The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1883-08-10

Of some subterraneAn way; huge flights OF
steps front the sun, constructed OF massive
cubes OF hard stone fvo or six feetin diameter,
the! otter edge worn Of BY the Attrition Of
ages;s remains Of reservoirs and aqueduots re-
Hppear, built without mortar, but the stones so
closely j0inted as to hold water Where those
stones came from and how they were got into
place--these are are among the hard nuts for
scientific men to crack. a45
a COLOSSAL STATUE.
Here, upon this magnificent base, at once
temple and pedestal. stood, 900 years ago.
the mighty bronze statue to Mercury the god
OF commerce, seventy feet high, and second
only i'll its dimensions to the Colossus Of
Rhodes Many Of the works Of antiquity al
lude to- this statue, and Pliuy the Elder wrote
of it:
The statue Of Mercury. executed by zenodorus.
IN city In the Auyernes In Gaul, under the pres.
dencv OF Vibius.Avtus, surpasses, in the grandeur
9t Its Dimensions. all gigantic statues made in our
Plny was buried beneath the great eruption
OF Ve,uvius-if.m my memory serves me correct
70 Of our era; and as the statue
seems to have been widely known then, it was
under the Roman republic, before Julius Ce ar
made his visit 10 this country. The writer
added that the statue was 80 excellent that Nero
wanted it removed to Rome as statue Of him
self, but finally compromised by fetching the
artist (aprarently Greedy to Rome and having
1t was wogshiped. During all the holy days
of every year the people Of this part of France
assembled here, with great effort climbed
up to the mountain summit, and
there participated in tho rites of q
fantastic religion. When Christianity came
war between tile advocates Of tho two
desperately, and those dark centuries come
down to us in an unbroken chronicle of per-
secuticn, blood and misery. At last tho church
was triumphant, and it celebrated the victory
ny destroying every relic of the old religion it
could lay hand on. The statue of Mercury
was torn from its height and melted up; only
museum o. 6lermont, where they
may now be seen These were
found only recently 1t was not
known that the statue of Zenodorus was located
on the Puy do Dome, but a terrific blast of
lightning struck the peak few years ago, tore
light the RUNS Of the temple l have spoken
OF. with other great blocks bearing inscriptions
to Mercury aud locating the bronz3 colossus.
Tho Puy de Dome is also celebrated as the
place whore Pascal % native of this vilage)
discovered the laws Of atmospheric pressure.
The view from the Dome is most inspiring.
North and south, along tho spurs of the Ceven-
mes, stretches phalanx Of twenty extinct VOL
canoes, whose concave craters, now filled with
grass and flowers, are distinctly visible. East
ward spreads vast valley, opulent with vege-
tation and starred with white villages. BE-
tween the occasional woods the whole
landscape is divided into Checkers Of deep
lake of golden lnpin here and there, and on its
shores long, fiery splash OF peoples, as if the
bronze Mercury had come 10 life and drawn a
vermiion brush across the grass. And all the
scene, visited in detail, is full of pretty brooks
ind mineral springs aud i,.mbllng cascades
nj nj low IL i, 81,
crystal aud basalt know no p.easantcr place
in the world to spend the early months of
summer.
Ccrmont (of which Rozat is suburb) ac-
quirea de,esiable fame by being the start
ing -rout of the first crusaders l visited the
cathedral this morning and stood on tho plat
form whore, i'll lO0S, Pope Urban II. stood
and haranged his great assembly of car finals
and bishops and proclaimed the first crusade
for the recovery of Jerusalem. Aud just out
side ia q rock by the side of the high wall
where Peter the Hermit waved his cross and
shouted his frantic appeals to go on that wild
fury later, when billions of dollars had been
spout and millions Of lives laid down on that
quixotlc erraud, 1000 or 5000 unpro-
tectcd children sartsd to go to Jeru-
salem and ';rercue the holy sepulchre"
from tho MohammcIans, all by themselves. It
was supposed that God would guard them,
and give them victory over ''the intidels;" but
they suffered fearfully, were beset by starva-
ton, and hundreds were sold Us slaves OH the
African coast Few ever returned There is,
naturally enough, good deal of miracle
working ali about here. There is.tlle statue Of a
black Virg in down at the cathedral that works
miracles any day. When it feels we'll, without
regard to race, color OF n. Of g. 1t is visited
by great crowds of the faithful every week.
Over in al adjoining village is an image of the
Virgin that was whitfield out by the
Prophet jeremiah in his leisure moments,
that can work any kind of Il miracle with neat
ness and dispatch
The SPRINGS OF RoZ.T.
Still, there is q dreadful amount Of incre-
dulity poisoning the minds OF even the French
peasants, and when people are afflicted with
rca! bodily infrmities they skip the Virgin and
go for mineral spring The mineral springs
(. Rozat have been famous for 5000 years
These waters are good for all throat diseases,
incipient consumption, skin diseases and rheu-
mat'sm; but their specially is govt If the
dear reader has govt, let him come to Rozat
R'zat is death on govt. Enough govt has
been left here during the last century
to make cripples of the whole army of Peter
All the peasants of tho Auverene are noticeably
strong and agile in their legs. This is prob
ably one Of the chief reasons why it occurred
to them to walk to Jerusalem, before anybody
else thought of such tremendous picnic. The
bathing establishment, in the center Of a large
garden, is one of the finest in the world, con-
tanning 140 baths, large swimming bath, o
gy mnasium, two bath rooms OF carbonic acid,
and equipments for inhalation, aspiration, pull
verization aud gargling. In this park is
magnificent jet of water, the Eugene spring,
which boils out OF the ea,t tn at q temperature
of 95 deg, and with force equal to that. of
the sprudel at Carlsbad. It produces
3l6.O6o gallons in twonty-four hours.
A running stream is turned from this
hot geyser directly through each bath room.
There are three smaller springs in the park,
one of them cold fenced off like those Of Sara
togs, and TWO of them as agreeable to the taste
and somewhat resembling the Congress spring
there. These waters are arsenical, alkaline,
chalybeate and chlorinated, and are somewhat
acidulus and effervescent They are used for
both baths and drinking purposes.
little ways from my hotel is "Grotte du
Chien," or cave of the dog, as remarkable as
that near Naples, which is always so full of
on entering 1t, and visitors must lift up their
small children to keep them above tho poison
GUS exhalation. There is also spring of
water called the ''petrifying spring." that ap-
parently turns to stone everything it touches,
covering thickiy with lime anything subject to
cats, dogs, horses, ETC., are grouped around
the yard, quite cemeterical in their aspect.
THE AMERICANS HERE
Some hundreds of Americans have been bore
during the last year. Miss Minnie Hauk has
just left, after touing up her larynx and OPT
CLOTHS with sundry hitrations of this healing
water. Some score are here now, including
John G. Moore, president of the Mutual Union,
and family; Edward Luck, retired banker,
and family; Miss Brewer and the families
Colla Ney, Lynn, Kelly and Parkman mostly
from New York. The natives here
speak of America and New York interchange
ably rs synonymous; aud am not certain
whether they consider New York tho capital of
America, or America the capital of New York.
Boston and Chicago they have never heard Of
Everybody here takes bath, eithor for health
or for fun, every morning before coffee and