HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1945-04-19, Page 7THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 1945
THE SEAFORTH NEWS
(NATUR'E'S AWESOME
UNDERWORLD
One summer night in 1191011 a lone
cowilroy named Jim White Was Start-
led by
tart-led}by a great column .of :black smoke
',belching out of a mountain in the
Guadalupe range. Stumbling through
desert growth he Dame to a yawning
black pit, lre.ard the heat of countless
wrings. The ibtack smoke" was a
flight of some 3,000,000 bats, issuing
for their nightly raid -nn .desert in-
sects. He :watched the,,fli4tht !for three
hours, and when it ended, he Ihiuuit a
bonfire, dropped 'flaming sticks into
cave and caw them vanish almost 200'
(feet down. He .had discovered 'Cars -
'bad Caverns, she 'astonishing under-
world (hidden deep beneath the sconah-
log desert 'af New 'Mexico.
White's siulbsectuenit eelplboration of
bhe caverns enalkes Niles Verne's
°nJonnney to the Centre ,of ehle Earth"
a .puny business. His crude :oil lamp
Ibwtineid loin. He went 'moat with fear
in •cihanibers ,nisimg 3100 'feet, as the
.contorted limestone monsters seemed
to leap at him in 'the last flicker be-
fore they :closed in. "I 'heard strange
noises," he rdlates... "`SIlieiglh IbeJlls,
:chimes (from near and far away, .street
car gongs and sounds as of someone
practicing on a piano." He used rope
ladders, carbon .smudges and string
leads to .find this way ab'ou't in the
canoes, and bo gteide him (back.
ftE
HAS
iced
YOU
VE
0 You have reason for just pride if
you have done all you could do, on
the home front, to support the gallant
effort of our men in active service.
If you have denied yourself pleasures
and comforts to buy Victory Bonds
.: you, too, have played a part in
helping your country's war effort.
You have worked and saved and lent
your savings to your country. With-
out this help from you ... and from
millions of her citizens, your country
could not have maintained the promi-
neat place she now occupies among
the freedom -loving nations.
Canada has the use of your savings to
help to win victory. (You will have
this money to use for your own
needs later.)
Perhaps you wish you could have
done more. Well, you will be asked
to do more. Men who have come
back will tell you that there is lots
to do yet. Canadians are on active
service, on the fighting fronts. More
money is needed to support their
effort.
You are asked to keep on working
and saving and you will be asked to
put snore savings into Victory Bonds.
They are the best investment any
Canadian can make; an investment
that every Canadian should make.
VICTORY BONDS'
BihVictoryLoanOpens Aptii23td
NATIONAL WAR PIHAMCI COMMATTII
LL
Ifwis
fills ij r Spoils SieepTonight
A Few Dr75E0sier
?MikeBreath"i SIeeP
Invites ftestfu
Surprisingly fast, Vicks Va-tro-nol—a
few drops up each nostril—works right
where trouble is to open up, your
nose—relieve stuffy transient conges-
tion that makes it hard to get to sleep.
You'll like the way it brings relief.
(NOTE: Va-tro-nol is also grand for
relieving sniffly, sneezy distress of head
colds.) Follow directions in folder.
vicKS
VA -TRO -NOL
He 'knows now that the music .was sante things await.
The 300 people in our party are
speechless. Albout one visitor in every
15'000 suffers ifnom claustrophobia.
These cases are neatly cut from the
.meet, and a ramlger with a 'flashlight
t'a'kes them Ibadk, 'throwing the light
'switches as he goes. Lf they are strick-
en with the horrors at the (greater
depths, it is best to get them to the
elevators, second in speed only to
those in the Eanpire State Building,
which 'whisk them to the sunface in a
minute.
Soon .you are standing on the
threshold of the 'Green .Lake Room.
051 to the deep right you see a 'bun-
dhtbadked organist with a malformed
dread, 'bent .over the keys of a tower-
ing instrument. Behind him a great,
silent host in spotless .white vest-
ments: all in ageless stone. Every
where along the walls are mighty .cas-
cades. 'Frozen in action. You Pass
through the King's Palace, the mag-
nificent 'Queen's Chamlber 'beyond,
then conte to the Big Room -4000
feet long, 635 'feet wide. The ceilings
and -the domes,'with fantastic •ohand-
eliers half a Iblock'long, rise more than
300 feet from the utast plain that is the
floor. Then there's the-Bottom'loss
'No man 'knows where it ends. It' has
been 'plumbed to a ,depth ,of 1230 feet
but never explored. So far only seven
of tate 32 .explored .miles of 'cav-
ern have been ,opened to the 'public.
