"By now I could see into the tunnel -- it wasn’t much farther down to the floor of it, and that floor looked smooth and level. I decided that with a little exhibition of human-fly stuff, I could hold onto the rough wall and go down another twenty feet to level territory.
"Standing at the entrance of the tunnel I could see ahead of me a darkness so absolutely black it seemed a solid. The light of my lantern was but a sickly glow. Nevertheless, I forged ahead, and with each step the tunnel grew larger, and I felt as though I was wandering into the very core of the Guadalupe Mountains."
A few years later, a settler named Abijah Long also found the entrance and went into the cavern. He found huge amounts of bat droppings.
Abijah Long hired local workers to mine the guano which he sold to farmers as fertilizer. At the same time, he explored much of the caves. Some people might even say Abijah Long was the first real explorer of Carlsbad Cavern.
But Jim White made it his life’s work to make sure the public would see and enjoy the cavern. He worked on Abijah Long’s mining operation for 20 years.
The authors of the book "Carlsbad Cavern: The Early Years" say Jim White took the job for the chance to keep exploring the cave. And after the mining operation closed, he started building paths in the cavern. Yet once he had enough paths built to welcome visitors, no one seemed interested in his "bat cave."
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25