which is thus related by the author of "Calavar."

In the Lower Branch is a room called the Salts Room, which produces
considerable quantities of the sulphate of magnesia, or of soda, we
forget which--a mineral that the proprietor of the Cave did not fail
to turn to account. The miner in question was a new and raw hand--of
course neither very well acquainted with the Cave itself, nor with the
approved modes of averting or repairing accidents, to which, from the
nature of their occupation, the miners were greatly exposed. Having
been sent, one day, in charge of an older workman, to the Salts Room
to dig a few sacks of the salt, and finding that the path to this
sequestered nook was perfectly plain; and that, from the Haunted
Chambers being a single, continuous passage without branches, it was
impossible to wander from it, our hero disdained on his second visit,
to seek or accept assistance, and trudged off to his work alone. The
circumstance being common enough he was speedily forgotten by his
brother miners; and it was not until several hours after, when they
all left off their toil for the more agreeable duty of eating their
dinner, that his absence was remarked, and his heroical resolution to
make his way alone to the Salts Room remembered. As it was apparent,
from the time he had been gone, that some accident must have happened
to him, half a dozen men, most of them negroes, stripped half naked,
their usual working costume, were sent to hunt him up, a task supposed
to be of no great difficulty, unless he had fallen into a pit. In the
meanwhile, the poor miner, it seems, had succeeded in reaching the
Salts Room, filling his sack, and retracing his steps half way back to
the Grand Gallery; when finding the distance greater than he thought
it ought to be, the conceit entered his unlucky brain that he _might_
perhaps be going wrong. No sooner had the suspicion struck him, than
he fell into a violent terror, dropped his sack, ran backwards, then