A few years ago (4?), there was land (with a house) available in the area for sale. When we were in Virginia, we considered looking at it.
Ted On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:35 AM, Mark Minton <mmin...@caver.net> wrote: > I don't think a pdf version of Water Sinks is available. > > Mark > > > At 12:34 AM 7/29/2013, Charles Goldsmith wrote: > >> Bill, is the author selling the pdf format anywhere? >> >> On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 11:17 PM, Mixon Bill <bmixon...@austin.rr.com> >> wrote: >> I'm sure this won't raise a lot of interest, but... >> >> Caves and Karst of the Water Sinks Area. Philip C. Lucas. Revised >> edition, 2012. 8.25 by 10.25 inches, 369 pages, hardbound. $95.58 plus >> postage from lulu.com; search for Philip Lucas. >> >> This is a great book. After I received the privately published book, I >> delayed reviewing it, hoping that the NSS would pick it up, but for some >> reason they passed. They could have published it with almost no effort and >> little risk and sold it for good bit less, if only to be of service to >> its members, but a large hardbound book with color illustrations throughout >> cannot be really inexpensive. >> >> The book is the story of what happens when a caver with an engineering >> bent buys property in Virginia that contains small caves and potential >> digs. The result has been fifteen miles of cave with entrances on Lucas's >> property and that of a neighbor, including the Water Sinks system, >> Helictite Cave, and Wishing Well Cave. The exploration of these caves has >> been unusually well documented, both in trip reports and photographs. >> Besides maps and descriptions of the caves, the book contains reports on >> essentially all the digging or exploration trips, mostly written by Lucas. >> I actually found the trip reports much more interesting reading than the >> formal cave descriptions, as they give a better idea of the caves and the >> effort that went into finding and mapping them. The technical aspects are >> fascinating, especially the innovative ways of temporarily stabilizing >> breakdown and creating airflow to locate connections. "Straws," however, >> are nowhere really described. >> The editing by Nathan Farrar is excellent, and the design and layout, by >> Lucas and Farrar, are very well done. Some of the nearly six hundred color >> photographs could have used some color adjustment, but generally they >> illustrate the work and the caves very well. A special effort seems to have >> been made to include lots of clear photographs of the participants in the >> projects. (One of them would make a good hobbit.) Portraits on pages 101 >> and 104 are especially nice. >> >> I can't deny that this is an expensive book about a pretty narrow >> subject, and the story could have been told almost as well in a less costly >> way. (No profit is being made by anybody but Lulu.com.) To anyone who >> really likes cave books, it's worth it. >> >> Lulu.com prints your copy on demand. The result in this case is sturdily >> bound in a printed hardcover. They also sell a number of other books on >> caves and caving. If you just search for caves you'll have to wade through >> scores of probably awful self-published novels. Besides Water Sinks, worthy >> of note are The Hollow Mountain: 1974-2006 by the Imperial College Caving >> Club (deep-cave exploration, printed paperback or free PDF, reviewed in >> March 2008 NSS News), Al Warild's Vertical (techniques manual, paperback, >> reviewed August 2002), and D. F. Machant's Life on a Line (rope rescue, >> paperback, reviewed June 2003).—Bill Mixon >> > > Please reply to mmin...@caver.net > Permanent email address is mmin...@illinoisalumni.org > > ------------------------------**------------------------------**--------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: > texascavers-unsubscribe@**texascavers.com<texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com> > For additional commands, e-mail: > texascavers-help@texascavers.**com<texascavers-h...@texascavers.com> > >
