Chapter VIII

Mammoth Dome--First Discoverers--Little Dome--Tale of a Lamp--Return.

From the Bandit's Hall, diverge two caves; one of which, the left, leads you to a multitude of domes; and the right, to one which, _par excellence_, is called the Mammoth Dome. Taking the right, we arrived, after a rugged walk of nearly a mile, to a platform, which commands an indistinct view of this dome of domes. It was discovered by a German gentleman and the guide Stephen about two years ago, but was not explored until some months after, when it was visited by a party of four or five, accompanied by two guides, and well prepared with ropes, &c. From the platform, the guides were let down about twenty feet, by means of a rope, and upon reaching the ground below, they found themselves on the side of a hill, which, descending about fifty feet, brought them immediately under the Great Dome, from the summit of which, there is a water-fall. This dome is near four hundred feet high, and is justly considered one of the most sublime and wonderful spectacles of this most wonderful of caverns. From the bottom of the dome they ascended the hill to the place to which they had been lowered from the platform, and continuing thence up a very steep hill, more than one hundred feet, they reached its summit. Arrived at the summit, a scene of awful grandeur and magnificence is presented to the view. Looking down the declivity, you see far below to the left, the visiters whom you have left behind, standing on the platform or termination of the avenue along which they had come; and lower down still, the bottom of the Great Dome itself. Above, two hundred and eighty feet, is the ceiling, lost in the obscurity of space and distance. The height of the ceiling was determined by E.F. Lee, civil engineer. This fact in regard to the elevation of the ceiling and the locality of the Great Hall, was subsequently ascertained, by finding on the summit of the hill, (a spot never before trodden by man,) an iron lamp!! The astonishment of the guides, as well as of the whole party, on beholding the lamp, can be easily imagined; and to this day they would have been ignorant of its history, but for the accidental circumstance of an old man being at the Cave Hotel, who, thirty years ago, was engaged as a miner in the saltpetre establishment of Wilkins & Gratz. He, on being shown the lamp, said at once, that it had been found under the crevice pit (a fact that surprised all,); that during the time Wilkins & Gratz were engaged in the manufacture of saltpetre, a Mr. Gatewood informed Wilkins, that in all probability, the richest nitre earth was under the crevice pit. The depth of this pit being then unknown, Wilkins, to ascertain it, got a rope of 45 feet long, and fastening this identical lamp to the end of it, lowered it into the pit, in the doing of which, the string caught on fire, and down fell the lamp. Wilkins made an offer of two dollars to any one of the miners who would descend the pit and bring up the lamp. His offer was accepted by a man, who, in consequence of his diminutive stature, was nicknamed Little Dave; and the rope being made fast about his waist, he, torch in hand, was lowered to the full extent of the forty-five feet. Being then drawn up, the poor fellow was found to be so excessively alarmed, that he could scarcely articulate; but having recovered from his fright, and again with the full power of utterance, he declared that no money could tempt him to try again for the lamp; and in excuse for such a determination, he related the most marvellous story of what he had seen--far exceeding the wonderful things which the unexampled Don Quixote de la Mancha declared he had seen in the deep cave of Montesinos. Dave was, in fact, suspended at the height of two hundred and forty feet above the level below. Such is the history of the _lamp_, as told by the old miner, Holton, the correctness of which was very soon verified; for guides having been sent to the place where the lamp was found, and persons at the same time stationed at the mouth of the crevice pit, their proximity was at once made manifest by the very audible sound of each other's voices, and by the fact that sticks thrown into the pit fell at the feet of the guides below, and were brought out by them. The distance from the mouth of the Cave to this pit, falls short of half a mile; yet to reach the grand apartment immediately under it, requires a circuit to be made of at least three miles. The illumination of that portion of the Great Dome on the left, and of the hall on the top of the hill to the right, as seen from the platform, was unquestionably one of the most impressive spectacles we had witnessed; but to be seen to advantage, another position ought to be taken by the spectator, and the dome with its towering height, and the hall on the summit of the hill, with its gigantic stalagmite columns, and ceiling two hundred feet high, illuminated by the simultaneous ignition of a number of Bengal lights, judiciously arranged. Such was the enthusiastic admiration of some foreigners on witnessing an illumination of the Great Dome and Hall, that they declared, it alone would compensate for a voyage across the Atlantic. With the partial illumination of the Great Dome, we closed our explorations on this side of the rivers, and retracing our steps, reached the hotel about sun-set. At mid-night, the party which separated from us at the entrance of Pensico Avenue, returned from the points beyond the Echo river.