Natural Science News. 



VOL. IT. No. 2. 



ALBION, N. Y., FEBRUABY 8, 1896. 



Weekly, $1.00 a Year 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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Mammoth Cave. 



Mammoth Cave is situated 

 eighty-five miles South of Louis- 

 ville, and eight miles from Cave 

 City, a station on the line of the 

 Louisville and Nashville Railroad. 

 Passengers desiring to visit the 

 Cave are carried to and from the 

 trains in McCoy's Concord Coaches. 

 All through passengers are allowed 

 to stop off at Cave City within the 

 limits of their tickets for the pur- 

 pose of visiting the Cave. The 

 Short Route in the Cave may be 

 made with but one day's detention, 

 while two days will be necessary 

 to make the Long and Short 

 Routes, and weeks may be pleas- 

 antly spenc (under the new man- 

 agement) at the Cave Hotel, with 

 its romantic surroundings. So 

 much has been written of this 

 world-famous wonder that it is im- 

 possible to say anything new in re- 

 gard to it. It cannot be described. 

 Its caverns must be explored, its 

 darkness "felt," its beauties seen, 

 to be fully realized. The pencils 

 of the artists have been used in 

 picturing its pits and domes, but 

 they have failed as completely as 

 the brush of the painter fails to fix 

 upon the canvas, the ocean in a 

 storm or the sunrise from a moun- 

 tain peak. 



Bayard Taylor says of the Cave 

 after visiting all the great natural 

 wonders of the Old and New 

 World: 



"I had been twenty hours under 

 ground, but I had gained an age 

 in a strange and hitherto unknown 

 world; an age of wonderful exper- 

 ience, and an exhaustless store of 



sublime and lovely memories. Be- 

 fore taking a final leave of the 

 Mammoth Cave, however; let me 

 assure those who have followed me 

 through it that no description can 

 do justice to its sublimity, or pres- 

 ent a fair picture of its manifold 

 wonders. It is the greatest nat- 

 ural curiosity I have ever visited, 

 Niagara not excepted, and he 

 whose expectations are not satis- 

 fied by its marvelous avenues, 

 domes, and starry grottoes, must 

 either be a fool or a demigod. " 



Another prominent writer says 

 of the ride on Echo River: 



"This alone is worth the trip 

 across the ocean. Darkness inde- 

 scribable, stillness which can only 

 be likened to the tomb, yet gliding 

 over waters without a wave, a 

 stream without beginning or end. 

 'Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,' 

 sung in a deep, manly voice, wakes 

 the 'echoes,' and the reverbera- 

 tions go down the cavernous 

 depths for miles and continue 

 sounding in fainter and fainter 

 tones until they seem to finally die 

 away at an immense distance. 

 William (the guide) then sings the 

 'Sweet By and By,' and more mel- 

 ody is heard than was voiced by 

 the 'Swedish Nightingale' in the 

 days when whole cities hung upon 

 her tones. If Nilsson, Kellogg, or 

 Gerster should go there and sing, 

 the music would surely call back 

 to life the 'dwellers in the caves,' 

 and bring out the rock-riveted 

 melodies of the lost ages. Could 

 one only live on in such a charmed 

 life, no other paradise need be 

 sought. " 



Mammoth Cave Hotel is open 

 all the year, and a visit to the 

 Cave at any season of the year is 

 delightful, the temperature, fifty- 

 five degrees, being the same sum- 

 mer and winter. The salubrity of 

 the Cave, so far as its effects on 

 the health and spirits of visitors 

 are concerned, is decidedly mark- 

 ed. On account of the excess of 

 oxygen the air is very exhilarating, 

 and sustains one in a .ramble of 

 five or ten hours, so that at its end 

 he is hardly sensible of fatigue. 

 The most delicate can visit it with- 

 out fear of heat, cold or exhaust- 

 ion. 



We can not do better than to 

 give an extract from the account 

 of a visit paid the Cave by H. C. 

 Hovey, and described by him in 

 Scribner's Monthly. 



We left the cars at Cave City, a 



station on the Louisville & Nash- 

 ville Railroad, eighty-five miles 

 south of Louisville, and mounted 

 to the top of a stage coach, that 

 makes two daily trips to Mammoth 

 Cave, nine miles distant. Ed- 

 mundson County, within whose 

 limits it is located, has about four 

 thousand sink-holes and five hun- 

 dred open caverns, many of which 

 are but nameless grottoes, while 

 others have gained celebrity. The 

 road winds among the hills and 

 across a high table-land to the 

 bluffs of the Green River. Open- 

 ings are observed here and there 

 amid the rocks, each being as the 

 driver assured us, the mouth of 

 a cave. 



A bugle-flourish heralded our 

 arrival at the Cave Hotel (recently 

 leased to W. C. Comstock, who 

 has had a large practical exper- 

 ience in hotels, and is now manag- 

 ing this in such an efficient and 

 pleasant manner as 'to please the 

 public, and make their stay there a 

 delightful one) — a spacious build- 

 ing evolved from a log-cabin germ 

 — and brought around the coach a 

 throng of guests expecting friends, 

 and negro-servants offering to take 

 our baggage. 



Adjoining the office is a cabinet 

 where specimens are for sale, the 

 rules judiciously forbidding visit- 

 ors to help themselves. Another 

 rule prohibits the use of surveyors' 

 instruments,' lest some unscrupu- 

 lous person should find a new en- 

 trance beyond the five thousand 

 acres now comprising the estate 

 and steal the Cave. Visitors can 

 not dispense with the guide and 

 are cautioned to keep him in sight. 

 Persons accidentally separated 

 from their party should quietly 

 stay in one place until their pres- 

 ence is missed and search made 

 for them. 



The regular hours for entering 

 the Cave are ten o'clock a. m. and 

 seven p. m. The Short Route gen- 

 erally being taken in the evening 

 and the Long Route in the day. 

 An outfit includes a close-fitting 

 cap, a stout dress, a walking stick, 

 a swinging lamp and some 

 matches. The guide for each party 

 carries extra lamps, a can of lard 

 oil, a lunch-basket, and a haver- 

 sack of fire-works. The guides 

 are familiarly known as Old Mat, 

 Old Nick, William, John Lee, and 

 J. M. Hunt. The original guide, 

 whose daring exploits and striking 

 traits made him famous, was 



