More than 10,000 known caves lie beneath the state of Tennessee. Besides describing the sheer physical majesty of the region's wild caverns and the concurrent joys and dangers of exploring them, this book examines their natural history, scientific import, relationship to clean water and a healthy surface environment, and their uncertain future.



More than 10,000 known caves lie beneath the state of Tennessee according to the Tennessee Cave Survey, a nonprofit organization that catalogs and maps them. In Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves, Taylor tells the story of this vast underground wilderness. Besides describing the sheer physical majesty of the region's wild caverns and the concurrent joys and dangers of exploring them, he examines their rich natural history and scientific import, their relationship to clean water and a healthy surface environment, and their uncertain future.

As a long-time caver and the author of three popular books related to caving - Cave Passages (1996), Dark Life (1998), and Caves (2000) - Taylor enjoys (for a journalist) unusual access to their secretive world. He is personally acquainted with many of the region's most accomplished cave explorers and scientists, and they in turn are familiar with his popular writing on caves in books; in magazines such as Audubon, Outside, and Sports Illustrated; and on websites such as those of the Discovery Channel and the PBS science series Nova.

Hidden Nature: Wild Southern Caves is structured as a comprehensive work of well-researched fact that reads like a personal narrative of the author's long attraction to these caves and the people who dare enter their hidden chambers.