Monmouth weekly herald. [volume] (Freehold, N.J.) 1854-1860, 1858-09-30
From the Louisville Journal.
Terrific Adventure in the Mammoth
CAVE.

AVA44AO G1ON0ALuIO LII b00 H4aI1LX3tA
CAVE.
At the supposed end of what has always
been considered the longest avenue of the
Mammoth Cave, nine miles from its en-
entrance, there is a pit, dark and deep
and terrible, known as the Maelstrom.
Tens of thousands have gazed into it with
awe while bengal-lights were thrown
down it to make its fearful depths visible,
but none ever had the daring to explore
it. The celebrated guide Stephen, who.
was deemed insensible to fear, was offered
six hundred dollars, by the proprietOrs of
the Cave, if he would descend to the
bottom of it, but he shrunk from the peril.
A few years ago a Tennessee professor, a
learned and bold man, resolved to do
what no n before him had dared do,
and, making his arrangements with great
care and ~precaation, be had himself low
cred down by a strong rope a hundred
feet, but, at that point, his courage failed
him, and he called aloud to be drawn ont.
No human power could eve have induced
him to repeat the appalling experiment.
A couple OF weeks ago, however, a
young gentleman of Louisville, whose
nerves never trembled at mortal peril,
being at the Mammoth Gave with Profes.
sor Wright Of our city and Others, deter
mined, no matter what the dangers and
difficulties might be, to explore the depths
of the Maelstrom. Mr.. Proctor, the en-
terprising proprietor of the Cave, sent
to Nashville and procured a long rope of
great strength expressly for the purpose.
The rope and some necessary timbers
were borne by the guides and others to
the point of proposed exploration. The
arrangements being soon completed, the
rope, with a heavy fragment Of rock at
tached to it, was let down and swung to
and fre to disl3dge any loose rocks that
would be likely to fall ct the touch.
Several were thus disloged, and the long
continued reverberations, rising up like
distant thunder from below, proclaimed
the depth of the horrid chasm. Then the
young hero of the occasion, with several
hats drawn over his head to protect it as
far as possible against any masses falling
from above, and with a light In his hand
and the rope fastened around his body,
took his place over the awful pit and d.
rested the half dozen men who held the
end of the rope to let him down into the
Zimmerman gloom.
We have heard from his own lips an
account of his descent. Occasionally
masses of earth and rock went whizzing
vast, but none struck him. Thirty or
forty feet from the top, he saw a ledge,
from which, as he judged by appearances,
two or three avenues led off in different
directions. About a hundred feet from
the top, a cataract from the side of the
pit went rushing down the abyss, and, as
he descended by the side of the falling
water and in the midst of the spray, he
felt some apprehension that his light would
be extinguished, but his care prevented
this. He was landed at the bottom of
the pit, a hundred and ninety feet from
the top. He found, it almost perfectly
circular, about eighteen feet in diameter,
with a small opening at one point, leading
to a fine chamber of no great extent. he
found on the floor beautiful specimens of
black slick ofeimmense size. vastly larger
than were ever discovered in any other
part of the Mammoth Cave, and also a
multitude Of exquisite formations as pure
and white as virgin snow. Making
himself heard, with great effort, by his
friends, he at length asked them to pull
him partly up, intending to stop on the
way and explore a cave that he had OBJ,
served opening about forty feet above the
bottom Of the pit. Reaching the mouth
of that cave, he swung himself with much
exertion into it, and holding the end of
the rope in his hand, he i~ncsutieusly let
it go, and it swung out apparently beyond
his reach. The situation was a fearful
one, and his friends above could do moth
ing for him. Soon, however, he made a
hook of the end Of his lamp, and, by ex-
tending himself al far ever the verge as
possible without falling, he succeeded in
securing the rope. Fastening it to a rock,
he followed the avenue $50 or 200 yards,
to a point where he found it blocked by an
impossible avalanche of rock and earth.
Returning to the mouth of this avenue, he
beheld an almost exactly similar mouth
of another on the opposite side of the pit,
but, not being able to swing himself into
it, he refastened the rope around his body,
suspended himself again over the abyss,
and shouted to his friends to raise him to
the top. The pull was an exceedingly
severe one. and the rope, being i'll adjusted
around his body, gave him the most ex.
cruciating pain. But soon his pain was
lost in a new and dreadful peril. When
he vas 80 feet from the mouth of the pit
and 100 from the bottom, swinging in
mid-air, he heard rapid and excited words
OF horror and alarm above, and soon
learned that the rope by which he was
upheld had taken fire from the friction. of
the timber over which it passed. Several
moments Of awful suspense to those above,
and still more awful TO him below, ensu-
ed. 10 them and him a fatal and instant
catastrophe seemed inevitable. But the
fire al extinguished with a bottle of
water belonging to himself, and thea the