Part 6

A man in the town of Durham--Henry Page--for years obtained water for his house and stock by a hydraulic ram; but, getting a new idea, took advantage of a knoll, shaped like an inverted bowl, an acre or two in extent, lying across a field some forty rods from his house. He dug into the top of this knoll some fifteen feet, striking plenty of water, which was easily piped all over his premises in abundant supply. West of his home rose the Besek Mountain, in a gradual rise for three-fourths of a mile, where it stopped in precipitous ledges, on the west side, nearly 200 feet high. I have hunted up to the top of these ledges. Near the top of the mountain is quite a section of swamp, and nearby descending is a spring that runs a short distance, falling over a shelving rock, and in two or three rods more is lost in the loose stones. It is there in the dryest seasons. Similar to this is a lake on Talcott Mountain, a short distance from Wadsworth Tower, and only a few rods from the abrupt ledges that overlook the towns of Simsbury and Farmington. Hundreds of such cases are in evidence all over the country, and it is quite sure that a large majority of those interested by reading this book will think of various similar cases that have been a query in their minds, “Why they were so.”

While a great number of peculiar features of this kind can be recorded, I will take time to relate a case or two farther from home.

My cousin, who took the Scripture lesson of the rock and its rendings, spent his last days in Southern California, where springs are rare, and orange groves and vineyards depend greatly upon irrigating for water. He was located at Duarte, about twenty miles east of the city of Los Angeles, in one of the finest orange and lemon groves in the State. While they had provisions for irrigating, the lack of drinking water was seriously felt.

Visiting at my house some twenty years ago, where he chiefly made his Eastern home, he listened to my cranky ideas as set forth in this work. At first he scoffed, but being a good reasoner, he afterward thought the idea worth trying, and promised on his return to experiment and report, as I had convinced him of several successes here. In less than a month I got word from him that “he had struck it.” The grove lay at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountain, not one-quarter of a mile away. I advised him to select some place in the side of the mountain where the tree growth was greenest, which he did, and got all the pure water needed.

A Mr. Fitzgerald, owning a large grove about a mile west, similarly located, took the hint and obtained quite a favorable result. When visiting these groves in 1894, almost the first thing Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to show me was his bountiful supply of spring water, tapped from the side of the mountain. These hints and cases are related as suggestions to any reader who may wish to better his water supply. Don’t go into the low ground for it, but tap the hills and high lands, where all the fountains of the earth are in abundance.

In Southern California three seasons out of four the plains and valley lands become too dry for pasturage of cattle and horses and bands of sheep, and a general hegira is made toward the mountains. While the Winter rains swell the streams running to the coast, filling their banks with rushing waters, by May and June a buggy can be hauled through every stream from San Francisco to San Diego without wetting the hubs of the wheels. The small streams are all dried up, and water for stock rare to find. As you go toward the mountains you meet the series of foothills like inverted bowls, the tops of which show growth of bulrushes and fleur de lis. At the foot of the hills will be found some of the drippings from the streams starting farther back. As these hills rise in groups, higher and higher toward the mountains, the green tops show more and more, and the streams increase in volume, affording good fishing for trout. Standing on the tops of these sugar loaf formations in the grazing season, one is reminded of Abraham’s herds of cattle on a thousand hills, to be seen as far as the eye can reach. In southern Minnesota is a long range of highlands thrown up, which they term a mountain chain, but scarcely anywhere is there an upheaval of rocks or any ledges. Over this range every Spring and Fall season will be seen thousands of flocks of ducks, brant, wild geese and sand hill cranes. The springs do not gush out in streams as from rocky formations, but ooze up into great mounds, frequently involving an acre or more, like a great conical sponge, up the side of which you can walk, the water gushing out under every footstep, giving an impression that you may sink in all the way to the top, where you will find an open spring several feet across, the water from which seems to be absorbed by this spongy mound of earth and vegetation, so that a stream rarely runs away. This ridge being the highest land in sight, where does this water come from? In a country surrounding which, it is necessary to carry water in kegs for the dogs to drink when hunting over it.

