This will acknowledge your letter regarding Mr. Abijah Long who is the original discoverer of the famous Carlsbad Caveren in New Mexico. Sincerely, [Signed: Phil. D. Swing] PDS:DCM ] Well, that's my story! That's how it all began. I'm glad to see that the Federal Government has taken over supervision of the Big Cave and has made it available to people from every land in order that they might enjoy its unsurpassed beauty which first greeted us 'guano miners' back in 1903. It is gratifying to me to have been a small part of the early history of the Big Cave, now more appropriately called "Carlsbad Caverns" and known all over the world. I am also grateful for the privilege of having known and worked with these men, many of whom grew with Carlsbad and turned out to be prominent citizens of the community. Times may change, but the great caverns will remain for countless centuries to come, just as they have been for years without number. Now, in the hands of the government, their preservation is assured, so that your children and my children and their children after them will be able to witness, unmarred and unchanged, these wonders of God's handiwork. And you'll be thrilled just as we were, when you see them for the first time, and you'll marvel, as we did, that anything in the world could exist, so strange, so large, so utterly beyond description. Man may build his temples and his shrines, but as you stand there, a mere midget in any of the several mammoth rooms, you will feel a certain humbleness come over you, and you cannot help but feel closer to your God. Part II THE FIRST 60,000,000 YEARS _By JOE N. LONG_ 1 The Beginning How old are the Caverns? When did they begin to form? Are they growing larger today? What changes, if any, are now going on? These are questions which everyone who becomes interested in the great Carlsbad Caverns wants to have answered sooner or later. To some of these and many similar questions the answers are difficult to obtain, for when the Caverns were being created no man was around to watch the process and to report his observations first hand. As a result, we have only the word of geologists and other scientists who have specialized in the study of the earth, its formation, and the changes that have come about through the countless ages since our world began. No one knows how old the Caverns are. All man can do is to estimate, and he bases these estimates on a study of conditions he finds within the cave itself, in the surrounding countryside, and from a general knowledge of the earth and how it has evolved. Probably the area itself began to form about 200 million years ago, during the Permian period of geologic time.