Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/776



HE professor and two students of the senior class, one summer vacation, undertook a trip to the Wyandotte Cave, in the State of Indiana. The Wyandotte Cave, it may be well to premise, for the information of the ignorant, is in Crawford County, Indiana, on the eastern bank of the Blue River, about five miles above its confluence with the Ohio. In a direct line, it is thirty-three miles nearly west from Louisville. A daily stage-coach runs from New Albany to Corydon, twenty miles, and the remaining thirteen miles is a delightful drive in a buggy, or spring wagon, either of which can be procured without difficulty. An easier way is to take the daily boat from Louisville (on the opposite side of the Ohio River) to Leavenworth, at the mouth of the Blue River, and thence by private conveyance to the Cave. The distance by this route from Louisville, is about sixty miles, as the course of the Ohio between the two points is nearly a semi-circle.

The professor and his companions went by the New Albany route, starting from that thriving city early in the morning of one fine day.

The country through which they passed is singular in the extreme. The entire surface is broken into cone-shaped hills several hundred feet in height, nearly touching at their bases. These, from their peculiar shape, are appropriately called "knobs." One of them rises to the height of 2,000 feet, and is called the "Pilot Knob." The soil in the intervening valleys is extremely fertile, and the knobs, where their sides are too steep for cultivation, afford the finest pasturage. The geological formation is the characteristic lime-stone of the lower Silurian, with occasional beds of gypsum, and a reddish sandstone.

At Corydon the party halted for the night. Corydon was formerly the State capital, and is now the county seat of Harrison County. The old State buildings, quaint, old-fashioned structures, are still standing. Here they heard glowing accounts of the wonderful cave, and also of a remarkable spring, which issued from an unknown depth upon a level surface, with a volume of water equal to a small river. The travellers found the spring on their route to the cave, a few hundred yards from the bank of the Blue River.

In a large flat meadow near the base of a hill, was a circular pool of water about fifty feet in diameter. In the middle of this the water was rushing from below with great violence, and escaping in a rapid stream, which emptied into the Blue River. The stream is about twenty yards wide and ten or twelve feet deep, and the volume of water is of course very great. A saw-mill, with a large undershot wheel, which is turned by its current, is built over it, near its junction with the river.

A boat was procured and dragged up the stream from the mill-pond, for the professor's experiments. The professor got into it with his instruments, and the