading 

 to Kentucky Cliffs — so called from the resemblance 

 which they bear to the perpendicular banks which 

 border the Kentucky River. Descending at once 

 by about twenty steps, we found ourselves in a kind 

 of hall, which was more like a church in which five 

 thousand people could be collected, than anything 

 else. Beyond this, there is the largest saltpetre 

 mine in the world, and, a little way on, the Gothic 

 Avenue. 



This led us to other places of interest in the Mam- 

 moth Caves, all of which we examined carefully. 

 We dined at the foot of the cataract, where there 



