248 IN MAMMOTH CAVE 



I had never before heard rocks discourse. Ah, 

 the magic of the right key! "Why leap ye, 

 ye high hills ? " why, but that they had been 

 spoken to in the right voice ? Is not the whole 

 secret of life to pitch our voices in the right 

 key ? Eesponses come from the very rocks 

 when we do so. I thought of the lines of our 

 poet of Democracy : — 



" Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or 



her I shall follow, 

 As the water follows tlie moon, silenth^ with fluid steps, 



anywhere around the globe." 



Where we were standing was upon an arch 

 over an avenue which crossed our course be- 

 neath us. The reverberations on Echo River, 

 a point I did not reach, can hardly be more sur- 

 prising, though they are described as wonderful. 



There are four or five levels in the cave, and 

 a series of avenues upon each. The lowest is 

 some two hundred and fifty feet below the en- 

 trance. Here the stream which has done all 

 this carving and tunneling has got to the end 

 of its tether. It is here on a level with Green 

 River in the valley below and flows directly 

 into it. I say the end of its tether, though if 

 Green River cuts its valley deeper, the stream 

 will of course follow suit. The bed of the 

 river has probably, at successive periods, been 

 on a level with each series of avenues of the 

 cave. The stream is now doubtless but a mere 

 fraction of its former self. Indeed, every fea- 

 ture of the cave attests the greater volume and 

 activity of the forces which carved it, in the 



