We were now introduced into Fat Man’s Misery, where the small and attenuated have greatly the advantage.  We emerged from this narrow and difficult passage into the Museum, half a mile long, and so called from the number and variety of its formations.  We did not linger to examine its curiosities, but pushed on over the Alps, which we surmounted, aided partly by ladders.  Very steep and rugged were these Alps, and quite worthy of the name they bear.  We descended from them into the Bath-room, where a pool of water and sundry other arrangements suggest to a lively imagination its designation.  It certainly has the recommendation of being the most retired bath-room ever known.  That of the Neapolitan sibyl is public in comparison to it.

We then entered Pirate’s Retreat.  Why so named, I can not guess, for I doubt if the boldest pirate who ever sailed the ‘South Seas o’er’ would dare venture alone so far underground as we now found ourselves.

Leaving the Pirate’s Retreat, we were obliged to cross the Rocky Mountains, similar in formation and arrangement to the Alps.  The Rocky Mountains lead into Jehoshaphat’s Valley, one mile in length.  Like its namesake, this valley is a deep ravine, with steep, rugged sides, and a brawling brook running at the bottom.

Miller’s Hall next claims our attention.  Here we take leave of the brook, which, with the cave, loses itself in a measureless ravine, where the rocks have fallen in such a manner as to obstruct any further explorations.

From thence, turning to the right, we enter Winding Way, a most appropriate name for the place.  The narrow passage turns and twists between masses of solid rook, high in some places, and low in others.  The deathlike silence of the solitude that surrounded us impressed us with a vague feeling of fear, and we felt no disposition to tempt the Devil’s Gangway, especially as, in consequence of a recent freshet, it was partly filled with water.  Our guide informed us that beyond the Gangway were several rooms, among which Silent Chamber and Gothic Arch were the most noteworthy.  The portion of the cave visited by tourists terminates in the ‘Rotunda,’ eight miles from the entrance; although explorations have been made some miles further.  The Rotunda is cylindrical in shape, fifteen feet in diameter, and one hundred feet in height.

We were now in a little room six miles from the mouth of the cave, and thought the present a good opportunity to try the effect of the absence of light and sound on the mind.  Extinguishing our lights, therefore, we resigned ourselves to the influences of darkness and silence.  To realize such a state fully, one must find one’s self in the bowels of the earth, as we were, where the beating of our own hearts alone attested the existence of life.  We were glad to relight our lamps and begin our return to upper air.

I have already mentioned Annexation Rock; near it is another curious freak of nature, called the Tree of the World’s History.  It resembles the stump of a tree two feet in diameter, and cut off two feet above the ground, upon which a portion of the trunk, six feet in length, is exactly balanced.  A singular type of the changes which time makes in the world above-ground.