Morning journal and courier., 1885-08-19
IN THE SOUTH.

Ten-Mile Tramp In the Mammoth Cave-valuab1e Property-The Breeze From the Mouth of the Cave-SOme of the Things to Re Seen Inside. CAVE HOTEL, Ky, Aug. 7. To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER: have just returned from ten mile tramp ! in the Mammoth Cave, and though it is af- | ter midnight I cannot refrain from sitting down and making record of some of the experiences just enjoyed.
 It has been my fortune to see more of the ! hidden parts of this solemn old earth than many people see. As I sit here in the cool of this glorious summer evening, the i'm mensely broad and immensely long porch of this dilapidated old hotel my mind travels back to subterranean pilgrimages in the Cave of the Winds, Colorado, to the Caves of Bel lamar in Cuba to the Luray caverns in Vir- ginia, to the greatest salt mine of the world, owned by the King of Bavaria, at Berchtes- gaden, to the Caves of Elephants on an is- land near Bombay, etc.
 The first three of these wondrous under ground creations seem to me to be infinite ly the most beautiful of the list, wing, as l suppose with the transcendent glories of the Grotto of Adelsburg near Trieste. The ex-
 
 periences in the Bavarian salt mine seem the most novel, including, as they did, railway rides through mile-long galleries of pitchy blackness, frightful slides down inclined planes and a boat ride on an illuminated salt lake. The Caves of Elephanta were shallow artificial caverns hewn out by the Brahmins centuries ago.
 Yet despite this diversity of subterranean experience, there was freshness and novel, ty about this Mammoth Cave trip for which had hardly looked.
 I do not purpose to give in this letter any systematic description of the cave, but sim ply 6 few impressions such any traveller is likely to carry away after a visit to this, the greatest of ''the dark unfathomed caves of earth.''
 Usually Mammoth Cave is let alone during | the winter, but reaps 0 pecuniary harvest in l the summer During the past year the sea- sons have been reversed; or rather, the win l ter greatly outdid the record of the summer This was of course owing to the exodus of people from the North via the Louisville and Nashville line for fhe Crescent city. A con- siderable proportion of the whole number of Exposition tourists stopped off at Cave City | and spent the space of one day in the trip | to and from the cave, and the inspection of the Long route, or the Short route, or the Combination route in the cave. Thus | high as hundred visitors day were enter 1 tained here at the hotel at times and piloted | through few miles of underground avenues. suppose there is hardly more valuable 1 piece of property in Chicago or New York | than is the land surrounding the mouth of Mammoth Cave in the season.
 won't attempt to say what the net earn | ings are, but they are so much that the ad- | joining property-owners have been trying for yeaA to find some new entrance to the cave | leading from their land. One attache took ! me confdentially aside to-day and poured | into my credulous ears song somewhat as | follows:
 ''There is going to be big sensation here
 one of these days. A few miles off wonder l a man has discovered hole in the ground and that means business. It is under huge boulder. You know Stephen Bishop, the fa-
 nous guide who first explored the cave thor l oughly, and whose grave is at the mouth of