# 13-year-old Ben Sands discovered Lost Sea in Tennessee cave 2026-08-16T12:54:16+00:00 | World & Diplomacy | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 1 independent outlet In 1905, a 13-year-old boy named Ben Sands squeezed through a passage no wider than a bicycle tyre in Tennessee's Craighead Caverns and discovered a hidden underground lake. The lake, 140 feet below the surface, is now known as the Lost Sea and is the largest underground lake in the United States. The visible lake covers about 4.5 acres and is 70 feet deep, but divers have mapped over 13 acres of water-filled chambers beyond it. The cave has evidence of Cherokee use and Confederate mining for saltpeter during the Civil War. Today, the Lost Sea is a National Natural Landmark and a tourist attraction. The entrance Sands used has been enlarged for visitors. ## Coverage - timesofindia.indiatimes.com This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Tags: Ben Sands, Lost Sea, Tennessee, United States Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/13-year-old-ben-sands-discovered-lost-sea-in-tennessee-cave/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/13-year-old-ben-sands-discovered-lost-sea-in-tennessee-cave/#story-in-brief Review state: restored archive article, accurate at time of publication, not offered to search indexes. How this brief was made: an AI model read the report linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/