For many years trips through the cave were designated as "The Long Route" and "The Short Route," the latter being the cisfluvial route and requiring about four hours for its passage, and the former, the transfluvial route, occupying from nine to 12 hours. These long-established routes were changed in 1924 to four routes which are summarized best as follows.
Route No. 1.—Echo River; Mammoth Dome with six majestic columns, royally fluted, 8o ft. high and 25 ft. in diameter; Gorin's Dome, 217 ft. high, the walls of which are draped with three im mense calcic curtains of exquisite tint and texture; River Hall, by which the gardens of crystal roses are approached; Grand Crossing; and the Natural bridge.
Route No. 2.—Rotunda, with its ruins of the nitre works ; Ban quet Hall, equipped with tables, seats, lights and table service; Olive's Bower; Gothic Avenue, where the mummies of a race reputed to antedate the Indians were found ; the Pillars of Her cules, gigantic columns ; the Bridal Altar, a majestic shrine where many weddings have taken place; the Arm-chair; Elbow Crevice; Annetta's Dome; the Giant's Coffin 4o ft. long, 20 ft. wide, and 8 ft. deep, resembling a sarcophagus; Martha Washington's statue, a lighted silhouette in fancied resemblance of the first Lady of the Land ; and the resplendent Star Chamber, a colossal hall of sable walls and ceiling thick set with immaculate patens of magnesium sulphate efflorescence gleaming by lantern light.
Route No. 3.—Violet City, the new section discovered and explored in 1908, comprising the resonant Chimes, the glorious Marble Temple, Albert's Stairway, the Grand Portal, Elizabeth's Dome and Valhalla; Proctor's Arcade, a symmetrical chamber, near the Star Chamber and one of the sensations of the cave when lighted by blue flares; Indian Relics; Wright's Rotunda, 400 ft. in its shortest diameter; Chief City, two ac. of troglodytic grandeur where Indian chiefs gathered in council and by blazing flambeaux and faggot fires smoked the calumet and decided for peace or war; cataracts, of impressive beauty; Waldach's Dome; the Epsom Salts deposits, their drifts of snow-white crystals; Haines Dome; the Grand Portal and the Marble Temple.
Route No. 4.—Echo river, its waters reflecting the beauties of every passage through which it flows and its ripples waking the tinkling cymbals of tiny stalactites and reverberant walls to eerie music ; the Valley of Flowers ; the Snowball Room ; Cleveland Avenue, a treasure gallery of alabaster brilliants, the oulopholites of the mineralogist, which are declared to mimic in their fantastic fibrous and pellucid calcite crystals the forms of every flower ; Florist's Garden, another fantasy of floral forms in stone; Don na's Garden; Diamond Grotto where Aladdin may have garnered his gems ; the Rocky Mountains ; Dismal Hollow ; the famous Maelstrom, rich in tale and legend ; Ganter Avenue ; and the Cork screw, a tortuous exit which reduces the journey from "Great Relief" to the mouth of the cave by nearly a mile.
Evidence of Indian occupancy of Mammoth cave has not been wholly lacking, but it has not yielded any such wealth of archaeo logic material as have others in Europe, Asia and even America. Two mummies preserved by the nitrous earth were uncovered in 1813 in Short cave, not far from Mammoth cave. One was of an infant one year old and the other of an adult woman of a race antedating the Indians. See Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History (1875). In the early years following the discov ery of Mammoth cave and while its guano deposits were mined for nitre, many valuable data may have been obliterated.
The biota of the cave is distinctly subterranean in character.
The most interesting occupants are the blind, wingless grass hoppers with extended antennae ; the blind colourless crayfish and blindfish, the latter (Amblyopsis spelaeus) being from r to 6 in. long. All the known forms of plant life are either fungi or allied to them, many but microscopic. A bed of mushrooms (Agaricus sp.) has been reported. While the true subterranean fauna is chiefly of Pleistocene origin, certain forms may possibly be Ter tiary relics or developed from them.
(W. E. E.)