Babbling Brook: Violet City Lantern Tour - Mammoth Cave National Park

Exploring a cave by lantern light! How could we not do this?

However, after experiencing that pitch darkness yesterday, I was unsure how this would play out. In a group of about 40 people, we have only 12 lanterns! The lanterns were old school, flame lanterns. It was exciting! Our lamps had a glass bulb around the flames for safety and such. People before, however used lard oil lamps with no glass. Using lard, would cause smoke that would cover the glass and essentially render the lanterns useless. Before lanterns, prehistoric man used cane reeds, bunched up together and lit with fire.

Cane Reeds used as Torches by Prehistoric Man

Lard Lantern. Slightly blurry, oops.

When we first entered the cave, it was the sample entrance as the self guided discover tour. The path was lit and familiar. We then deviated off and walked further, before we stopped and were talk about the saltpeter mining that happened there. It was to make gunpowder for the war of 1812.

Eventually, we were around no lights, and just the lights of our lanterns! It was darker than our previous trips in the Mammoth Cave, but the light was sufficient. So many times, I would look up and see lanterns snaking ahead. It was beautiful! I wanted to take a photo of it, but in that darkness and with people continuously moving, I only got blurs!

Lantern blurs

Lanterns, not moving, looked so pretty!

The caves were once used as a "hospital". It was believed that cave air would cure "Consumption", or what we call tuberculosis. We saw a couple of cabins built in the caves, where the sick came and lived. The cave's constant temperature and humidity was believed to cure consumption. This, however, wasn't true and the hospital closed in just 10 months.

Molly Miller's Cabin - This was her husband's cabin, where he lived in the hospital in the cave to cure his tuberculosis. Molly and her daughter visited him often here.

This part of the cave we were exploring had been used by ancient man! He came here regularly and lots and lots of artifacts have been found in the these caves that hinted at their lives and purposes for coming into the cave.

Part of a Slipper found - Artifact. (Probably 2000+ years old)

Gourds used as bowls.

The caves are lined with Epsom salts. These are used as laxatives. We know that prehistoric man consumed these salts too, because over 160 samples of paleofaeces have been found! We saw one. It was big, and over all these years it must have got dehydrated. That poor soul!

Paleofaeces. hehe

In another area we stopped in, our guide told us a story of when the CCC were working there. They had stopped work for a break and were sitting up on rocks resting. One of the people's hats falls back and as he is reaching behind to feel for it, he feels something round and hairy. Since rocks aren't typically hairy, he is wondering what it is. What he had found was a mummified prehistoric man! He was perfectly well preserved because of the cave air. He still had his hair, skin, tissue and contents of his last meal in his stomach! The man, "Lost John", was crushed between a rock and that's how he died and why he remained there until the CCC man found him. He was since removed from the cave and displayed, but the outside air affected him and he started to decompose. He was moved around a bit and finally buried somewhere in mammoth caves. His location was known only to the people who buried him and it is passed on in a sealed envelope to each new director of the Mammoth Cave National Park. Lost John was dated to be 2300 years old!!!!

"Lost John" was found crushed under this rock.

We saw two water falls in the caves this time. And unlike falls we see above ground that are usually water falling off the edge of a mountain, the falls in the caves fall from the ceiling to the ground. Like, someone broke a hole in the ceiling and now there is a stream of water falling down. If the guides didn't shine their torches on the water, we would never have been able to see it with our lantern lights.

My favourite of the two, and what was probably the most beautiful sight I saw in the caves was the Elizabeth falls. One of the guides went to it, and held his torch under it, so the water was lit all the way up to the ceiling from below. It was a narrow shimmering beam of cascading diamonds. I realise this effect is only because of the torch, but it doesn't matter. The image was stunning.

Elizabeth Falls. Or, Falling Diamonds

After the falls, we climbed the Albert Staircase and eventually made our way to "Violet City". Made of stalactites and Stalagmites, it definitely looked like a city.