The Big Cave: Early History and Authentic Facts Concerning the History and Discovery of the World Famous Carlsbad Caverns of New MexicoLong, Abijah
History
The Big Cave: Early History and Authentic Facts Concerning the History and Discovery of the World Famous Carlsbad Caverns of New Mexico
Long, Abijah
Carlsbad Caverns (N.M.)
Many times we stopped in bewilderment of the beauty that lay before us.
The fellows in the party often kidded about the trip and were pretty
much in gay spirits, but as they would enter these magnificent rooms
which man had never seen before, they became very quiet, letting their
eyes soak in every detail that the light of our lanterns brought out.
We all seemed humble amid God's handiwork, and I noticed many of the
roughest men in the party became suddenly reverent as though they might
be entering some great cathedral.
I never knew exactly how the other men felt about all this strange
exhibition of beauty, but I could see it had some effect upon their
lives. A rough bunch of men usually don't say much about this sort of
thing.
As for me, I wondered if anyone on the outside would believe our
stories when we told them what we were seeing. Actually, I felt it
was a big dream, and that I would soon wake up. I had heard of caves
before, but I had never heard of anything this large or filled with as
much beauty.
All of us felt that each turn would be the end and we would be able to
terminate our trip and return. But each time we would discover a deep
shadow which would turn out to be another tunnel or entrance to another
large cavity or room, often more colorful and appealing than the one we
were leaving.
At times there would appear to be no further trail. The boys would
flash their lanterns around and find an outlet, sometimes so high above
us that we couldn't reach it without a ladder. Then we would find
another on our own level and we would be on our way again, leaving a
world of beauty for another fully its equal.
In one place we came upon what looked like an iceberg, but of course it
was a rock formation. In another we came upon a green pond of water.
Everywhere we saw stalactites formed through countless years of the
dripping of water, each drop leaving behind its minute portion of
calcium or other chemical composition which eventually forms the
pendant. The fellows constantly referred to them as icicles, since they
resembled them so exactly.
Underneath many of the biggest ones were the stalagmites, the "rising
statues" formed by the drips from their counterpart above. Every one, it
seemed, had a style and shape all its own.
The colors were in a class by themselves. We saw all the colors of the
rainbow, from pale pinks to deep maroon--from pale sky blue to dark
purple. Many had a softness which no artist could duplicate. Others
were as bright as a Mexican cafe, and the Mexican members of our party
took an extreme delight in seeing these vivid hues. Apparently they had
missed, in America, the bright colors which are so abundant in their
homeland.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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