River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1877-08-02
The Mammoth Cave.

a few DAYS ago, with lanterns and
torches and a guide, we went down in.the
Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. You may
walk fourteen miles and see no light 1t
| is a stupendous place. In some places
| the roof of the cave was hundred feet
| high the grottoes filled with weird echoes,
cascades falling from invisible heights to
| invisible depths: stalagmites rising up
from the floor of the cave; stalaetites des-
eending from the roof of the cave, join
ing each other and making pillars of the
Almighty's sculpturing There are ro-
settes of amethyst in halls of gypsum. As
the guide carries his lantern ahead of you,
the shadows have an appearance super
natural and spectral. The darkness is
fearful. Two people getting lost from the
guide only few hours were demented,
and for years set in their insanity. You
feel like holding your breath as you walk
across the bridges that seem to span the
bottomless abyss. The guide throws his
calcium light down into the caverns, and
that light rolls and losses from rock 10
rock and from depth 70 depth, making at
every plunge new revelation of the
awful power that could have made such
place as that.
A sense of suffocation comes upon you
as you think that you are two hundred
and fifty feet in a straight line from the
split surface Of the earth. The guide,
after while, takes you into what is
called the "Star Chamber and then he
SAYS to you, "Sit there and then he
takes the lantern and goes down under
the rocks, and it gets darker and darker,
until the night is so thick that the hand
an inch from the eye is undesirable.
And then, by klndling one of the Ian
terms and placing it in a cleft of the rock,
there is a reflection cast on the dome of
the cave, and there are stars coming out
in constellation brilliant night heav-
ens-and you inyoluntarily exclaim !;
Beautiful. Beautiful Then he takes
the lantern down in other depths of the
cavern, and wanders on and wanders off
until he comes up from behind the rocks
gradually, and it seems like the dawn of
the morning, and it gets brighter and
brighter. The guide is a skilled ventril-
oquist, and he initiates the voices of the
morning, and soon the gloom is all gone,
and You stand congratulating yourself
over the wonderful spectacle.
Well, there are a great many people
who look down into the grave as great
cavern. They think it is thousand miles
subterraneous, and all the echoes seem to
be the voices, of despair, and the cascades
seem TO be the falling tears that always
fall, and the gloom of earth seems com
ing up in the stalagmite, and the gloom
of the eternal world seems descending in
the stalactite, making pillars of indie
scribable horrors. The grave is no such
place as that to me, thank God. Our
divine guide leads us down into the great
caverns, and we have the lamp TO our
feet and the light TO our path, and all
the echoes in the riffs of the rocks are
anthems, and all the falling waters are
fountains of salvation, and after while,
we look up and behold, the cavern of
the tomb has become kings Star Cham
Der. And while we are looking at the
pomp Of il, AZ everlasting morning begins
TO rise, and all the tears of earth crystal
ize into stalagmites rising up in pillar
on one side, and all the glories of heaven
seem to be descending in a stalactite,
making pillar on the other side, and
you push against the gate that swings
between these two pillars and as the gate
flies open, you will find one of the twelve
gates which are twelve pearls. Blessed
he God that through this gospel the
Mammoth Cave of the sepulchre has be-
come the illuminated Star Chamber of
the King.