Part 20

The well empties into Beaver Creek, only about 100 yards distant, the water gushing forth from the rocks as though it were under great pressure. The well is undoubtedly supplied from subterranean sources, possibly through the hole sounded by the army officers years ago. The sides of the well are honeycombed with caves and tunnels, permitting sightseers to descend to the water’s edge.

Montezuma’s well contains no fish. The flow of water from it is the same throughout the season. Popular opinion has attributed the origin of the well to volcanic action, but as the rock surrounding it is limestone, it is more than probable that the action of the water is responsible for its creation.--Native American.

A REMARKABLE ISLAND.

From the Pittsburg Dispatch.

A rim of land inclosing a fresh-water lake in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a novelty in the way of islands. There may not be more than one such in the great ocean, and, at any rate, that type of island is extremely rare. This strange spot is Niuafou, which is quite apart from other ocean islands. It lies midway between the Fiji and Samoa groups, and is under the government of the Tonga group, though it is 200 miles from these islands.

It has recently been visited by Lieutenant Somerville, of the British Navy. Some time or other a volcanic vent opened at the bottom of the ocean, and the lava that poured out of it piled up higher and higher, until it finally overtopped the sea. A great volcanic mountain had been formed, and the part of it that came into view above the waste of waters was, of course, an island. As time went on this volcano was the scene of one of those tremendous explosions that sometimes tear mountains to pieces. It was such a cataclysm that blew off the upper 3,000 feet of Krakatoa some years ago.

The explosion at Niuafou had a remarkable result. The interior of the crater was blown out to a considerable depth, leaving only the narrow rim, in this case a nearly perfect ring, around the deep central cavity. Such is the island of to-day.

A thousand Tongans live in the five villages that lie along the outer slope of that crater wall. The drainage from the inner slope has partly filled the cavity, forming a lake whose waters, though slightly alkaline, are drinkable. From the top of the crater rim one looks down upon the peaceful lake within, with its three little islands and the curiously shaped peninsula jutting out into it; and outside the rim is the ever-restless ocean.

WHERE THE VALLEY WAS A HILL IS.

From the Chicago Record.

SEATTLE, Wash., April 6.--A tremendous upheaval, accompanied by wonderful changes, occurred in the Mount Baker district March 27. What had once been a valley and the bed of a river is now a hill seventy feet high. The noise of the upheaval was heard at Hamilton, ten miles away. A report of the occurrence was brought to the city by D. P. Simons, Jr.

Simons says the noise of the upheaval sounded like heavy thunder. He and his party, who were examining timber lands, journeyed in the direction from which the sound came, and were astonished to see a huge mound of earth, nearly a quarter of a mile square, where formerly there had been a valley. In places the mound was seventy feet high. The Nooksachk River had been turned from its course, and ran around one side of a hill. Nearly in the center of this high bank of earth was a large lake. A forest had formerly occupied the ground, and trees which had escaped destruction rose above the water. There were cracks here and there in the mound large enough to ingulf a horse and wagon. There was a smell of sulphur in the air, and it is Mr. Simons’s impression that the disturbance was caused by gases underneath the mountain.

William Hadley, a trapper, whose wrecked cabin now stands in the center of the huge mound, was absent at the time of the upheaval, and thus escaped death. His cabin was split in two.

REMARKABLE GEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.

According to a Florida paper a remarkable geological discovery has been made there. The Galena Advocate says: “As P. M. Oliver, in company with a lot of friends, was chasing a fox through his field near Payne’s prairie Saturday night last his horse ran into a sink and in getting the animal out Sunday morning attention was attracted to the numerous curious petrological formations on the sides of the sink. Further examination Monday disclosed immense beds of the petrified bones of the now extinct dinotherium giganteum, icthyosaurus, glyptodon, cuvieri, plesiosaurus, and peterodactyl. This is probably the richest find in the world and was altogether accidental.”

TUNNELLING FOR WATER.

FOLKS OUT IN IDAHO WHO RUN THEIR WELLS INTO A SIDE HILL.

The citizens of Sweet, Canyon County, Idaho, have a novel way of obtaining water for domestic and irrigation purposes. The water is dug out of the hillside, with wells run like tunnels, and not down into the earth as ordinary wells are dug. East of the town, there is a bluff out of which sparkling mountain water can be procured almost anywhere by merely running a tunnel in from twenty to forty feet.

At one point in town, a stream sufficient to irrigate a fine orchard and garden, besides an ample supply for domestic use and for watering all the teams that pass that way, comes pouring out of the 40-foot tunnel. Neither the spring freshets nor the summer drouths affect its flow.

DOMINICA’S BOILING LAKE.

A NATURAL CURIOSITY THAT WAS NOT DISCOVERED TILL 1875.

Mr. Sterns-Fadelle of Dominica has just published a little book giving some interesting information recently obtained about a curious natural phenomenon in Dominica, one of the Lesser Antilles.

This island is only 291 square miles in area. It was colonized by the Spaniards in the seventeenth century and peopled later by French emigrants, who controlled the island uninterruptedly until the eighteenth century, and its resources have since been exploited by English and French; and yet its natural curiosity in the northern part of the island had never been seen or heard of until twenty-eight years ago.

This can be explained only by the fact that the neighborhood of the boiling Lake of Dominica is difficult of access. The lake was discovered by an Englishman, Dr. Nichols, who organized an expedition to explore the unknown part of the island.

One day his little party were clambering up a mountain. They suddenly came upon evidences of sulphur, and a moment later stood looking down into a crater which was filled with boiling water.

Stifling vapors rose from the agitated surface, rumblings of thunder came from the subterranean regions, and near the center of the little lake, where the water was most violently disturbed, the furious boiling lifted the surface ten or twelve feet above the general level. The lake was constantly fed by several small brooks that poured from the heights above the crater.

Mr. Sterns-Fadelle says that the lake is still boiling. It has been found to be at an altitude of 2,490 meters above sea level. In form it is elliptical.

When it is filled with water it is about 200 feet long and less than 100 feet wide. Its depth is unknown. An attempt to touch bottom was made thirty feet from the water edge, where, at a depth of 195 feet, no bottom was reported.