such as would delight the ear of a Catalini or a Malibran.

Leaving the church you will observe, on ascending, a large embankment
of lixiviated earth thrown out by the miners more than thirty years
ago, the print of wagon wheels and the tracks of oxen, as distinctly
defined as though they were made but yesterday; and continuing on for
a short distance, you arrive at the Second Hoppers. Here are seen the
ruins of the old nitre works, leaching vats, pump frames and two lines
of wooden pipes; one to lead fresh water from the dripping spring to
the vats filled with the nitrous earth, and the other to convey the
lye drawn from the large reservoir, back to the furnace at the mouth
of the Cave.

The quantity of nitrous earth contained in the Cave is "sufficient to
supply the whole population of the globe with saltpetre."

"The dirt gives from three to five pounds of nitrate of lime to the
bushel, requiring a large proportion of fixed alkali to produce the
required crystalization, and when left in the Cave become
re-impregnated in three years. When saltpetre bore a high price,
immense quantities were manufactured at the Mammoth Cave, but the
return of peace brought the saltpetre from the East Indies in
competition with the American, and drove that of the produce of our
country entirely from the market. An idea may be formed of the extent
of the manufacture of saltpetre at this Cave, from the fact that the
contract for the supply of the fixed alkali alone for the Cave, for
the year 1814, was twenty thousand dollars."

"The price of the article was so high, and the profits of the
manufacturer so great, as to set half the western world gadding after
nitre caves--the gold mines of the day. Cave hunting in fact became a
kind of mania, beginning with speculators, and ending with hair
brained young men, who dared for the love of adventure the risk which
others ran for profit." Every hole, remarked an old miner, the size of
a man's body, has been penetrated for miles around the Mammoth Cave,
but although we found "_petre earth_," we never could find a cave
worth having.

CHAPTER II.

Gothic Gallery--Gothic Avenue--Good Road--Mummies--Interesting Account
of Them--Gothic Avenue once called Haunted Chamber--Why so Named--
Adventure of a Miner in Former Days.

In looking from the ruins of the nitre works, to the left and some
thirty feet above, you will see a large cave, connected with which is
a narrow gallery sweeping a