Mummies Of Mammoth Cave

Mummies, Catacombs and Mammoth Cave recounts the discovery of Indian mummies in American caves. Over three thousand years ago Native Americans used caves as their workplace, home, and site for burials. Many are found in the Mammoth Cave area. The book traces the exploits of a number of Indiana Jones kind of adventurers and their amazing discoveries of mysterious catacombs and caves full of Indian mummies. A catacomb of prehistoric Indian mummies was reported in an 1808 travelogue. A pioneer discovery of a dry cave full of well-preserved Indian mummies adjacent to Lexington, Kentucky - The first burials reported of this nature in an America cave. Three years later, saltpeter miners began to dig up mummies in a cave near Mammoth Cave. One of these, Fawn Hoof, the best known of all the mummies, was taken to Mammoth Cave and exhibited. In 1816, newspapers carried Nahum Ward's report of a swashbuckling cave exploring adventure. It was an adventure like no other - stupendous rooms, exploring miles of passage, seeing sparkling formations and a petrified Indian mummy. The mummy really captivated people's attention. Tourist traveled to the cave to see this wonder of nature and relive the adventure, making Mammoth Cave a top tourist destination as a famous abode of prehistoric Indians. Today, Mammoth Cave is the longest cave in the world - with surveyed passages measuring over 400 miles in length.

As you enter the world's longest cave you cannot help but wonder about scary stories. Two centuries of tourists and explorers--some of whom got lost, saw or heard the unexplainable, or just wanted to tell a good tale--cannot leave a cave without stories. Scary Stories of Mammoth Cave is a collection of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction, historical and more recent first hand accounts of unusual experiences by National Park Service employees, cave explorers, and scientists.

Table of contents

This book reveals the science and beauty of Mammoth Cave, the world's longest cave, which has played an important role in the natural sciences. It offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary treatment of the cave, combining insights from leading experts in fields ranging from archeology and cultural history to life science and geosciences. The first animals specialized for cave life in North America, including beetles, spiders, crayfish, and fish, were discovered in Mammoth Cave in the 1840s. It has also been used and explored by humans, including Native Americans, who mined its sulfate minerals and later African-American slaves, who made a map of the cave. More recent stories include 'wars' between commercial cave owners, epic exploration trips by modern cave explorers, and of course tourism. The first section of the book is an extensive description including maps and photos of the cave, its basic structural pattern, and how it relates to the surface landscape. The second section covers the human history of utilization and exploration of the cave, including mining, tourism, and medical experiments. Cave science is the topic of the third section, including geology, hydrology, mineralogy, climatology, paleontology, ecology, biodiversity, and microbiology. The fourth section looks to the future, with an overview of environmental issues facing Mammoth Cave managers. The book is intended for anyone interested in caves in general and Mammoth Cave in particular, experts in one discipline seeking information about other areas, and researchers and students interested in the many avenues of pursuit possible in Mammoth Cave.