Evening star., 1939-05-16
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Field, Laboratory
And Study
By Thomas r. Henri.

CARLSBAD, N. Mex (By MaiD 1.-The
white-robed, bearded warrior saint with
sheathed sword and gentle eyes blessed
with wordless benediction the men and
women come from the turmoil of crea-
tion's everlasting wars to the Cathedral
Of the Peace of Death.
They were the worlds most eminent
astronomers. For a week under the
constellation sprinkled West Texas skies
their minds had wandered with galaxies
and super -galaxies and far into depths
of infinity. And everywhere from the
campfire-lit Milky Way to the ultimate
shores of space and time they had found
only struggle from the pangs of birth
of stars out of tempest-swept gas to the
infinite heaviness of dead suns.
The peace of the night, their minds
had found, was only an illusion. Out
Of the skies they had returned to earth
to find the transcendent peace of the
soul in the depths of their mother planet
out of whose dust their bodies and minds
had been born. 1t was the great room"
of the Carlsbad caverns, $50 feet under
the sun baked plateau of the Guadaloupe
Mountains. 1t was the place where
light was no more, where for brief
moment these adventures in the far,
restless realms of light experienced for
the first time in their lives the absolute
darkness that was before time
A more striking contrast hardly could
be imagined than the coming of these
astronomers out of the sunlight into
the dark. Every year thousands of tour
lists and school children enter the dark
room under the earth. But this was
congregation of the farthest-ranging
minds among mankind. For them it was
almost the adventure of stepping on the
surface OF another planet, vague glimpses
of whose fantastic surface they had
secured through their telescopes.
1t is the worlds largest room, 1000
feet long, 600 feet wide, 200 feet high.
Fifty thousand come to receive the bene-
diction of the warrior saint could gather
under its crystal-spangled dome with
out croWding, the superintendent esti-
mates. The Great Mother has been more
than l00000,000 years carving it out of
the solid rock interior of mountain with
drops of water. 1t required probably
100000 years to carve the benign fig
ure of the white-robed saint, the Ma
tional Park biologists say. Tirelessly,
millennium after millennium, the Great
Mother with her tiny chisels of water
labored on her supreme achievement of
architecture and artistry perhaps for
this one afternoon of triumph-the visit
of the astronomers.
Through the ages no mind entered the
cathedral to receive at the feet of the
white-robed warrior the baptism Of dark
ness. Even the night-loving bats did not
venture so far into the night as this.
Less than 80 years ago venturesome
cowboy first entered the caverns as the
discoverer of a continent of nightmare,
and, frightened, built campfire on the
edge of the immensity of the dark.
Since then the spot has become one
OF the choicest possessions of the gov
ernment. Among the suggestions voiced
by awe-Struck astronomers was that IL
might be turned into Americas Valhala,
the last resting place Of the nations
most distinguished dead A great deal
OF the impression of course. depends on
the mind of the onlooker and here, fy1
the first time, the masterpiece was
displayed to minds constantly associated
with the infinite sublimity of the
heavens.
The visit was arranged by the builders
of the great Mcdonald Observatory tel
escope which looked farthest into the
depths of light as the most striking
possible contrast. Charles j. Stilwell
and Warner Seely of Cleveland, the tele-
scope builders, had been in the Cathedral
of Night before but only one or two
OF the astronomers had more than a
hint of its existence. One Of them had
been speaking during the week of an
ultimate darkness at the ever advancing
edge of the circle of space and time
which no telescope would ever penetrate
and they came to it here in combina-
ton of nature and their own minds.
The government engineers also have
worked with supreme artistry in arrang-
ing for the great room-so big two hours
are required to walk around ia sys-
tenn of soft, invisible lighting which
transforms the great blackness into
sort of luminous darkness. 1t comes on
with an imperceptible gradualness and
the darkness Immersed spectators find
themselves looking into the benevolent
eyes of the white-robed saint, like an
awakening out of the darkness of death
to behold the countenance of the guar
dian of the gates of Paradise.
Out of the fantastic, unearthly dis
tance as the miracle of light and dark
ness is consummated come the strains of
Rock of Ages"
The astronomers and the reporters
who accompanied them were too ira
pressed for even the profanity of breath
ing for second. It would be the
worlds most sublime funeral service
the perfect symbolization of resurrection
out of oblivion.
Only some high school girls giggled
as the light went on
But they had not known the strife
OF the universes nor pondered on the
dark ocean which stretches beyond
minds and telescopes from death to the
shores where, it may be, there are many
lighted mansions.