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 ---------------------------------------- God created the world in six days. On the seventh day, while God rested, the Devil created religion. ---------------------------------------- You may "reply" to the address this message (unless it's a TexasCavers list post) came from, but for long-term use, save: Personal: bmi...@alumni.uchicago.edu AMCS: a...@mexicancaves.org or edi...@mexicancaves.org _______________________________________________ Texascavers mailing list | http://texascavers.com Texascavers@texascavers.com | Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/texascavers@texascavers.com/ http://lists.texascavers.com/listinfo/texascavers