The conclusion of this work will be made up of a variety of clippings from newspapers for several years past, of which these are a small part. These clippings are published as seeming mysteries, but which, by the adoption of the theory promulgated of a hollow earth holding an ocean of fresh waters, seem easy of solution. If any other method can be suggested to answer these puzzling questions, it is to be hoped some genius will reveal it. If the assertions made in this book are true, polar expeditions are and will continue to be as futile as an attempt to signal the inhabitants of Mars, or to get up a correspondence with the man in the moon. Not presuming to exhaust this subject in so brief a treatise, the field is left open, and large enough for the thoughts and observations of men of greater ability to discuss than yours truly.

IMMENSE FIELDS OF ICE.

A STEAMER SURROUNDED AND COMPELLED TO WORK HER WAY OUT.

MONTREAL, May 22.--The steamer Fremona, from New Castle, which arrived here yesterday, had a very startling experience with the ice about 150 miles on the other side of Cape Ray. The vessel was steaming slowly through a dense fog on Wednesday last, when she got right in the midst of a pack of ice, which was drifting southward with the Arctic current. After the steamer had been pounding about in the ice for some hours the fog lifted and showed the vessel to be in a dangerous position. All around her were heavy hummocks of ice, ten feet deep in the water and showing about a foot above the surface. Gradually nearing the steamer and crushing the smaller pieces of ice in their way were a number of huge icebergs. The captain and chief officer climbed to the masthead and found that the ice extended on all sides as far as the eye could see. There were hundreds of seals on the ice, some of them being close to the vessel. Two hours were spent in turning the steamer, and she was then headed southward and was worked out of the ice. Owing to the movement of such a large mass of ice southward it is feared that navigation will be seriously interfered with.

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News from the whalers in the Antarctic Seas on February 17 was that up to that time the whaling had proved a failure, with all the ships that made the venture. There were plenty of whales of the finner and humpback kind, but none of the Greenland kind. Grampuses were too plentiful. Seals were very numerous, and there were also plenty of sea lions. Some icebergs of enormous size were seen; one was fifty miles long and several were from fifteen to twenty.

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In the Antarctic Ocean the icebergs that have been noticed from time to time rose 400, 580, 700 and even 1,000 feet above the water, and were from three to five miles long. Their enormous bulk may be inferred from the fact that the part under water is about seven times as large as that above.

PASSED A GREAT ICEBERG.

LONDON, Dec. 9.--The British steamship Galgate reports ice in the South Atlantic. On September 28, in latitude 49 degrees south, longitude 42 degrees west, the Galgate passed an iceberg two miles long and 250 feet high. Hundreds of other icebergs were also seen.

THREE HUNDRED MILES OF ICE.

ST. JOHN’S, N. F., Feb. 12.--The British steamer Dahome, which left Halifax on the 9th for this port and Liverpool, arrived here to-day. She reports coming through a field of ice three hundred miles long. This is something unprecedented at this season.

THE GREATEST OCEAN DEPTH.

The greatest known depth of the ocean is midway between the Island of Tristan d’Acunha and the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The bottom was there reached at a depth of 40,236 feet, or eight and three-quarter miles, exceeding by more than 17,000 feet the height of Mount Everest, the loftiest mountain in the world. In the North Atlantic Ocean, south of Newfoundland, soundings have been made to a depth of 4,580 fathoms, or 37,480 feet, while depths equaling 34,000 feet, or six and a half miles, are reported south of the Bermuda Islands. The average depth of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and California is a little over 2,000 fathoms; between Chili and the Sandwich Islands, 2,500 fathoms; and between Chili and New Zealand, 1,500 fathoms. The average depth of all the oceans is from 2,000 to 2,500 fathoms.

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Russian reports say that the Sea of Aral has been steadily rising since 1891. The sea level is now four feet above that of 1874. The line of railroad from Orenburg to Tashkend had to be changed in order to avoid being overflowed. Instead of sinking three inches a year, as German geographers had computed, the sea has been rising at the rate of four inches a year for the last ten years.

