The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1869-11-26

, bruised places and abrasions of the skin.-
We had valuable dog. He had raw place
on him. He had more raw places on hin
than sound ones. He was the rawest dog
L almost ever saw. He jumped overheard
one day to get away from the flies. But i
was bad judgment. In his condition, i
would have been just as comfortable tc
jump into the fire. The alkali water nip
pea nm IN all the raw places simultaneous
~, and he struck out for the shore will
considerable interest. He yelped, and bark
ed, and howled as he went-and by tho
time he got to the shore, there was no bark
to hlm-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 embarked
IN any such an enterprise. He ran round
and round in circle, and paved the earth
and clawed the air, and threw double
somersaults, sometimes backwards and
sometimes forwards, in the most fran
tic and extraordinary manner. He was not
a demonstrative dog, as a general thing,
but rather OF grave and serious turn OF
mind, and ] never saw him tako so much
interest In any thing before. He finally
struck out over the mountains, at q gait
which we estimated at about $50 miles an
hour, he is going yet This was about
five years ago. We look for what is left of
him along here every day.
A white man cannot drink the water of
Mono Lake, for it is nearly pure lye. 1t is
said that the Indians in the vicinity drink
1t sometimes, though. 1t is not improba-
bic, for they are among the purest liars I
ever saw. There will be no additional
charge for this joke, except to parties re-
curing an explanation of it. This Joke
has received high commentator from some
OF the ablest minds of the age. Horace
Greeley remarked to friend of mine that
II he were ever to make joke like that, he
would not desire to live any longer.
There are no fish in Mono Lake-no froos.
no snakes, no pollywogs- nothing, in fact,
that goes to make life desirable. Millions
Of wild ducks and seagulls swim about the
surface, but no living thing exists under
the surface, except white, feathery sort of
a worm, one-half an inch long, which looks
like bit of white thread frayed out at the
SIDES. II you dip mp gallon ofwater you
Will get about fifteen thousand Of these
Ihey give the water sort of grayish-white
appearance. Then there is fly, 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 hun
dred miles long. If you throw stone
among them, they swarm up so thick that
they look dense, like a cloud You can
hold them under water as long as YOU
please-they don't mind it-they are only
proud of it. When you let them 90, they
pop up to the surface as dry as Patent
Office report, and walk off as unconcerned-
ly as if they had been educated especially
with view to affording instructive enter
talnment to man in that peculiar wav.-
Providence leaves nothing to go by chance
All things have their uses and their pro-
per place in Natures economy. The ducks
and gulls cat the flies-the flies eat the
worms-the Indians eat the f1ies-the wild
cats eat the lndians-the white folks eat
the wildcats when the crops fail-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 of mountains
yet thousands OF sea gulls go there every
season to lay their eggs and rear their
young. One would as soon expect to find
sea-gulls in Tennessee. And in this con-
nection let us observe another instance of
Natures wisdom. The islands in the lake
being merely huge masses of lava, coated
over with ashes and pumice-stone, and ut
terly innocent of vegetation or anything
| that would burn and sea-gulls' eggs being
entirely useless to anybody unless they be
Natnro Jol e..
spring of boiling water on the largest isl
and, and you can put your eggs in there
and in four minutes you can boil them as
hard as any statement have made during
the past fifteen years. Within ten feet Of
the boiling spring is spring of pure cold
water, sweet and wholesome. So, in that
island you get your board and washing
free of charge-and if Nature had gone
further and furnished nice American ho-
tel clerk who was crusty and disobliging,
and didn't know anything about the time
tables, or the railroad routes-or- any thing
and was proud of it, would not wish
for more desirable boarding house.
Halt dozen little mountain brooks flow
into Mono Lake, but not stream of any
kind flows out of it, 1t neither raises nor
falts, apparently, and what it does with its
surplus water, is a dark and bloody mystic
ry. All the rivers of Nevada sink into the
earth mysteriously after they have run a
hundred miles or so-none of them flow to
the sea, as is the fashion of rivers in all
other lands
There are only two seasons in the region
round about Mono Lake, and these are the
breaking up of one winter and the begin
ming of the next. More than once I have
seen perfectly blistering morning open up
with the thermometer at ninety degrees at
eight o'clock, and seen the snow fall four
teen inches deep and that same identical
thermometer go down to forty four degrees
under shelter, before 9 o'clock at night
Under favorable circumstances it SHOWS at
least once in every single month in the
year, in the little town of Mono. So I'M
certain is the climate in summer that a lady
who goes out visiting cannot 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 a
Fourth ofJuly procession it generally SHOWS
on them, and they do say that as general
thing when man calls for brandy teddy
there, the bar-keeper chops it off with a
Ratchet and wraps it up in paper, like
maple sugar. And it is further reported
that the old soakers haven't any teeth
wore them out eating gin cocktails and
brandy punches. l don't endorse that
statement-I simply give it for what it is