HAVE UNUSUAL CAVES BEEN FOUND IN THE US?

Author Leland Lovelace told about such a discovery in Lost Mines and Buried Treasure.  Lovelace said two prospectors were searching for a gold strike in the desolate mountains of southwestern Nevada.  The two men were digging in the arid soil when a cave-in led them into a vast underground tunnel.  Following the passageway, they went deep into the mountain and entered a large subterranean room


The two astonished prospectors held their torches high and saw that the cave was furnished with chairs and tables.  The furniture was very large, as if manufactured for a race of giants.  Dishes cast from gold and silver were also found on the tables.  Other artifacts made from precious metals were discovered in the cavern.


Lovelace did not inform his readers as to what the prospectors did with their discovery.  We can assume they carried as much of the precious metal as possible from the scene, then melted down the objects for their gold and silver.  This often occurs when a gold-seeker finds a rare archaeological discovery.  Rather than risk the treasure being taken over by the state or federal government, these men play a game of "finder's keepers"r.


In 1904, a prospector named J. C. Brown claimed to have made an intriguing discover in the Cascade mountain range of California.  Brown had been hired by the Lord Cowdray Mining Company of England to prospect for gold in these isolated areas.  During his second trip into the Cascades, Brown found a man made tunnel carved into a solid rock wall.  According to old reports, a landslide had destroyed a rock wall that hid the tunnel entrance.


Brown followed the enormous tunnel through the mountain and came to a large, man made cavern.  The room was lined with sheets of tempered copper.  Strange circular shields hammered from gold were hung on the walls.  Unusual artifacts and statues were located in niches in the cavern walls.  Unusual drawings, strange art, undecipherable hieroglyphics and the skeletons of what was apparently a giant race were found in rooms leading off from the large cavern.


Unwilling to share his discovery with his English employers, Brown did not report the treasure cavern.  Instead, he continued to work for various mining companies for the next thirty years until his retirement.  Then, in 1934, he popped up in Stockton, California, with a map and an intriguing tale.  Within a few days, eighty people were willing to assist the now-aging prospector in getting the precious artifacts out of the cave.


On June 19, 1934, Brown and his followers traveled into the Cascade mountains.  They camped by a small stream, waiting until morning when Brown was to show the group an entrance into the treasure cavern.  However, during the night, the old prospector vanished.  He has not been seen since that night.


Fearing that Brown had somehow duped the eighty people, detectives on the Stockton police department investigated.  "Brown didn't take a cent from anyone," the detectives said after their check-out.


The police chief asked, "What was his game?"


The detective shrugged.


"Was he murdered out there?" asked the chief.


"He was probably an old liar who knew his time was up," replied one of the detectives.


"Brown was a kindly old gentleman of advanced years when he arrived in Stockton," a doctor wrote several yeas ago. "I was a curious young man at that time, always interested in occult lore.  Anything that smelled of adventure grabbed my interest.  Brown's stories were fascinating.  They may have been tall stories about mythical things by an old man looking for companionship.  Somehow, over the years, I've gained new respect for the old man.  I believe he was telling the truth.  I don't know his reasons, but I think he changed his mind at the last minute and decided not to reveal the location of the lost treasure vault of the Lemurian giants."


Another unusual mystery occurred when the miners at the Lion Coal Company in Watts, Utah, were drilling an eight-foot seam of coal a few years ago.  The miners were nearing the end of their seam when they pushed through the earth into a pair of ancient tunnels inside the mountain.


"The two tunnels were about two hundred feet apart," miners told newsmen after their discover.  "They were about six feet high, six feet wide, and several smaller shafts ran from both sides of each tunnel."


The mysterious tunnels were 450 feet from the nearest entrance.  Weather and erosion had erased any sign of an outside entrance.  "We couldn't find an opening," the miners agreed.  "There also wasn't any sign of tools or equipment that might have been used to make the tunnels."


At a news conference, a reporter asked, "Could these tunnels have been formed by some natural process?"


A miner shook his head.  "I've been underground for the past seventeen years.  I've drilled into a lot of pockets and cavities, but you know when they're formed by nature."


Subsequently, professor J.D. Jennings of the University of Utah checked out the mysterious subterranean shafts.  He stated they were man made.  However, he also doubted that the enigmatic tunnels were made by Indians mining in that area.


Who - or what - created the tunnels has remained a mystery.  Perhaps, in some manner, they are linked with the  hollow-earth mystery.  They may have been left by miners who supplied energy to an advanced civilization back in the dim mists of prehistory.