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In 1812 it was La Souffrière, adjacent to the Morne Garou, which broke loose on the Island of St. Vincent, and it is the same Souffrière which now has devastated the island and is bombarding Kingston with rocks, lava and ashes.

The old crater of Morne Garou has long been extinct, and, like the old crater of Mont Pelee, near St. Pierre, it had far down in its depths, surrounded by sheer cliffs from 500 to 800 feet high, a lake.

Glimpses of the lake of Morne Garou were difficult to get, owing to the thick verdure growing about the dangerous edges of the precipices, but those who have seen it describe it as a beautiful sheet of deep blue water.

THE SUN’S TEMPERATURE.

F. R. (Minneapolis, Minn.): Has the temperature of the sun been established? And, if so, what is it?

The following figures are given by the principal scientists who studied the solar temperature: Newton, 1,669,000 degrees Alsius; Pouillet, 1,461; Zollner, 102,000; Secchi, 5,344,840; Ericson, 2,726,700; Fizeau, 7,500; Walerston, 9,000,000; Abney and Fessing, 12,700; Wilson and Gray, 8,700; Pernter, 30,000; Sporer, 27,000; Sainte-Claire Deville, 2,500; Soret, 5,801,846; Vicair, 1,398; Violle, 1,500; Rosetti, 20,000; Langley, 8,333,000; Ebert, 40,000; Guillaume and Christiansen, 6,000; Paschen, 5,000.

SAW TREMENDOUS ICEBERGS.

THEY ARE 300 FEET HIGH AND SEVEN AND EIGHT MILES LONG NEAR CAPE HORN.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20.--French sailing vessels making port from around Cape Horn hold the record for sighting huge icebergs. The French bark Eugenie Fautrel, from Hamburg, reported that on September 14, near Cape Horn, a berg seven miles long and 300 feet high was seen several miles distant on the port bow. Now comes the French bark Anne De Bretagne, 164 days from Cardiff, and reports that she not only saw a berg 300 feet high and eight miles long, but she had to sheer off to keep from wrecking herself against it.

It was seen on September 3, and after passing through a great mass of ice, the Bretagne suddenly came within sight of the giant, harmless enough in appearance through the soft mist, but with terribly jagged comers, and a breadth of front that made the Frenchmen quail.

KINGSTOWN COVERED WITH ASHES.

It was seen then that the volcano was in constant eruption, and there was a tremendous roar. Forked lightning played incessantly over the disturbed section. The flashes averaged from sixty to one hundred a minute.

Kingstown, which is twelve miles from the volcano, was covered with three inches of ashes and showers of stones on Thursday. The bed of the old volcano was then a lake three miles across.

ERUPTION STARTED ON MONDAY.

The eruption was first observed on Monday. Huge flames of water shot up, and the people in that district fled. There has been a continuous roar ever since.

The northern district, from Chateau Belair to Georgetown, has been completely destroyed. It is impossible to proceed beyond that point, on account of the rivers of lava. A huge hill was observed where previously there had been a valley. The whole of that part of the island is smoking.

SIXTY KILLED BY LIGHTNING.

Sixty persons are reported to have been killed by lightning while getting away.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the island was showered with ashes. Near Belair the ashes were three feet deep.

On Thursday there was a continuous shower of hot sand and water. Everything on the island was ruined by the ashes.

SOME PERSONS DYING OF THIRST.

Many persons were brought in boats from Kingstown. Some of the refugees who arrived on the coast were dying of thirst.

THE NEW JACKSONVILLE.

A FRESH CITY BUILT BEFORE THE RUINS OF THE OLD HAVE CEASED TO SMOULDER.

Before the fire that destroyed a great part of the city of Jacksonville, Fla., had ceased to burn, the city has practically been rebuilt. This statement not only describes a building operation remarkable for rapid execution, but also covers an incident unique in the experience of firemen.

Jacksonville was almost wiped out by fire on May 3 of last year. An area of 443 acres, comprising 148 blocks, was swept by the flames, and property worth at least $15,000,000 was destroyed.

