Huge Cave Yawns In Arizona

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 30, 6 February 1939, Page 3

Huge Cave Yawns In Arizona

(SELIGMAN Arrangements have been made to explore and open to the public a series of vast limestone caverns 22 miles west of here, believed to rival the Carlsbad Cavern of New Mexico In extent and beauty. Two great chambers, filled with glittering pink and white stalactites and stalagmites, have been explored. Ono of these is 500 feet long, the other 380 feet; they vary from 70 to 150 feet in width, from 37 to 120 feet in height. At the end of the second is another large opening, pitching downward at such a sharp angle that it cannot be. followed until steps are cut and ladders set. The entrance is a yawning sink into which a torrent flows in rainy periods, only to disappear. One of the first measures to open the cavern to tourists must be a dam to divert that water. A current of air is constantly flowing inward, indicating an undiscovered second entrance which may be miles away. Manuel Aguilar, a sheepherder, found the sink seven years ago, and an old Indian burial place just inside the first cavern. The land was homesteaded by a miner named Walter Peck, who did Js much exploring as he could. Now Stanley Wakefield and Edmund Cosgrove have joined him in the Coconino Caverns Company, and they have entered into a partnership with Coconino Country. In return for a deed to the property, the County will build a toll road to U. S. Highway 66, a mile and a half to the north, and otherwise aid in development. The company will remain in possession, under a lease, for 10 years. A Negro doing a hauling job was told that he could not be paid until he submitted a statement of his account. After a great deal of meditation he evolved the following bill: “Three comes and three goes at threepence a went, Is 9d. * Hopeful “What is your occupation or calling?” asked the magistrate of the wretched-looking man charged with mendicancy. “Inventor,” was the reply, in a hoarse voice. “What have you invented?” asked the magistrate. “Nothing,’ said the prisoner, “but 1 ’m trying to! ”