There may be •sbid,l .greater 'wonders
deeper its the cavern.
'Die ranger colonel announces that
the whole cavern will be Plunged into
darkness 'for 30 .seconds; ,that the
.darkness 'wull be lfollowed'lyy a: parade
of tight, with the switches (going on
a few seconds apart, stamting .a half
mile to the west. Darkness—such
a darkness as .y1du 'have .never 'known.
You are prisoners, 750 feet wider the
earth, in a mead 'half -world (peopled
with •n•eivacinlg'.gangoyles and mon-
sters.
Then. quavering and sweet. the
hymn "'Rook of Ages" floats out of the
great •raid, timing thy invisible rangers.
The Parade of Light 'begins. Distant
precincts of the endless caverns come
alight, go clank again as 'the radiance
ailaanccs end finally reaches as again.
When Sir Harry 'Lander was going'
through the rages a •light remark
made hv an accompanying friend
caused the Scottish comedian to're-
ntonstraater "Do stop, ratan," he mur-
mured, "Ve'•ve never ;been nearer to
God than ye are anis second.' You get
that feeling. Nowhere in the world
tunes the human ego shrill. so 'fast.
no dream symphony. It came .from the
slender stalactites as bats struck then
with their wing tips. Each formation
gives 'off a different note, 'from :the
tiniest tinkle to a deep hese, .when yoe.
sltri!ke it lightly •w'ith a Ifin!gernail
White tried to raise 1$3000 to buy
his .discovery, but failed. T'he caverns
were' taken over Iby •bhe (United States,
and ane now in charge of nangens of
the National Park 'Service. Lt 'is better
that way. Nature toiled for nrnillions of
years in those underground studios
bo create some of her :most awesome
miracles; they' were never meant to Ibe
;property of one man, 'White senses'
that, and to -clay is as 'proud of the
caverns as if he did own them.
The ;limestone of Carlsbad Caverns
was former, as nearly as scietiltists can
tell, about 200.000,000 years ago, 'when
an arnt of the ocean reached into the
interior, Later, 'great upheavals 'left
fissures and cracks in the stone, and
water .percolated through. Through
the following .millions of years, by the
slow !process of sointrett, the caverns
were itvllow'ed out. w-itit their bottom-
less ravines and great lakes, their
giant stalactites depending from the
ceilings and massive stalagmites rising
'from 'bhe 'floors.
No matter what 'blazing tempera-
ture .prevails out .ustaler the Now Hex-
ico sun, bhe caverns remain at 516 deg-
rees. Tourist panties are conducted
through 'With one ranger for every 30
guests. The trail slopes down .about
11170 ,feet to the mouth of the cave
.where the party stops, and .a ,ranger
ex'pilatts what to expect. Back of you,
in notal darkness, is the 'Cave of the
Bats. No one enters . there. The bats
hibennate'from 'October to IMardh, Ibe-
gun Ito stir out for Food again ablaut
May 15. They'pou'r out at sundown
and always get 'bank at dawn. You
get sane idea of their number when
you learn that dealers in fertilizer
mined more than 100,000 tons 'aF gua-
no from the bat raves in a few years.
The lecture ends, and echoes flee nap
the sides of the towering, irregular
walls and cathedral arohes. A switch
is thrown and you 'favltow ul e'gho.stlike
procession past great icelhergs,'gleam-
ing white in the glow of the lights.
,Gr'ntestsue temples come into n•iew.
surrounded Ihy monstt'tttls growths
frozen in stone. Tint' formations, the
ranger tell- yon, grew at the rate of
one ethic inch every century. You
ihugin to sense that here God has'giv-
en ratan 'greatet ,00crs, phut has not
supplied any •eocab•itry to t1cserihe
them. You 'think you know the last
true ruining of awe—'hut more 5W5 -
LISTEN TO
A ° n
STY
R
CKNX
Wednesday, April 18th
Friday, April 20th
Sunday, April 22nd
Wednesday, April 25th
Friday, April 27th
Wednesday, May 2nd
Friday, May 4th
Wednesday, May 9th
8.30 - 9.30 p. m.
9:30 10.30 p. m.
8.30-9.30 p. M.
8.30-9.30 p. m.
9.30 -10,00 p. rn.
8.30 - 9.30 p. m.
9.30 - 10.00 p. m.
8.30 9.30 p m.
I. ORON COUNTY NATIONAL WAR
FINANCE COMMITTEE