Word: caving
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Coleridge moved "caves of ice" to Xanadu from the Kashmir region of northern India, where they had been described in 1795 by the Rev. Thomas Maurice in The History of Hindostan. Alexander and a friend, forbidden to travel there because of political turmoil, attached themselves to a mob of religious pilgrims and pressed on regardless. The journey was not entirely spiritual; an overcrowded campsite was fouled with human dung. This does not prevent Alexander from creating a beautiful scene. "I saw, on drawing back the tent flaps," she writes, "snowdrifts gleaming on the towering black peaks and, a long...
Changes have taken place underground as well. In Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, which is 350 miles long, park managers have halted a popular boat ride on an underground river because the disturbance was harming aquatic wildlife, including 12 species of eyeless cave dwellers found nowhere else in the world. Park tour guides have also abandoned a tradition of their forebears, who illuminated recesses of large chambers by throwing torches into them. The kerosene smoke darkened cave walls...
Sometimes the measures are even more drastic. On Memorial Day weekend last year, holiday gridlock at Yosemite forced rangers to close gates, turning away more than 750 vehicles. As a last resort, other parks, including Mammoth Cave, sell reserved tickets through a commercial agency, Mistix. David Mihalic, the former superintendent of Mammoth who now heads Glacier park, thinks rationing makes perfect sense to people: "When you go to Cinema 6 and Terminator 2 is sold out, maybe you go see another movie." Sacrificing some human concerns for nature's well-being may not please everyone, but the loss of paradise...
...human backside also gets a dozen pages. It is instructive to realize that a man can be so stupid that he doesn't know his a -- -- from a musket (earliest citation, 1862), his elbow, a hole in the ground, a stalk of bananas, a hot rock, Mammoth Cave, a hole in the wall, third base, his left foot, pork sausage, the back side of a checkerboard, ice cream or a pitchfork...
...thing to think about with ROTC is that itis a source of free education," Young says. "I'vealways thought you can do more good if you staywith what's happening that if you hide in a cave,if we can say, damn it, we stand for this, ratherthat sit back and let things happen...