The work of rebuilding on a better and more substantial scale was started within a week and has since gone on with rapidity unprecedented in Southern building operations, and now the city is in far better shape than it was before the fire.

About three weeks ago the clearing up of the last of the ruins was begun. The laborers doing the work removed three or four inches of the mass of brick and stones on top, and then found, to their surprise, that underneath the ruins were still hot.

Smoke began to rise out of the hole they had dug out, and the farther down they went the hotter became the ruins, and the thicker the smoke. At last a mass of red hot coals was found, which sprang into flame when the air reached it.

It had been necessary several times within the year for the fire department to soak this part of the ruins with water, but it had been thought for several months that the fire must be out at last.

Alongside new Jacksonville had already sprung into existence. Six months after the destruction of the city a new one already covered the greater part of the site.

Within eleven months more than 2,000 buildings were erected, fifty of them aggregating in cost $2,000,000. And the new Jacksonville is immeasurably superior to the old.

A PRAIRIE CAVERN.

AN INTERESTING HOLE IN THE GROUND WHERE CAVES WOULD NOT BE LOOKED FOR.

_From the Oklahoma State Capital._

SULPHUR SPRINGS, I. T., Oct. 18.--At a spot eleven miles southeast of this place, in the level prairie upland, is an opening about forty feet in diameter and sixty feet in depth. By clinging to its rocky and precipitous walls, a person may descend to the bottom, and there find the openings to the two caves, one leading westward, and the other two to the east. For years this place has been known as Rock Prairie Cave. It is one of the most striking natural curiosities in the Chickasaw nation. The caves are of unknown length, and through one rushes a subterranean stream of great depth in places and of icy coldness. Exploring parties have ventured into these labyrinths for hundreds of yards, but the danger of becoming lost has prevented a thorough examination of the underground passages.

The cave leading westward is easiest of access and contains a number of spacious chambers. The room is about seventy feet square and fifty feet from the floor to the ceiling. The floor is obstructed with huge boulders. The darkness and stillness are intense. Picnic parties sometimes go there, and, with a huge boulder for a table, eat their lunch in the glare of torches that cast uncanny shadows along the massive walls.

Timid persons hesitate in venturing into the depths of the eastern cave. The passage slants downward at an angle that compels the explorer to crawl and slip and slide for nearly 100 feet before reaching a spot where a person may stand upright and walk safely. From the darkness echoes the sound of rushing water, which later is found to be a stream that runs from eight to thirty feet in width, and from six inches to many feet in depth. Men have waded in the stream until the water reached their chins, and then gone in a boat to points where they were unable to touch bottom with the longest oars. A farmer carried his boat into the cave several years ago to follow the stream to its end. At a depth estimated to be 200 feet below the surface of the ground is a natural bridge, formed by a huge stone that fell across the stream. The water plunges underneath this bridge like a millrace. A boat can be pulled over the bridge, however, and launched on the other side. About 100 feet below the bridge the stream widens into a broad, deep pool, with a high, vaulted roof. Beautiful stalagmites and stalactites adorn this chamber. Two hundred feet below this pool the passage is difficult. It is claimed that this cave has been explored for a mile.

The stream is believed to find its outlet at a spring about three miles from the entrance to the caves. This spring is of great size and volume, and flows with remarkable swiftness. In rainy seasons the spring boils and gushes as if choked with the flood of water that pours from its mouth. The stream in Black Prairie cave rises when there is a heavy rainfall in the surrounding country, and the increased flow of both springs and stream at such times is taken as evidence that they are connected.

ARTESIAN WATERS IN TEXAS.

