venues, besides thirty-two pits or
abysses, and a Gothic church.

The great Mammoth Dome is over four hundred feet high, and light comes
in from above through holes which, at such a height, look like stars
shining in a dark sky. One of the chief lakes is called the Dead Sea,
from its stillness and gloom, and when light is flashed over it from
above it is wonderfully impressive, with its surrounding fringe of
gleaming stalactites.

A terrible abyss is known as the Bottomless Pit, the depths of which
have never been sounded. On one of its sides rises a huge
crystallisation in the form of a spinning chair, which gleams out from
the surrounding blackness, and is called the Devil's Chair. This
appalling chasm is credited with various terrible tales. One is of two
young lovers who hid in the Mammoth Cave, but finding themselves
pursued, tied themselves together with the girl's girdle, and jumped
into the abyss. However misguided and foolish we may think these young
folk, we can have nothing but pity for two runaway slaves from Alabama,
who, after horrible sufferings and privations in the swamps and forests,
hoped to have found a resting-place in the great cavern. Alas for their
hopes! before long they heard the voices of their pursuers, the cracking
of their heavy whips, the baying of the bloodhounds which had tracked
them to their refuge. Further and further they retreated in the
darkness, only to hear the dreadful sounds draw nearer and nearer, until
they found that they could go no further, as they had arrived at a small
rocky platform overhanging the Bottomless Pit. Before was certain death,
though it was hidden in the horrors of mystery and darkness; behind were
the terrors of a death of protracted agony, as a warning to other
fugitive slaves! One second's hesitation, and then, as their captors
reached out to seize their prey, the despairing men leapt from the rock
into the awful pit.

One very singular cave is known as the Church, and is curiously like the
crypt of an English Cathedral, such as Gloucester or Canterbury. It is
very nearly the same size as the latter. Here stalactites and
stalagmites of colossal size have joined to form pillars, united by
Norman arches, with wonderful effect. Religious services have often been
held in this veritable 'temple not made with hands.'

Indian mummies have been met with in parts of the cavern, proving that
it was known to native tribes in past ages. The skeleton of a mastodo