248 RIVERBY 



of carbonic acid gas than now. It has carved out 

 enormous pits with perpendicular sides, two or three 

 hundred feet deep. Goring Dome I remember par- 

 ticularly. You put your head through an irregularly 

 shaped window in the wall at the side of one of the 

 avenues, and there is this huge shaft or well, start- 

 ing from some higher level and going down two 

 hundred feet below you. There must have been 

 such wells in the old glaciers, worn by a rill of water 

 slowly eating its way down. It was probably ten feet 

 across, still moist and dripping. The guide threw 

 down a lighted torch, and it fell and fell, till I had 

 to crane my neck far out to see it finally reach the 

 bottom. Some of these pits are simply appalling, 

 and where the way is narrow have been covered over 

 to prevent accidents. 



No part of Mammoth Cave was to me more im- 

 pressive than its entrance, probably because here its 

 gigantic proportions are first revealed to you, and 

 can be clearly seen. That strange colossal under- 

 world here looks out into the light of day, and comes 

 in contrast with familiar scenes and objects. When 

 you are fairly in the cave, you cannot see it; that 

 is, with your aboveground eyes; you walk along 

 by the dim light of your lamp as in a huge wood at 

 night; when the guide lights up the more interest- 

 ing portions with his torches and colored lights, the 

 eff'ect is weird and spectral; it seems like a dream; 

 it is an unfamiliar world ; you hardly know whether 

 this is the emotion of grandeur which you experi- 

 ence, or of mere strangeness. If you could have 



