fficient accuracy to prevent any misconception
of the difficulties to be overcome or the personal risk involved. To go
from our temporary abiding place it was necessary to pass Marble Cave,
and when we had gone that far Mr. Powell left us to follow the road,
while he, on his mule, took a short cut across the hills and valleys, to
try to find men not too much occupied with their own affairs on a fine
Monday morning, in corn plowing time, to join our expedition. As neither
our small companion, Merle, nor ourselves, had any knowledge of the
locality of our destination, we were carefully instructed to follow the
main road to the Wilderness Ridge, and keeping to that, pass the Indian
Creek road and all others that are plain, but turn down the second dim
road and follow it until stopped by a new fence where we would be met
and conducted. So long as points to be passed held out, these directions
gave us no trouble whatever, even the first dim road offering no
obstacle to the pleasure of our progress; but the second dim road proved
so elusive we traveled many miles in search of it, finally bringing up
against a place Merle was familiar with and knew to be a long way off
the track of our intentions. As there was nothing to be done but return
we naturally accepted the situation and did that; presently finding Mr.
Powell and the Messrs. Irwin, on whose land the cave is, patiently
waiting for us in what was really not a road at all, but rather, in this
region of fossils, the badly preserved impression of one long since
extinct.

The new fence was opened at two places that we might drive through and
be saved the exertion of walking a considerable distance, then the
horses were left in the shade while we scrambled down the steep
hill-side covered with sharp-edged, broken rock, about mid-way down
which is the mouth of the cave, yawning like a narrow, open well. Above
this a stout windlass has been arranged on two forked logs.

A few feet below the surface the cave spreads out jug-shaped, so that in
descending nothing is touched until the floor is reached, one hundred
feet beneath the surface; consequently the only danger to be apprehended
is a fall.

Each of the three men present kindly offered to go down and make the
exploration with me, but that would have left only two at the windlass,
and for a man's weight, safety requires four. Should an accident occur,
assistance would be necessary, and some time lost in finding it; so, to
t