By Nancy Clanton
From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — You can take a boat ride on this Tennessee lake and not have to worry about getting a sunburn.
The Lost Sea, America’s largest underground lake and a registered national landmark, is about two hours up Interstate 75 from Atlanta in Sweetwater.
It is part of an extensive cave system called Craighead Caverns and was pretty much unknown until 1905, when “a 13-year-old boy named Ben Sands wiggled through the tiny, muddy opening 300 feet underground and found himself in a huge room half filled with water,” its website states.
A visit to the Lost Sea begins with a guided tour of the caverns, which are about 58 degrees all year. During the tour, guides will tell you of the caverns’ history, including how it was once used by the Cherokee Indians and how Confederate soldiers mined it for saltpeter to make gun powder.
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