{"id":186,"date":"2014-05-20T16:35:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-20T21:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/?p=186"},"modified":"2014-05-27T16:42:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-27T21:42:19","slug":"largest-underground-lake-us-tennessee-discovered-13-yr-old-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/?p=186","title":{"rendered":"The largest underground lake in the US is under Tennessee, discovered by a 13 yr old boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-190\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-1030x773.jpg\" alt=\"lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee\" width=\"849\" height=\"637\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-1030x773.jpg 1030w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-850x637.jpg 850w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-1700x1275.jpg 1700w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-679x509.jpg 679w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-1358x1019.jpg 1358w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-262x196.jpg 262w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-524x393.jpg 524w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-574x430.jpg 574w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee-1148x861.jpg 1148w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-sweetwater-tennessee.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 849px) 100vw, 849px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Deep inside a mountain near Sweetwater in East Tennessee is a remarkable body of water known as The Lost Sea. Listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as America\u2019s largest underground lake, the Lost Sea is part of an extensive and historic cave system called Craighead Caverns.<\/p>\n<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_24570\"  width=\"849\" height=\"637\"  data-origwidth=\"849\" data-origheight=\"637\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BzK82bWMNWU?enablejsapi=1&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;modestbranding=0&#038;rel=1&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;color=red&#038;controls=1&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The caverns have been known and used since the days of the Cherokee Indians.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-188\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d.jpg\" alt=\"043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d\" width=\"700\" height=\"456\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d.jpg 700w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-600x390.jpg 600w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-679x442.jpg 679w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-262x170.jpg 262w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-524x341.jpg 524w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/043442c511b36a0e60dd73721f5ca8258003c42d-574x373.jpg 574w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>First Visitor<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">One of the cave\u2019s earliest visitors was a giant Pleistocene jaguar whose tracks have been found deep inside the cave. Some 20,000 years ago the animal apparently lost his way in the darkness and wandered for days before plunging into a crevice far from the daylight he sought. Some of the bones, discovered in 1939, are now on display in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_187\" style=\"width: 670px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-187\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-187 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492.jpg\" alt=\"Summer-2011-475-660x492\" width=\"660\" height=\"492\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492.jpg 660w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492-300x223.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492-600x447.jpg 600w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492-262x195.jpg 262w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492-524x390.jpg 524w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/Summer-2011-475-660x492-574x427.jpg 574w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 660px) 100vw, 660px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-187\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pleistocene Jaguar on display in California La Brea tar pits museum<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>\u00a0Boy makes a discovery<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #252525;\">The lake was discovered in 1905 by a thirteen-year-old boy named Ben Sands. As the story goes Sands, who often played in the cave, happened upon a small opening and crawled through. The room was so large he was unable to see the ends of the room with his lantern, so he threw balls of mud in all directions and heard splashes. When he went back home and told people of his discovery they were hesitant to believe him. By the time Ben convinced his father to go back down with him to explore it further, the water level had risen, hiding the cave entrance from them. It was rediscovered by local explorers several years later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-192\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea.jpg\" alt=\"lost-sea\" width=\"650\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea.jpg 650w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-300x217.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-600x435.jpg 600w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-262x190.jpg 262w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-524x380.jpg 524w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/lost-sea-574x416.jpg 574w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Civil war mine<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\">When the first white settlers arrived in the Tennessee Valley in the 1820\u2019s they also discovered the cave and used it for storing potatoes and other vegetables.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>During the Civil War the Confederate Army mined the cave for saltpeter, a commodity necessary to the manufacture of gunpowder.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/5857214544_038e4ca844.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-191\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/5857214544_038e4ca844.jpg\" alt=\"5857214544_038e4ca844\" width=\"500\" height=\"258\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/5857214544_038e4ca844.jpg 500w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/5857214544_038e4ca844-300x154.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/5857214544_038e4ca844-262x135.jpg 262w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Still being explored<\/h2>\n<p>The full extent of the Lost Sea is still not known despite the efforts of teams of divers armed with modern exploration equipment.\u00a0Beneath the calm waters of the giant lake, the adventurous divers have found a series of large rooms filled entirely with water. More than 13 total acres have been mapped so far. Perhaps\u00a0the lost sea is the cause of the <a title=\"A truly rare spring , it ebbs and flows like an ocean, every three hours\" href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/truly-rare-spring-ebbs-flows-like-ocean-every-three-hours\/\">Ebbing and Flowing stream in Rogersville<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit;\">In 1915 the idea of developing the cave for the public was conceived. A dance floor was installed in one of the large upper rooms.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-249\" src=\"http:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2.jpg\" alt=\"fish2\" width=\"720\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2.jpg 720w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-600x389.jpg 600w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-679x440.jpg 679w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-262x169.jpg 262w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-524x339.jpg 524w, https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/fish2-574x372.jpg 574w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Fish of the Lost Cave<\/h2>\n<p>There are even fish in the lake, primarily r<span style=\"color: #444444;\">ainbowless rainbow trout. Predecessors of these fish had been carried down through Craighead Caverns and released into the lake by people curious to see if they would escape and reveal a conduit to another body of water. But they stayed put. And in the deep, lightless cave their eyesight and color faded and their sex drive vanished. Since the lake itself sustains no plant or animal life, the trout learned to swarm around visiting rafts and launch themselves into airborne food deliveries. \u201cNow we restock them and keep them on as a tourist attraction.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deep inside a mountain near Sweetwater in East Tennessee is a remarkable body of water known as The Lost Sea. Listed by the Guinness Book of World Records as America\u2019s largest underground lake, the Lost Sea is part of an extensive and historic cave system called Craighead Caverns. The caverns have been known and used [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/offbeattenn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}