6 
MEMOIRS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
limestone, giving rise to tlie beautiful effects that have conferred celebrity on the opening known as the Star Cham¬ 
ber, and the myriad rock-flowers of Cleveland’s Cabinet. 
The structure of the pits and domes was then illustrated, with the aid of the accompanying map, by describing a 
journey through the cave. From the hotel (a, Figs. 1 and 2) the visitoi walks to its mouth (6) by the side of a 
shallow ravine, terminating in what was formerly a large sink-hole. The door of this fell through about seventy 
years ago, producing the present month of the cave, and cutting off part of the gallery now known as Dixon’s 
Cave (c), which opens out near the Green River, a half mile distant. A walk of 1,000 yards brings him to the Great 
Rotunda (d), about 170 feet in diameter and 100 feet high. It is immediately under the hotel, its roof being not more 
than 40 or 50 feet from the surface. Besides the gallery called the Narrows (&'), by which access has just been 
obtained, another tunnel from the farther side terminates in the Rotunda, to which the name of Audubon’s Avenue 
(&") has been given. The large, almost hemispherical, opening seems to have been cut out by the meeting of nearly 
opposite streams of water, which found exit, probably, through the main cave (e). At some distance within Audubon’s 
Avenue a small opening in the floor is found, connecting it with the roof of the Mammoth Dome, a vast cavern 400 feet 
long, 100 feet wide, and 250 feet high. These figures are of course only approximate, but it is believed that they 
are not exaggerated. Into this cavern the water is still trickling, and stalagmites are forming with sufficient rapidity 
to have cemented firmly to the floor a lamp dropped in 1812 and found in 1843. Returning to the Rotunda and 
passing through a half mile or more of the main cave, the visitor reaches at (e') a large fallen slab of limestone, to 
which has been assigned the title of the Giant’s Coffin. This makes the entrance to a side passage ( g ), which leads 
off to the lowest part of the present cave. The main cave forms an acute angle (/), and may be followed for several 
miles, terminating abruptly in a pile of rocks, where the roof has fallen in the same manner as at the terminus of 
Dixon’s Cave. Many of its side passages and avenues are yet unexplored. 
Returning and entering the side passage near the Giant’s Coffin, the visitor passes obliquely beneath the main 
cave, starting upon what is known distinctively as the Long Route. At an expansion ( h) are successive deposits of 
gravel, sand, and clay, indicating the downward course of the water, which was here partially arrested. Some 
distance farther on the passage forks (i). Keeping to the right, the dangerous Side-Saddle Pit ( Tc ) is encountered, 
which measures 65 feet in depth and 20 feet across. It is surmounted by Minerva’s Dome, 35 feet high. The pit yawns 
across the right half of the floor of the tunnel, leaving a narrow path on the left. A short distance beyond (1) the 
tunnel again forks. Keeping to theright, as before, Gorin’s Dome (to) is reached, and may be viewed with the aid of 
magnesium lights from a small opening on the side 10 feet above the pathway. The abyss extends 117 feet down¬ 
ward, 100 feet upward, and 60 feet across. Leaving this and passing the fork ( l), the tunnel is completely interrupted 
by the so-called Bottomless Pit (»), across which a bridge has been laid, resting upon a ledge. Despite its ominous 
name it does not defy measurement, having been found to be 95 feet deep on one side of the ledge and 105 feet on the 
other. Almost immediately overhead is Shelby’s Dome, 60 feet high. Between the Bottomless Pit and the Side-Saddle 
Pit are a pair of very large pits, discovered not a year ago by one of the guides (William Garvin), and examined for 
the first time last August by Mr. Hovey, who gave to them the names Scylla (p) and Charybdis (o) on account of 
the narrow rugged passage which separates them and the great difficulty and danger of access. By timing the fall 
of pebbles into the water at the bottom the depth of each was ascertained to be about 200 feet. Charybdis was seen 
to be directly connected with the Bottomless Pit. Indeed the latter may be regarded as only a part of Charybdis, its 
depth (105 feet) being that of a jutting ledge or the floor, upon which water ceased to fall after being slightly deviated 
into Charybdis, where the sound of its trickling is still audible. Shelby’s Dome is simply the upward, continuation 
of this combined pit. So narrow, moreover, are the ridges separating Scylla from Charybdis on the one side and 
from the Covered Pit ( q ) on the other, and so small is the distance to the Side-Saddle Pit (7c), that it seems in the 
highest degree probable that the group of pits compose merely the upper branches of a single large pit into which 
they are all united, or at least directly connected, before the bottom is reached, and the small relative depth of the 
Side-Saddle Pit is explicable in the same manner as that of the Bottomless Pit. Such an extraordinary group of 
pits, forming an apparent nucleus of cave drainage, might be expected to have its counterpart in an unusually large 
depression or group of sink-holes at the surface. Impressed with this idea, Mr. Hovey found in the woods scarcely 
half a mile from the hotel, in the known direction of these pits, a depression (p Fig. 2) many acres in extent, and so 
deep that from its edge he could overlook the tops of the pine trees that rose from the middle. 
Leaving this region of pits and domes, the route leads still downward, passing again under the main cave through 
the narrow tortuous channel known as Fat Man’s Misery (s), where the distance from floor to roof is in many places 
not more than 3 feet. Through the floor a winding passage has been worn away, varying in width and depth 
from 1 to 3 feet. This terminates in a chamber, which has received the appropriate name of Great Relief, where 
the succession of pebbles, gravel, sand, and fine clay again records the work of erosion and deposit. This bed 
is not more than 50 or 60 feet above the drainage level, and from here down to the River Styx the ground becomes 
more or less damp. A succession of bodies of water are then encountered, including the tubular Echo River, which 
s navigated in boats. It is a part of the tunnel, which has subsided below the water level, and is in connection with 
Green River, being filled to within a few feet of the roof in summer, and completely closed in winter when the Green 
River rises. The column of air between the water and the impervious roof, closed everywhere except at the two ends, 
which are three-fourths of a mile apart, serves as a resonator for any note within the range of the human voice, and 
multiple echoes gliding imperceptibly into each other continue to be returned for many seconds after the voice has 
been hushed. 
Beyond Echo River the cave may be followed with continual ascent through Silliman’s Avenue, the Pass of El 
Ghor, and Cleveland’s Cabinet for about 5-J miles. A pile of jagged rocks 100 feet high, is then surmounted, and 
the wearied climber is confronted with a large cavern 100 feet wide and 70 feet deep, where three short branches 
