-50-

   “The mysterious cave Mr. E. Stanton Brown spoke of in his letter is not exactly news to me. In 1938 a party of six of my friends and myself spent seven months in that area of Texas, and upper Mexico. We were testing an electronic instrument that we had developed, and needed lots of space and some mineral deposits for the various tests. So, we got rather well acquainted with the Big Bend country, and the figure 2 Ranch, north of there. We arrived there in January and camped in the Sierra Blancas, storing a lot of our equipment at the town of Van Horn. By March we stumbled onto this cave (or a twin) that Mr. Brown speaks of in his letter. Everyone was so dumbfounded by it that we spent the better part of the rest of the month in making a thorough investigation. We penetrated the shaft to a distance of 870 feet and at about 650 feet we found very finely executed writing on the right wall at eye level, in what resembles cuneiform. At 800 feet one of the party fell over a cloth lying in the dust, and upon closer examination, it was found to be part of a blue shirt, of fairly recent manufacture; indicating that someone else had been this far in recent times. This and an empty pint whisky bottle dated 1897 was all we located to indicate recent occupation. Of course in a country where desperados such as Black Jack, Billy the Kid, etc., hid out where they could and the more solitary the better, such a find was not too surprising.

   At about 780 feet the floor dips more sharply downward and at near 900 feet progress is very hazardous due to the moisture and increased slant downward. We carried rocks from the opening, and rolled them from the point where we could no longer walk, but they simply faded out with a rumble after a few seconds. We tried rolling flaming yucca stumps to see if, perhaps, we might determine more about the bore