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Show NEW DISCOVERIES IN CARLSBAD CAVERN 317 : ' : v • . . J ' •• W P P w Photograph by Willis T. Lee THE HEART OF THE NEW TEXAS STATE PARK (SEE MAP, PAGE 232) In the right foreground is the National Geographic Society Expedition's camp at the water hole in Guadalupe Canyon, at the base of a magnificent escarpment which rises a vertical mile above the plain. ity of the national monument are scarcely less interesting than the cavern itself. It is a land of alkali flat and soda lake; of sun-parched slope and barren crag; of cactus and mesquite; a land of coyotes, and rattlesnakes, and horned toads. The characteristics of the desert are everywhere in evidence. The prairie dog chatters and scolds at one's approach, and with a saucy flip of his stubby tail disappears into his burrow. The jack rabbit bounds away on his angular course over the bunches of broomweed and between the thorny shrubs. The hot, dry whirlwinds raise spirals of pungent dust, which quiver in the shimmering atmosphere. The spell of the desert is here; it is the Wild West, the land of adobe shack, of range cattle and goats. The picturesque cowboy in sombrero and chaps is a familiar figure, and although the bandit no longer roams at large, men still living tell of adventures with Billy-the-Kid and Black Jack. One of the old pioneer trails, a route of the gold seekers of '49, known as the But-terfield Trail, crosses this plain. The old-timers remembered the whitened bones of the oxen that perished on the long stretches between water holes. The Guadalupe Mountains rise from the plains like a rampart out of the sea. Far from the ordinary lines of transcontinental travel, few eyes have beheld their |