In the south central part of Texas is an upland covering an area of 14,000 square miles, and known as the Edwards Plateau. At the southeastern foot of this elevated tract there is no end of gushing springs, which form the headwaters of the San Antonio and San Marcos rivers. In a big State like Texas, the rainfall of one locality often varies a good deal from that of adjacent regions. But, according to a bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, the fluctuations of discharge of the streams just mentioned correspond closely to the rainfall up on the plateau, from which it is inferred that some invisible connection exists between the springs and the upland. The bulletin declares that this similarity has been found to hold true for dry and wet years alike. The Edwards Plateau is a flat, grass covered upland. The rain which falls upon it does not flow off in surface streams, but sinks into the porous soil, and eventually finds its way underground to the bold scarp line of the region, where it bursts out in abundant springs.

The San Antonio River has its source in one of these artesian springs, and between it and the wells driven to supply water to the city of San Antonio there seems to be close connection, shown in their mutual changes, which indicates that their waters have a common source. It was recently noticed that when the wells were steadily drawn upon for twenty-four hours the water level of the head lake of the river fell several inches, but that on shutting off the wells the lake regained its level in about one day. So intimate is the relation between the flow of the wells and that of the river that it is always possible to tell how high the water will rise in the former by observing the river’s height on a gauge rod placed upon its bank.

THE GREAT ASSAM EARTHQUAKE.

A thorough report of the earthquake in Assam, in 1897, the most violent and extended earthquake of historic times, has been made by Mr. R. D. Oldham. From an abstract by Prof. Davis of Harvard University, it appears that an area of 150,000 square miles was laid in ruins, all means of communication interrupted, the hills rent asunder and cast down in the landslips, the plains fissured and riddled with vents from which sand and water poured forth in astounding quantities, causing floods in the rivers, etc. A surrounding area of 1,750,000 square miles felt a shock of unusual energy. The earthquake wave traveled at the rate of 120 miles a minute. The vertical displacement of the ground near the center of disturbance was probably as much as fourteen inches--an unprecedented quantity; the vertical movement of earthquakes of great violence, like the Charleston earthquake, is seldom more than two inches.

Some of the results of this great earthquake of June 12, 1897, are astonishing. Faults were produced, one having a throw of 25 feet and a length of 12 miles; another a throw of 10 feet and a length of 2½ miles. The larger of the two dammed a river so as to form a lake several miles in extent and ruining a forest of at least 50,000 trees. Landslides of great magnitude were produced in the Himalayas and the valleys of streams were changed beyond recognition.

CURIOUS RESULT OF THE EARTHQUAKE.

INDIANAPOLIS, Nov. 1.--An interesting point in connection with the earthquake which was felt in this city yesterday is the fact that a number of small Indiana streams having their source in the southern border of the gas belt have suddenly filled with water. No rains have occurred in this State for months to swell the streams, and in the case of Honey Creek, in the eastern part of Bartholemew County, it had gone dry several weeks ago, the water standing only in pools here and there. This week it is filled to the brim, and in some places has overflowed. Sugar Creek, that runs near Edinburg, Johnson County, was nearly dry, but to-day it is reported to be nearly filled. Smaller streams rising in the Hancock County gas territory have shown similar phenomena. No one can imagine where the water comes from. In the case of Honey Creek the records show that previous to the Charleston earthquake, August 31, 1886, the stream acted in the same way.

A VILLAGE DESTROYED BY AN EARTHQUAKE.

CONSTANTINOPLE, May 27.--The village of Repahie in Armenia has been destroyed by an earthquake. A number of mineral springs spouted from the crevasses made in the earth by the shocks and the flow of water was so great that the adjacent fields were flooded. The earthquake was preceded by rumblings which caused the inhabitants to flee from the village and they thus escaped death from the falling houses. No lives were lost however.

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Since a recent earthquake at Santa Ana, in Orange County, Cal., the well of Mr. Huntington in Los Bolsas district, which for years has never flowed to any considerable extent, has given forth large quantities of mud, stones and other materials, the eruptions being volcanic in character. The supply of water is now far in excess of the means provided at the surface for its care, and it has been found necessary to ditch from the well to the river to carry it away. The pipes are at all times in danger of bursting--the sudden blasts of air and foreign substances rendering it more or less dangerous to go near the opening.

FIRE BANKED FOR YEARS.

_From the Galveston Daily News._