Main Cave to enter regions very dissimilar to those we have seen. A
narrow passage behind the Coffin leads to a circular room, one hundred
feet in diameter, with a low roof, called the Wooden Bowl, in allusion
to its figure, or as some say, from a wooden bowl having been found
here by some old miner. This Bowl is the vestibule of the Deserted
Chambers. On the right, are the Steeps of Time, (why so called we are
left to conjecture,) down which, descending about twenty feet, and
almost perpendicularly for the first ten, we enter the Deserted
Chambers, which in their course present features extremely wild,
terrific and multiform. For two hundred yards the ceiling as you
advance is rough and broken, but further on, it is waving, white and
smooth as if worn by water. At Richardson's Spring, the imprint of
moccasins and of children's feet, of some by-gone age, were recently
seen. There are more pits in the Deserted Chambers than in any other
portion of the Cave; and among the most noted are the Covered Pit, the
Side-Saddle Pit and the Bottomless Pit. Indeed the whole range of
these chambers, is so interrupted by pits, and throughout is so
irregular and serpentine and so bewildering from the number of its
branches, that the visiter, doubtful of his footing, and uncertain as
to his course, is soon made sensible of the prudence of the
regulation, which enjoins him, "not to leave the guide." "The Covered
Pit is in a little branch to the left; this pit is twelve or fifteen
feet in diameter, covered with a thin rock, around which a narrow
crevice extends, leaving only a small support on one side. There is a
large rock resting on the centre of the cover. The sound of a
waterfall may be heard from the pit but cannot be seen." The
Side-Saddle Pit is about twenty feet long and eight feet wide, with a
margin about three feet high, and extending lengthwise ten feet,
against which one may safely lean, and view the interior of the pit
and dome. After a short walk from this place, we came to a ladder on