The States and Union. [volume] (Ashland, Ohio) 1868-1872, 1871-09-27
A Scientific Exploration Of the
Mammoth Gave.

At the close of the meeting of the
American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, at Indianapolis
an excursion was made to the Nam
moth Cave, Kentucky, by q large
party of ladies and gentlemen, about
one hundred and ninety in all. On
arriving at the cave, it was thought
best By some of the party to have the
cave explored in the spirit of scientific
investigation, and accordingly social
party of scientists was formed for this
purpose, and provided with the besi
guide. The result is told by Prof.
McChesney, who says that Prof. Cope
collected fourteen different specimens
of the animals that inhabit the cave
the blind fish, insects, crickets, cent?
pedes, spiders. blind crawfish, and
crawfish that can see, and blind fish
that the crawfsh eat. The crickets
and spiders occur in considerable num-
bers, but most of the forms of life are
quite rare. The blind fish are not
abundant, and are quite as shy as ii
they had eyes; they dart off from the
slightest movement of the water. The
best way to capture them IS to let Il
fine dip-net down gently into the
water and watch till one swims over
it, and then raise the net as quietly as
possible
Small bats were occasionally seen
fitting. These little creatures have
eyes, but they are said to be no larger
than the head o. very fine cambria
needle.
Prof. McChesney sdds:
This field is not new one, but was
new to most of US, and intensely in
teresting. A walk of few hundred
yards places the observer in the midst
of forms Of life in many respects more
remarkable and more unlike those he
is accustomed to see than he could
find by q voyage half round the
globe.
Geologically this cave is we'll un-
derstood. We found all the minerals
known to exist there, such as ibrous
and curved crystals of gypsum, the
latter of which form the rosettes and
wreaths of the floral halls, and the
most beautiful decorations of the cave;
also calcites in many notifications
nodules of iron pyrites, the formation
of saltpeter, carbonate of lime i'll the
form of stalagm;tes and stalactites
etc.
The curved crystals of gypsum
which constitute an exception in the
mineral world to the law of crystali-
zation in straight lines, may claim
little space at another time, in the
way of theory to account for this
formation. Immediately over this
limestone is considerable thickness
of heavy bedded sandstone, which
forms the transition beds between the
ST. Louis and Kaskaskia limestone Of
Illinois.
We saw some of the characteristic
fossils of the st Louis limestone, but
they are very rare. The oolitic struc-
ture of some of the lower portions of
the rocks is visible in the coal.
These agencies are about the same
in all coal formations, the cnly differ
ence in this case being the much more
gigantic scale on which these agencies
have operated. Water is the chief
agency This, in connection with
carbonic acid, always held by surface
waters, helping forward disintegra-
ton, has chiseled out all the passages,
halls, galleries, domes, &C., of this
cave.
1t is too evident to need discussion
that Mammoth Cave was the work of
a subteranean river and its tributaries,
which has been turned from its course
by finding an outlet on slightly low
er level, which river still shows itself
in a few places in the cave.