THE SKELETON OF THE CAVE. 215 



a long stairway into a deep and narrow gulch, where the dampness and 

 gloom is little relieved by anything to please the eye. At the foot of the 

 staircase the guide drops his lantern close to a trench-like depression, 

 through which a filmy brooklet trickles noiselessly. No need of inter- 

 rogation — there is no mistaking that slender, slightly curved, brown ob- 

 ject, lying there half out, half embedded in the rock, with its rounded and 

 bi-lobed head, nor its grooved and broken companions. They are not 

 fallen, small stalactites; they are human bones. Fit for the mausoleum 

 of emperors, what a vast vault to become the sarcophagus of one poor 

 frame ! But the cave has guarded its trust well, for, while Caesar's bones 

 have " turned to clay," these are durable as iron. 



It is remembered in the valley that, half a century ago, a dwarf lived 

 here, and one day disappeared from view. Six or seven years afterwards 

 his gun and shreds of his overcoat were discovered in the woods near the 

 entrance to the old cave, whereupon it was concluded that he had entered 

 and lost himself. However, the fact that additional parts of the skeleton 

 are still buried underneath the tufaceous floor seems to disprove the 

 theory that these are the poor dwarf's bones, since more than half a cen- 

 tury, or a whole one, would be needed to deposit stone enough to entomb 

 the bones, unless we discredit the evidence of the present slow growth 

 of lime-rock in the cavern. Perhaps the owner of the femur, etc., was 

 some Indian youth, who, three or four hundred years ago, by accident or 

 design, entered these catacombs, and falling over the high precipice and 

 unable to move starved to death.* 



In animal and plant life also this cave is singularly deficient, all of 

 Kentucky's and even the neighboring Virginian caves furnishing a far 

 greater variety. Small spiders are numerous, bnt all seem to belong to 

 the single species Linyphia Weyeri. There are occasional examples of one 

 of the cave flies ; the myriapod /Spirostrephon Cqpei (Packard), which 

 occurs in all the caverns of that region ; and a new species peculiar to 

 this cave, which has been named Zygonopus Whitei by Eyder, who de- 

 scribed it in the Proceedings of the United States National Museum, 

 vol. iii., p. 527. Previous to receiving living examples, Professor Ryder 

 had obtained supposed specimens, which, upon being subjected to a test 

 with acetic acid, proved to be only a calcareous crust that had been 



* Mr. S. Z. Ammen, in his excellent little guide-book, calls these "the bones of a man 

 — unhappy not to have possessed a copy of this book when he entered upon his explora- 

 tions." My unhappiness, on the contrary, arose from the fact that I did possess it; for 

 I found it had preempted all my adjectives, particularly that widely serviceable term, 

 "weird." 



