Abstract
In the last lines of his poem “In Praise of Limestone”, W.H. Auden wrote, “[W]hen I try to imagine a faultless love or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape”. When I was 12, my family moved to two acres of land underlain by Devonian limestone in Paignton, county of Devon, southwest England. At age 15, I began exploring the local caves – small, tight, but beautifully decorated. Later, studying physics at Cambridge, I found the University’s caving club and spent many happy weekends in and under the limestone areas of Britain. To quote Auden’s opening line in that poem, “If there is one landscape that we...are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly because it dissolves in water”. It was this property of limestone – the dissolution of it – that led me to complete a PhD in karst geomorphology at McMaster University (Canada) under the direction of Derek Ford, and later led to years of exploring caves in West Virginia, Tennessee, and the Canadian Rockies, and ultimately to a 43-year career as a professional geographer. But, it was only recently, and especially now in retirement, that I began to fully understand why caves, and geography as a discipline, have always held such a deep fascination for me.
Recommended Citation
Goodchild, Michael F.
(2021)
"Deep in the Karst: Foundations for a Career in Geography,"
The Geographical Bulletin: Vol. 62:
Iss.
1, Article 8.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/thegeographicalbulletin/vol62/iss1/8