Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 21 -- Boys Club Singles
What is in common with Homer's world are the underground river and -- as we will see in Chapter
40, the sinkhole.
And there's Fallout (2007) by suspense-master Tom Clancy and David Michaels.
Now Fisher heard something else: the gurgling rush of water.
A river. An underground river.
He loosened his grip slightly and let himself drop toward the ground until he could see the
bumper. The truck's headlights were still on, casting a white glare along the cave walls.
This by the acclaimed Tom Clancy? On further inspection of Fallout's cover, we realize that
Clancy contributed the idea and Michaels did the writing.
But let's not leave the Boys Club before recognizing that an active club did more that read tales of
daring. Consider "More about Pickett's Cave" from the April 30, 1881, issue of Scientific
American.
"The Boys' Exploring Association," to whose diligence this discovery is due, is an organization
of young mountaineers living in the vicinity of Pikes Peak, whose laudable purpose it is to
combine the enjoyment of camping out with the study of biology, geology, and mineralogy,
amid the hills and valleys of that remarkable region.
The presence of extensive beds of ocher indicated that the subterranean stream flowed from
the granite mountains above, fringing the decomposed materials of the feldspathic rocks in the
form of these ferruginous clays, which are so hard and compact as to take a fine polish.
The boys saw the falsity of the prevailing opinion -- based on the beach-like roundness of cave
pebbles -- that the cavern was once ocean washed, in view that its karst genesis could have only
happened since the region's elevation.
The swirling of a subterranean stream could round the fragments of granite into pebbles as
readily as the wash of waves.
Boys Club enjoy exercises in deduction.
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