ative properties of the Cave air, is
not, as is generally supposed, of recent date. It has been long known.
A physician of great respectability, formerly a member of Congress
from the district adjoining the Cave, was so firmly convinced of the
medical properties of its air, as to express more than twenty years
ago, as his opinion, that the State of Kentucky ought to purchase it,
with a view to establish a hospital in one of its avenues. Again the
author of "Calavar," himself a distinguished professor of medicine,
makes the following remarks in relation to the Cave air, as far back
as 1832, the date of his visit:

"It is always temperate. Its purity, judging from its effects on the
lungs, and from other circumstances, is remarkable, though in what its
purity consists, I know not. But, be its composition what it may, it
is certain its effects upon the spirits and bodily powers of visiters,
are extremely exhilarating; and that it is not less salubrious than
enlivening. The nitre diggers were a famously healthy set of men; it
was a common and humane practice to employ laborers of enfeebled
constitutions, who were soon restored to health and strength, though
kept at constant labour; and more joyous, merry fellows were never
seen. The oxen, of which several were kept day and night in the Cave,
hauling the nitrous earth, were after a month or two of toil, in as
fine condition for the shambles, as if fattened in the stall. The
ordinary visiter, though rambling a dozen hours or more, over paths of
the roughest and most difficult kind, is seldom conscious of fatigue,
until he returns to the upper air; and then it seems to him, at least
in the summer season, that he has exchanged the atmosphere of paradise
for that of a charnel warmed by steam--all without is so heavy, so
dank, so dead, so mephitic. Awe and even apprehension, if that has
been felt, soon yield to the influence of the delicious air of the
Cave; and after a time a certain jocund feeling is found mingled with
the deepest impressions of sublimity, which there are so many objects
to awaken. I recommend all broken hearted lovers and dyspeptic dandies
to carry their complaints to the Mammoth Cave, where they will
undoubtedly find themselves "translated" into very buxom and happy
persons before they are aware of it."

[Illustration: STAR CHAMBER.
On Stone by T. Campbell
Bauer & Teschemacher's Lith.]

CHAPTER V.

Star Chamber--Salts Room--Indian Houses--Cross Ro