Cuevas de Sancti Spiritus, Matanzas y Pinar del Rio, Cuba / Caves of Sancti 
Spiritus, Matanzas and Pinar del Rio, Cuba.Edited by Joel Despain. Caliza 
Media, Bella Vista, California, 2016. A4 (8.27 by 11.69 inches). PDF file from 
www.calizamedia.net/products. Full version 323 pages, about 100 MB, $15. Short 
version 126 pages, $7.

Prepared by the Sama Caving Group of the Cuban Speleological Society, the 
Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Man and Nature, and the Project for Cuban 
Cave Studies of the National Speleological Society, this bilingual report is an 
important and impressive production. A paper version is foreseen, but not yet 
available.

Following introductions in English and Spanish, including conservation and 
safety messages, Part 1 contains reports on caving expeditions to Cuba, mostly 
reprinted from articles that appeared in the NSS News and only one in both 
Spanish and English. I have not seen the short version, but these parts, 
through page 115, appear to be its content. Part 2 contains technical articles 
on cave biology, seven in Spanish only and four bilingual. Part 3 covers 
geology and paleontology, with three articles each in English and bilingual and 
a number of cave maps. Part 4 contains eleven detailed maps on oversize sheets 
of caves surveyed by the project.

The text could have used a good editing, and the layout, while well designed, 
was somewhat carelessly done. The main problem with the PDF is that each page 
of the file contains both halves of a two-page spread in the book, a terrible 
idea that not only makes it impossible to ask a PDF reader to jump to a page by 
its number in the book, but also leads to more zooming and scrolling than 
should have been necessary when reading it, even on a large computer monitor.

That said, the zooming and scrolling are worth it because of the photographs 
throughout the book. The full version is advertised as having 159 large photos, 
and I count 91 of them printed full-page without margins. A huge plus are the 
92 photos by Kevin Downey, who has been one of the best American cave 
photographers for many years but whose work hardly ever appears in print. Get 
the full version just for that.—Bill Mixon
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God created the world in six days.
On the seventh day, while God rested,
the Devil created religion.
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