cabins, built for consumptive patients, commences. All of these are framed buildings, with the exception of two, which are of stone. They stand in line, from thirty to one hundred feet apart, exhibiting a picturesque, yet at the same time, a gloomy and mournful appearance. They are well furnished, and without question, would with good and comfortable accommodations, pure air and uniform temperature, cure the pulmonary consumption. The invalids in the Cave ought to be cured; but I doubt whether the Cave air or any thing else can cure confirmed Phthisis. A knowledge of the curative properties of the Cave air, is not, as is generally supposed, of recent date. It has been long known. A physician of great respectability, formerly a member of Congress from the district adjoining the Cave, was so firmly convinced of the medical properties of its air, as to express more than twenty years ago, as his opinion, that the State of Kentucky ought to purchase it, with a view to establish a hospital in one of its avenues. Again the author of "Calavar," himself a distinguished professor of medicine, makes the following remarks in relation to the Cave air, as far back as 1832, the date of his visit: "It is always temperate. Its purity, judging from its effects on the lungs, and from other circumstances, is remarkable, though in what its purity consists, I know not. But, be its composition what it may, it is certain its effects upon the spirits and bodily powers of visiters, are extremely exhilarating; and that it is not less salubrious than enlivening. The nitre diggers were a famously healthy set of men; it was a common and humane practice to employ laborers of enfeebled constitutions, who were soon restored to health and strength, though kept at constant labour; and more joyous, merry fellows were never seen. The oxen, of which several were kept day and night in the Cave, hauling the nitrous earth, were after a month or two of toil, in as fine condition for the shambles, as if fattened in the stall. The ordinary visiter, though rambling a dozen hours or more, over paths of the roughest and most difficult kind, is seldom conscious of fatigue, until he returns to the upper air; and then it seems to him, at least in the summer season, that he has exchanged the atmosphere of paradise for that of a charnel warmed by steam--all without is so heavy, so dank, so dead, so mephitic. Awe and even apprehension, if that has been felt, soon yield to the influence of the delicious air of the Cave; and after a time a certain jocund feeling is found mingled with the deepest impressions of sublimity, which there are so many objects to awaken. I recommend all broken hearted lovers and dyspeptic dandies to carry their complaints to the Mammoth Cave, where they will undoubtedly find themselves "translated" into very buxom and happy persons before they are aware of it." [Illustration: STAR CHAMBER. On Stone by T. Campbell Bauer & Teschemacher's Lith.] CHAPTER V.