Dr. Croghan was in the new hotel when Stephen arrived at the back door. The doctor ordered Nita to bring him the fancy tureen that she used for serving soup. Then he emptied Stephen’s water bottle into the big glass bowl. The fish were still alive. Dr. Croghan leaned over them, marveling.
Newspaper stories quickly followed. Blind cave fish discovered at Mammoth Cave! New species of fish never before encountered! Found only in Echo River, deep within the cave!
Mammoth Cave became a must-see attraction for travelers. Its fame had started to grow with the discovery of Gorin’s Dome. Stephen’s crossing of the Bottomless Pit made it even more famous. Now visitors came by the coachload.
Some of them were scientists who studied animals. Stephen was asked to grabble for the blind fish again and again. In return, he asked the scientists questions. Why didn’t the fish have any eyes? Was it because there was nothing to see? There was never any sunlight deep in the cave. So maybe they didn’t need eyes. But then how did they find their food?
Stephen loved to show new visitors around the cave. Sometimes he pretended that he was a gracious host showing visitors around a marvelous dwelling. Proudly he pointed out the massive rooms, the gaping pits in the floor, the beautiful formations left by dripping water.
But Stephen enjoyed his time alone in the cave best of all. When he was exploring, there was no one to tell him what to do. He was his own master—for a few short hours at least.
It had been about two years since Stephen started exploring the cave. Even after all his discoveries so far, he believed there was much, much more to be found in Mammoth. Sometimes as he sat beside Echo River, he could feel a tiny breeze touch his skin. Where was the fresh air coming from? Did the river open to the outside somewhere that he could find?
Stephen learned about some caves in Europe from a scientist who took his tour. In the 1700s, an adventurer was exploring a cave called Adelsberg. He discovered an underground lake, but he could not tell how big it was because there was no way to walk around it. So he invented a clever way to light up the darkness.
“He brought two large geese underground with him,” the scientist told Stephen. “He harnessed each of them to a tiny wooden boat and set candles on the boats. Then he scared the geese away from the shore. As they paddled about, he was able to see much more of the lake and the cave walls surrounding it.”
But in the United States, no one before Stephen had done much cave exploring. Stephen had to invent methods of finding his way into the darkness and back again.
He taught himself safe ways to enter unexplored passages. If a crack seemed too tight, he made sure Mat or Nick waited outside, ready to pull him out if he got stuck. He never slid down a slope unless he was sure he could climb back up. His climbing ropes wore out quickly against rocky ledges and slopes, so he frequently asked for new ones. Stephen also stuffed padding into his cap to protect his head from falling stones and jutting rocks.
Stephen had a very good memory. He could remember every hole he struggled through and every strange formation he passed. He always marked his trail, but many times he didn’t really need the markings to find his way back.
Dr. Croghan had workers build a shallow boat wide enough to carry eight people at once. The workers followed Stephen deep into the cave. They tied the boat at the edge of Echo River. Now Stephen and the other guides could take visitors on a boat trip down the silent, black stream.
Stephen loved this part of the tour. First he would tell his travelers to remain perfectly quiet and still, so that the only sound was Stephen’s paddle dipping in the water.
Then he would begin to sing. The cave magnified his voice and made it sound as though two or three men were singing all at once. Stephen’s favorite song was one his mother had taught him.
Wade in the water,
Wade in the water, children,
Wade in the water,
God’s gonna trouble the water.
The slaves sang many songs that had to do with freedom, and this was one of them. Most of the visitors did not realize that he was singing about the end of slavery, though. They just enjoyed the beautiful tune.
Then Stephen would invite the people on his tour to make their own noises. The ladies clapped their hands and laughed at the sound of the echoes. One gentleman borrowed Stephen’s paddle and slapped it on the water. Others whistled. And on one tour, a man pulled out his pistol and shot it!
The noise was tremendous. All the ladies screamed. Stephen was so surprised, he almost fell out of the boat. The shot echoed over and over. It took a long time to die out.
Stephen noticed that the water in Echo River rose whenever the weather was rainy. He also noticed that Green River—the river outside the cave—would rise at exactly the same times. Were the two rivers connected?
He kept on exploring. Sometimes he would find a new passageway high up a wall, just under the ceiling. Other times he would see a crack that was filled with loose rocks. Something would tell him that there was a new tunnel there. He would spend hours pulling rocks out of the hole—and many times his instincts were right. The crack would get wider and he would be able to push his way into yet another new room or tunnel.
One day in the year 1840, a paying customer from Germany asked Stephen to show him part of the cave that nobody else had visited before. Stephen knew exactly where to go. He took the visitor to River Hall. Then they climbed the sandy slope up the right-hand wall and entered a long stoopway too low for them to walk upright. At the end of the stoopway, they found a collapse of rocks.
Stephen began enlarging the passage so they could get through, passing rocks back to the visitor. It was hard work. Most tourists would have complained and asked to go somewhere else, but Stephen had judged that this particular visitor would help him.
The shot echoed over and over
They dug for a long time. At last, they broke through onto a flat area. In front of them the flat area ended. Darkness lay below.
Both men raised their lanterns high. An amazing sight met their eyes!
They stood on a ledge alongside an enormous pit. Straight across were majestic columns that looked as though they belonged in a temple. The walls were covered with beautiful cream-colored flowstone—formations that looked like draperies, formed by dripping water. The dome was so high overhead that it was lost in the shadows.
The two men were thrilled. They had made an enormous discovery. This was the largest room Stephen had ever found, and it was truly beautiful. And he had a feeling that high overhead was the answer to a riddle he had been wondering about for two years.
Stephen had a very good sense of where he was in the cave at all times—a good “mental map.” Right now he was sure he was standing far below Crevice Pit, the one Archibald Miller had showed him on his first day in the cave. Stephen remembered Miller’s story about a young slave who was lowered into Crevice Pit on the end of a rope. The slave had reported an enormous, beautiful cave down below—but nobody had believed him.
That long-ago slave was probably dead by now. But Stephen would make sure the guides changed their story about Crevice Pit. All he had to do was get someone to lower a lantern while he waited here below. If he could see the light coming, he would have his proof.
The gigantic shaft became known as Mammoth Dome. It is one of the most spectacular sights in the cave. And it does indeed connect to Crevice Pit. On Stephen’s second trip there, he reached the very bottom of the dome. There he found a broken oil lamp—the one dropped by the miners so many years ago.