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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