One of the wonders of the earth is the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. It is ten miles long, and requires a hundred and fifty miles of travel to explore its multitudinous avenues, chambers, grottoes, rivers aad cataracts. The main cave is four miles in length, and its largest dome is three hundred feet in height. There are many rivers and lakes connected by subterranean channels with the Green river outside the cave, and these rivers within the cave rise with the rise of the -Green river, but stibside so slowly that for six months at a time large parts of the cave are inaccessible. If the accounts of travellers are-to be trusted, this is one of the mundane spots most worth a -visit. Wonderful effects can be produced by the arrangement of lamps so as: to simulate. the effect of starlight or even of sunrise, by shining on the glittering masses of stalactites. 'I'here are fright~ fal. precipices, bottomless pits, and marvels innumerable. Not long ago a widely circulated American journal contained a thrilling tale of a man who joined a party. to visit the cave, and who was accidentally left. behind, in peopl one of the chambers (being a stranger to the rest), where he remained iti almost absolute despair, and in ultimate uncons¢iousness for four days, till he chanced to be found by. another visiting Ly. guide, and the physician who brought their story: to°tell, and' no. one would care, 'After' listening" to' the retiral, to run any risk of repeating the experience of that traveller. 'I'his cave has beea known to man for ages, for' when first discovered by whites, one of the leries contained, the mummy of an indian woman and her child. Yet there are said to be parts of the cave still unexplored. The denizens of the great cavern are well known to be unique, but among them it is sufficient to refer to the blind fish, which contrive to see well enough for their purposes, (that is to say they get along without seeing), but have only slight scars where there should be optics. It is one of the wonders of the cave, that its temperature is constant, summer and winter, never varying from 59° Fahrenheit.
hina is in some respects like the Mammoth Cave. Like that, China is the biggest thing of its' kind in the whole world. It is ancient, long known to travellers, extensive, and yet imperfectly explored. It abounds with what seems very wonderful, indeed incredible, but there are many who do not think it a good place to get lost in, and who would shudder tobe left there alone. It always remains just the same, whatever may be the condition of the rest of creation, and nothing that can be done by mankind in general serves either to raise the general temperature, or to lower it.
And its eyeless people! What a world of things, visible to the rest of us, they, absolutely refuse to see at all, and what a delight they seem. to have in swimming in their own dark waters, and upon occasion of a too threatening illumination diving down hundreds of feet into Cimmerian darkness. And then the Guides! hose are of two different species, the settled and the nomadic. 'I'he former -consist of what Mr. George Wingrove Cooke euphemistically called the twenty-years-in-the-country-and-speak-the-language-Branches of the great cavern, and in all of ple.' They profess knowledge of all
them they are equally at home. 'Gothic Galleries, 'Grand- Arch,' 'Rotunda,' 'Giant's Coffin, 'Deserted Chamber,' "Wooden Bowl Cave,' 'Steps of 'Time,' 'Martha's Palace,' ' Arched Way,' 'Side Saddle Pit,' ' Bottomless Pit,' 'Shelby's Dome,' 'Gorin's Dome,' 'Labyrinth,' "The Bridge of Sighs' "Ihe Valley of Humility, 'The Scotchman's 'Trap,' "Fat Man's Misery,' 'Bacon Chamber,' 'River Hall,' 'The Dead Sea, 'The River Styx,' 'Lake Lethe, 'The Star Chamber, 'The Gothic Arcade,' Vul-
"The Elephant's Head,' "The Arm can's Smithy," Bouapartels Breastworks,' Chair,' and Ihe Lover's. Leap these know them all, and will tell you all about them.. Moreover their'assistance. turus out ut times to be of_a. rather indispensable: character; even: if somewhat lacking in crispness and brevity... The. Nomadies, on the other The' lost' man, the hand,.do not spend. the bulk of their ives. jy the Cave. They have read
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.