246 IN MAMMOTH CAVE 



ago by some consumptives, who hoped to pro- 

 long their lives by a residence in this pure, 

 antiseptic air. Five months they lived here, 

 poor creatures, a half dozen of them, Avithout 

 ever going forth into the world of light. But 

 the long entombment did not arrest the disease ; 

 the mountain did not draw the virus out, but 

 seemed to draw the strength and vitality out, 

 so that when the victims did go forth into the 

 light and air, bleached as white as chalk, they 

 succumbed at once, and nearly all died before 

 they could reach the hotel, a few hundred yards 

 away 



Probably the prettiest thing they have to 

 show you in Mammoth Cave is the Star Cham- 

 ber. This seems to have made an impression 

 upon Emerson when he visited the cave, for he 

 mentions it in one of his essays, "Illusions." 

 The guide takes your lantern from you and 

 leaves you seated upon a bench by the wayside, 

 in the profound cosmic darkness. He retreats 

 along a side alley that seems • to go down to a 

 lower level, and at a certain point shades his 

 lamp with his hat, so that the light falls upon 

 the ceiling over your head. You look up, and 

 the first thought is that there is an opening just 

 there that permits you to look forth upon the 

 midnight skies. You see the darker horizon 

 line where the sky ends and the mountains be- 

 gin. The sky is blue-black and is thickly 

 studded with stars, rather small stars, but appar- 

 ently genuine. At one point a long, luminous 

 streak simulates exactly the form and effect of a 



