Subterranean Twin Cities

Dont try this at homeread the book instead! (it smells better). We tend to send things underground that we are not interested in ever seeing again. Sewage. Garbage. In the past, we have used the underground to age such provisions as cheese and beer. In Subterranean Twin Cities, geologist, historian, and urban speleologist Greg Brick takes us on an adventurous, educational, andthankfullysanitary tour beneath the streets and into the myriad tunnels, caves, and industrial spaces that make up the Twin Cities fascinating and surprisingly vast underground landscape. In this groundbreaking tour, the first of its kind of the Twin Cities, Brick mines the stories that lie below the city surface. Beginning with an accessible history on the geology of the areaincluding the giant cone-shaped mollusk Endoceras, whose thirteen-foot-long fossils are found in the Mississippi gorgeBrick guides us into a series of astounding firsthand expeditions. We follow him into St. Pauls historic Carvers Cave, with its stories of sunken treasure; through the many caves constructed for brewing, cheese ripening, and mushroom farming; and into the world of nineteenth-century show caves for tourists. We even find ourselves in the Shangri-la of urban caves: the extensive Schieks Cave seventy-five feet beneath the busy streets of downtown Minneapolis. From spending the onset of Y2K in Carvers Cave (just in case) to long hours wading in underground rivers, Brick proves himself a knowledgeable, wry, and daring guide. Subterranean Twin Cities shines a headlamp (with extra batteries, of course) into the captivating labyrinths beneath the Twin Cities and reminds us that what we see aboveground is really only half of the story.