Among the natural curiosities of the country, are the Stone Mountain
in Carolina, which may rank in antiquity with Stonehenge. It is
remarkable for a circular wall of stone of great thickness, probably
built by a people distinct from the present race of Indians, who are
quite incapable of erecting any building except a wigwam, or a pile of
loose stones over a grave. Next is the Kentucky Cavern, or as it is
called, on account of its magnitude, the Mammoth Cave. I have an
account before me of its being explored by a party in 1826, who
penetrated into this gloomy, though spacious, hollow for _fifteen
miles_, and were prevented from proceeding from extreme fatigue; they
found the names of persons written at the farthest part. There are
numbers of rooms as they are called, which are yet unexplored. In one
of these, a few miles from the entrance, there was discovered many
years since, a female figure sitting with a mat wrapped round her
shoulders; she was quite dried to a mummy, and has for many years been
exhibited in a caravan, through the United States.
The river Ohio is here a quarter of a mile wide, and, as there is no
bridge, the traffic into Kentucky is accommodated with steam ferry
boats.
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