WYANDOTTE CAVE, a cave in Crawford county, south em Indiana, U.S.A., 38° 14' N. lat. and 86° 18' W. longitude. It is but one of the many caves of southern Indiana dissolved and eroded in the relatively pure, massive, horizontally bedded Mississippian limestones that extend southward into the cave bearing regions of Kentucky and Tennessee. Like Mammoth cave of Kentucky, Wyandotte cave owes its early history to the demand for nitre for gunpowder in the War of 1812, the nitrate industry beginning in that year and terminating in 1817. The environs of the mouth of the cave afford a scene of sedate quiet, the narrow valley of the Blue river stretching across from the entrance to Greenbrier mountain, with its sharp conical crest and steep slopes, belted with massive cliffs of rock and set with tapering cedars. The entrance is about 200 ft. above Blue river. The cave has been as accurately mapped as cave condi tions permit, but the aggregate length of its passages can only be estimated, for some have not been explored; the total probably exceeds 25 miles. The "old cave" constitutes that portion of the cave discovered before 185o. In that year the new cave was discovered, a long extension with many passages and chambers that add materially to the beauty and interest of the cave. The mouth of the old cave is 20 ft. wide and 6 ft. high. One hundred feet within the entrance the gallery widens into a spacious cor ridor known as Faneuil Hall, whence issues the Columbian Arch, a semi-cylindrical tunnel 75 ft. long, which in turn opens into Washington Avenue, a grand passageway, 275 ft. long, 3o ft. wide,
and 4o ft. high. This passage terminates in a low gallery which ex pands into Banditti Hall, the common cntry into both the old and new caves. The old cave ends in the Senate Chamber, an impos ing rotunda like, but not quite so large as, Rothrock's cathedral with its magnificent Wallace's Grand Dome rising above Monu ment mountain, beyond Rothrock's Straits in the new cave.
The Senate Chamber, one of the most picturesque features of Wyandotte cave, is a vast elliptical amphitheatre, 145 ft. long and 56 ft. wide, converging upward to a gigantic dome. In the centre of the chamber a mass of fallen rock constitutes Capitol Hill, 32 ft. high, out of the centre of which rises the grandest spectacle of the cave—the massive, fluted column of satin-spar, or calcite, known as the "Pillar of the Constitution." Quite cylindrical, 25 ft. in diameter, this majestic column of spectral white calcite extends from the peak of Capitol Hill to the centre of the dome far above. Tiny streamlets of water trickle down its fluted sides, evaporating and leaving their burdens of calcium carbonate crystallized upon the ever-growing column. A relatively sparse cave fauna and a few evidences of Indian activity are found in the cave. The temperature of the cave is uniformly 53° F and the air is sweet and pure.
See list of 22 titles referring to Wyandotte and other Indiana caves given on pp. 210-212, of the 21st Annual Report of the Department of Geology and Natural Resources of Indiana (1896). (W. E. E.)