Seeking inner peace underneath

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, caves, mines, subways, tunnels, catacombs

From a distance the book proclaims boldly, "UNDERGROUND WILL HUNT". After a moment of cognitive dissonance, thinking "Hunt" was a verb, I realized the name of the book's author had to be Will Hunt. The full title is Underground: A Human History of the Worlds Beneath Our Feet.

Will Hunt stumbled across an abandoned tunnel system when he was 16. When he found an old map, he realized that the tunnel ran right under his family's yard. This led to his lifelong fascination with the places beneath our feet. Over the years he has explored subway tunnels—in use and not—, catacombs, mines, a few caves, and underground cities such as that in Cappadocia, Turkey. He writes also of Burrowers, those who excavate as a hobby, though he missed Seymour Cray, founder of Cray Computers, who excavated tunnels under his property, by hand, for about forty years. The labor relaxed him whenever he reached an impasse in computer design.

I can't pass up the chance to mention a few of my fondest underground memories. I was an active spelunker in the 1970's. I used a carbide lamp, which meant carrying in extra "loads" of carbide and plenty of water, because a "load" lasts no more than 4 hours, and a typical day underground lasts 12-16 hours. Three events from that period:

1. Helping with an NSS (National Speleological Society) re-survey of a portion of Lilburn's Cave, a rare cave in marble rather than limestone. It is near Three Rivers in California. At the time, seven miles of passages had been mapped. The current total is 21 miles. It remains the longest cave in marble in the world (the longest cave in limestone is more than 10 times as long). In one long, high-ceilinged passage that needed re-mapping, we couldn't find the earlier survey markers, dots of colored spray paint. Finally looking upward, we realized that 15-20 feet of sand had been washed out of the passage since the prior survey. We had to chimney-climb up to the survey points and do our work while braced high above the floor.
2. Mineral collecting in the Red Cloud Mine in New Mexico. (The NSS, that same year, had only taken me as a member after I affirmed that I never collect minerals in natural caves, just in mines. But they never entirely trusted me.) At one point, deep inside, my lamp went out. A girl sat nearby to afford light while I changed the carbide load in my lamp. Then her lamp went out! Everyone else was too far away for any light to reach us. She began to panic. I talked to her calmly while I finished working on my lamp by feel, and got it lit. Then I changed the carbide in her lamp also, and we were good for another 4 hours.
3. While I was a geology student, the Mineralogy class went on a field trip to the Pine Creek Tungsten Mine in central California. This is essentially a hollowed-out mountain top with miles of tunnels blasted from the rock. It is unique, so far as I know, in that the lowest level of the mine is where you enter via a mine train that goes 2 miles into the mountain. The mine workings go upwards from there. With gravity to help, getting the ore out of the mine is much less costly than in any mine where you have to lift it out. We were helped to collect a few rare minerals that occur only in that mine. This is the only underground experience that I used an electric lamp (provided by our hosts).

The author's second chapter is amazing. He writes of making an underground traverse of the city of Paris, along with several experienced helpers. They also got the help of a number of Cataphiles, Parisians who make a hobby of exploring, sleeping, holding concerts and movie events, and dodging authorities, in the Paris underground.

The 7th chapter presents the use of caves and tunnels (the latter are artificial, whether by man or beast) in pre-history, which seems to go back at least 200,000 years, before there were Homo sapiens in existence. Caves everywhere are found to have numerous artworks, altars, pottery arrangements, and sculptures, usually in their deepest recesses. One might think that shallower stuff existed but has been lost, but at least some traces of such works outside the dark zone ought to remain. We don't find them. There is still today some kind of feeling of holiness about the deepest places.

Wherever it is economical to burrow and tunnel, that seems to be a favored way of making use of the third dimension. I recall strolling 200 feet beneath the streets of Tokyo, in a thriving marketplace (ichiba), almost a bazaar. There were at least three such levels above, between this one and the sunlit zone. I don't know how many different subway lines cross, at different depths, under that part of the city. There are ichiba to be found along every one of them.

The author makes a good case in his last chapter for a seemingly universal feeling of awe and humility that people feel for caves and other underground spaces. He thinks it the origin of religion. Perhaps it is, in part. In any case, this very enjoyable book conducts one on journeys in directions we seldom follow.