Depths of the Earth
Caves and Cavers of the United States

Author: William R. Halliday, M.D.
Publisher: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., New York, NY. 1976.
ISBN: 0-06-0117748-6
Library of Congress Catalogue Number: 75-6338
Number of Pages: 432

Extensively revised, this edition is a richly varied account of the adventure and history of America's caves and their explorers. Halliday tells the exciting story of America's most noteworthy caves - from the pioneer cave explorations of the young George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to aqualung recovery of mastadon remains in water-filled Florida caves.

Well informed to begin with (he is director of the Western Speleological Survey), the author conducted field and library research for this book and held uncounted interviews on many transcontinental trips. He has visited hundreds of the caves he describes, some of them many times. Several of the chapters give firsthand descriptions of the actual descent and exploration of the caves by the author and his comrades.

Dr. Halliday unravels truth and fiction in the scattered and often inaccurate source material on the history of caves and caving. As a result, the stories of such familiar caves as Mammoth and Carlsbad, and cavers like Floyd Collins, take on a new and exciting meaning.

There are stories in the book of explorers of all kinds - young, old, expert, and novice. Incredibly dedicated, hard-driving explorers, who linked Mammoth Cave and the Flint Ridge cave system after decades of disappointing struggle. Mountaineer-explorers, who plumb wierd steamy caverns in the summit craters of volcanos. Standing-rope explorers, who trust their single thin rope - and their own daring and ability - to slide safely into pits hundreds of pits deep, then climb back spiderlike. There are descriptions of limestone and ice and volcanic caves, and caves that breathe strong spelean currents in or out with a change of barometer.

But the book is much more than a collection of exciting stories. Archeology, paleontology, cave preservation, and the tragic sacrifice of caves to the god of progress - all have their place. A pattern of cavers emerges also, revealing them as explorers stimulated equally by the physical challenge of the caves, the intellectual challenge of their surroundings, and the need for quick, effective preservation of the beauty and values of their strange domain.

This revision brings the story of America's caves and cavers up to date with many new and esciting discoveries of the past decade.