Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1869-11-10
WHOLENO. 271I.
The Dead Sea Of California.
N NARK TWAIN.


MIA, is one of her most extraordinary Gu
r1osities, but being situated in a very
Out-Of-the-way corner of the country,
and away up among the eternal SHOWS Of
the Sierras, it is little known and Very
seldom visited. A mining excitement
carried me there once, and spent sever
al months in its vicinity. 1t lies in a ife-
less, treeless, hideous desert. 5000 feet
above the level Ofthe sea, and is guarded
by mountains 700 feet higher, whose
SUBMITS are hidden always in the clouds.
This solemn, silent, sailless sea-this lone
ly tenant of the loneliest spot on earth
is little graeed with the picturesque. It
is an unpretending eXpanSe of grayish
water, about hundred miles in circum-
ference, with two islands in its centre
mere upheavals of rent, and seOrehed
and blistered lava, showed over with gray
banks and drifts Of pumice stone and
ashes, the winding-sheet of the dead VOL
cano, whose vast crater the lake has
seized upon and occupied.
The Lake is 9, 600 feet deep, and its slug
glsh waters are so strong with alkali that
I if you only dip the most hopelessly soil
| ed garment into them once or twice, and
/ wiring 1t out, it will be found as clean as
I if IL had been through your ablest wash
I erwoman's hands. While We eneamped
! there our laundry work was easy. We
/ tied the weeks washing astern of our
I boat, and sailed quarter Of a mile, and
[ the job was complete, all to the wringing
out. five threw the water on our heads
and gave them a rub or so, the white
lather would pile up three inches high.
This water is not good for bruised places
or abrasiOns of the skin. We had a val
liable dog. He had raw places on him.
He had more raw places on hin than
sound ones. He was the raWest dog /
almost ever saw. He jumped overheard
one day to get rid of the flies. But it was
bad judgment. In his condition il would
have been just as comfortable TO Jump in
to the fire. The alkali water nipped him
IN the raw places simultaneously and he
struck out for the shore with cOnsidera-
bic interest. He yelped and barked and
hOwled as he went-and by the time he
got to the shore there was no bark to him
for he had barked the bark all out of
his inside, and the alkali water had
cleaned the bark all OFF his outside, and
he probably wished he had never embark
ed in any such enterprise. He ran round
and round in circle, and paved the earth
and clawed the air, and threw double
sOmersets, sometimes backwards and
sometimes forwards, in the most frantic
and extraordinary manner. He was not
demOnstrative dog as a general thing,
but rather of grave and serious turn of
mind, and never saw him take so much
struck out over the mountains, at a gate
which we estimated at about $50 miles an
hour, and he is going vet. This was
about five years ago. We look for what
is left of him along here every day.
y white man can not drink the waters
Of Mono Lake, for it is nearly pure I've.
1t is said that the Indians in the vicinity
drink it sometimes, though. 1t is not
improbable, for they are among the pur-
est liars | ever saw. There will be no
additional charge for this joke, except to
parties requiring an explanation OF it.
This joke has received high commenda-
ton from some of the ablest minds ofthe
age. Horace Greely remarked to a friend
of mine that if he were ever to make a
joke like that he would not desire to live
any longer
There are no fish in Mono Iake-no
frogs, no snakes, no nothing in fact, that
goes to make life desirable. Millions of
wild ducks and seagulls swim about the
surface, but no living thing exists ulldeI'
the surface, except a white feathery sort
of worm, one-halfineh long, which looks
like bit of white thread frayed at the
sides. IfyOu dip up gallon Of water.
you viii get about fifteen thousand OF
these. They give to the water a sort of
grayish-white appearance. Then there
IS ty, which looks something like our
house fly. These settle on the beach, to
eat the worms that wash ashOre-and any
time you can see there belt of flies an
inch deep, and six feet wide, and this
belt extends clear around the lake-a
belt of flies one hundred miles long. II
you throw a stone among them, they
swarm up so thick that they look dense
like cloud. You can hold them under
water as long as you please-they don't
mind it-they are only proud oft. When
you let them go, they pop up 10 the sur
face as dry as patent Office report, and
walk OFF as uncOncernedly a. ifthey had
been educated especially with view to
affording instructive entertainment to
man in that particular way. Providence
leaves nothing to go by chance. All
things have their uses, and their parts
in natures economy. The ducks and
gulls eat the flies-the flies eat the worms
the Indians eat the fiies-the wild cats
eat the Indians-the white folks eat the
wild cats when the crops faiI-and thus
all things are lovely.
Mono Lake is $50 miles in straight
line from the ocean-and between it and
the ocean are one or two ranges Ofmoun-
tains-yet thousands of seagulls 20 there
every season to lay their eggs and hatch
their young. One would as soon expect
to find seagulls in Tennessee. And in
this connection let us observe another
instance of Natures wisdom. The islands
lava, coated over with ashes and pumice
stone, and utterly innocent OfvegetafiOn
or anything that would burn; and sea-
gulls' eggs being entirely useless TO any
body unless they be cooked, Nature
has provided an unfailing spring of boil
ing water on the largest island, and you
can put your eggs in there, and in four
YOU can boil them as hard as any
/ have made during the past
fifteen years. Within ten feet of the boil
ing spring is a spring of pure cold water,
sweet and wholesome. So, in that island
YOU get your board and washing free of
if Nature had gone further
and furnished q nice American hotel
clerk who was erusty and disobliging and
didn't know anything about timetables.
or the railroad routes-Or anything-and
was proud Ofit-I would not wish for q
more desirable boarding house.
Half a dozen little mountain brooks
flow into Mono Lake, but not a stream
Of any kind flows out of il. 1t neither
rises or falls, apparently, and what it
does with its surplus water is a dark and
bloody mystery. All the rivers of Ne
yada sink into the earth mysteriOusly
after they have run 100 miles orsO-nOno
Ofthem flow to the sea after the fashion of
rivers in all other lands.
There are only two seasons in the re-
giOn round about Mono Lake, and these
are the breaking up of one winter and the
of another. More than once
have | seen a perfectly bliSteriDg morn
ing open up with the thermometer at
ninety degrees at eight o'clock, and seen
the snow fall fourteen inches deep and
that same identical thermometer godOwn
to fOrtv-fOur degrees under shelter before
3 o. clock at night. Under favorable cir
it SHOWS at least once in ev-
cry single month in the year, in the lit
tie town of Mono. So uncertain is the
climate in summer that lady who goes
put visiting can not hope to be prepared
for all emergencies unless she takes her
fan under one arm and her snow shoes
under the other. When they have q
Fourth of July procession it generally
SHOWS on them, and they do say that, as
a general thing, when a man calls for
brandy tOddy there, the bar-keeper
chops it off with hatchet and wraps it
up in paper like maple sugar. And it
is further reported that the old soakers
havn't any teeth-wOre them out eating
gin cocktails and brandy punches.
don't endorse that statement-I simply
give it for what it is worth-and it is
I should say millions 10
man who can believe it without straining
himself But do endorse the snow on
the Fourth of July-because 1 know it
TO be true.
We have Just heard of an editor who
says he has his pride tiattered once year,