IN MAMMOTH CAVE 249 



the light of day in there, you would come to your 

 senses, and could test the reality of your impressions. 

 At the entrance you have the light of day, and you 

 look fairly in the face of this underground monster, 

 yea, into his open mouth, which has a span of fifty 

 feet or more, and down into his contracting throat, 

 where a man can barely stand upright, and where 

 the light fades and darkness begins. As you come 

 down the hill through the woods from the hotel, you 

 see no sign of the cave till you emerge into a small 

 opening where the grass grows and the sunshine 

 falls, when you turn slightly to the right, and there 

 at your feet yawns this terrible pit; and you feel 

 indeed as if the mountain had opened its mouth and 

 was lying .in wait to swallow you down, as a whale 

 might swallow a shrimp. I never grew tired of sit- 

 ting or standing here by this entrance and gazing 

 into it. It had for me something of the same fasci- 

 nation that the display of the huge elemental forces 

 of nature have, as seen in thunder-storms, or in 

 a roaring ocean surf. Two phoebe-birds had their 

 nests in little niches of the rocks, and delicate ferns 

 and wild flowers fringed the edges. 



Another very interesting feature to me was the 

 behavior of the cool air which welled up out of the 

 mouth of the cave. It simulated exactly a fountain 

 of water. It rose up to a certain level, or until it 

 filled the depression immediately about the mouth of 

 the cave, and then flowing over at the lowest point, 

 ran down the hill towards Green Eiver, along a 

 little watercourse, exactly as if it had been a liquid. 



