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[[caption]] Crystal Banana Stalk, one of the many beautiful sights that attracts thousands of tourists yearly. [[/caption]]

WHERE THE SUN NEVER SHINES

EIGHTY-FIVE miles south-southwest of Louisville, Kentucky, in Edmonson County, are about ninety natural caves of limestone, gypsum, and onyx. Mammoth Cave is the oldest, largest, and most widely known of all. It was during an exploration of Crystal Cave in Edmonson County that Floyd Collins met his tragic death in 1929.

Wherever you see a sycamore tree, said Mr. Matt Warren Bransford, you will find a subterranean cavern or stream. That is how Sand Cave was discovered. And Floyd Collins found Crystal Cave by digging into a depression near a sycamore tree.

Mammoth Cave was discovered in 1802 by a hunter named Hutchins who wounded a bear and chased it into the cave. In 1812 Hutchins sold his claim to this Cave, which is ten miles long with 152 miles of explored passages under 2,200 acres of land. Gratz and Wilkins paid him forty dollars and a yoke of oxen for his claim.

In 1812 our supply of potassium nitrate, saltpeter, was cut off by the war with England. As saltpeter is very essential for gun powder, Mammoth Cave was mined for the amount of saltpeter found in natural deposits there. We have a room in the Cave called "Methodist Church," it is the place where a minister preached to the miners once a month.

Saltpeter mining was stopped after the War of 1812, continued Mr. Bransford, because it was cheaper to import the saltpeter than mine the small deposits found in port the saltpeter than mine the small deposits found in the Cave. But the large vats used by the miners are still there.

In 1830 Gorin, an explorer, bought the Cave. From him Dr. George Croghan, an English physician practicing in Louisville, bought the Cave and land above it for $15,000. The Mammoth Cave estate has good timber upon it. In

Wonders of Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, Told Here by Matt Warren Bransford Who Has Been a Guide at the Cave for More Than Twenty-five Years

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Though caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea."
-From the poem, "Kubla Khan,"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

By Matt Warren Bransford

As told to Barefield Gordon

October, 1926, a cyclone tore down quite a bit of timber; and in January, 1929, another cyclone tore down ripe timber which sold for $350,000. The shades in the woodland were so dense that one could not see through them.

BRANSFORD, who owned my grandfather, Matt W. Bransford, sold him as a boy of 16 years to Dr. George Croghan as an attempt to punish him. Dr. Croghan had built a cabin over the month of the Cave, and wanted someone to explore it. My grandfather, first sent in the Cave as a matter of punishment, soon found delight in the task. Even now we find signs in the remote portions of the Cave showing that he explored farther than was first thought he had. There is a passage in the Cabe called Bransford Avenue.

For forty-nine years my grandfather explored and acted as a guide in Mammoth Cave. At his death in 1886, my father, Henry Bransford, continued in his footsteps. He had been a guide for nineteen years when he died in 1894.

Mammoth Cave attracts world visitors in large numbers every year, and all during the year. The temperature of the Cave remains approximately 54 degrees at all times. We had about 81,000 visitors last year, at about two dollars a trip, with reduction for parties and second trips, netting the estate $160,000. Since it was created a national park in 1926, visiting has increased. The estate controls the Cave and emplys fourteen guides, nine of them of our Race. I am an agent of the Cave, and in the Bransford Resort accommodate our people who visit the Cave.

For twenty-five years I have been a guide to Mammoth Cave, following my father and grandfather, At the age of sixteen I was first put in the mine as lunch boy. That was the only time I was lost. I left the party conducted by the guide to hurry ahead to the lunch room. But confusing a sign I wandered about for five hours before I was found by a guide. It happened on the fifth day I was employed. I have never disregarded the signs since then.

In 1846 a man named Harvey was lost in the Cave for thirty-six hours. He was violently insane when found. But later he recovered and lived for many years in Louisville.

THE wonder and beauty of these underground caverns lie in the stalactite and stalagmite formations. These are calcium carbonate (lime) formations which resemble large the ceiling- stalactites; or inverted icicles pointed pointing up from the floor- stalagmites. In many cases the stalactites and stalagmites take on strange and weird forms which show in fascinating designs when the Cave is lighted.

Many years ago carbonic acid from rain water dripped through the rocks, dissolving the limestone to make these formations and leaving the other stones to make the arches and ceilinf of the caverns.

A drop of water from the ceiling leaves a deposit as it falls and gives a deposit on the floor when it hits. It is estimated to form the thickness of a wafer in five years, or an inch in one hundred years. Many ages, then, have gone in the formations of these natural beauties.

Chief City room is so called because in it were found many relics left by the Indians. They are supposed to have held their councils here, safe from their enemies, many years before the white man discovered the continent. There are several mummies that were found in the Cave.

Because of the dry, constant temperature of the Cave praise was made concerning its healthful benefits. And in 1854 a settlement of consumptives lived five miles within the Cave in order to enjoy the benefits of constant temperature.

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[[caption]] Mr. Bransford, chief guide, after a tour through the cave. [[/caption]]

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[[caption]] Entrance to the wonders of Mammoth Cave. [[/caption]]