The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-07-19
THE POOL OF DEATH.
A Spring That Exhales q Gas Which None
Can Breathe and Live.

Van DTSathS anu
TALK about Death valley" said Gavin
McNab last night Il know a spot in this
state where no living thing can exist five
seconds, and the place is within thirty feet
of a Travelled couatry road"
''rell us about it," said the gentlemen
clustered around the speaker.
well" said Mr.. McNab, 81 will, but if
! | did not know there was superabundance
Of proof concerning the story am about TO
relate to you, l would hesitate 20 tell it,
Along the foot of the Mendocine noun
tains, in the county by that name, runs a
much Travelled road which leads from the
town of Hopland to Ukiah. The road ia
on bench or shelf above valley created
by the Russian river, which, like nearly all
California streams, is constantly changing
it's channel, and hence it is sometimes
, within hundred yards of the road at the
nearest point and again half mile away.
When the annual overfows occur tspreade
over the whole valley and is mile or more
wide l mention this in order that you
may understand the nature of the valley.
1t is dry river bed, all sand and gravel,
with here and there a bunch Of scrubby
willows.
an a clump OF these stunted trees, at a
point about three miles from Hopland and
about thirty feet from the road have men
toned, there bubbles spring of the clearest
sparkling water you ever saw. The only
thing peculiarly noticeable about the spring
from a distance is the loud Kissing sound
1t makes as it gushes up out of the grsvelly
soil 1t sounds more like boiling water
with occasional jets of steam escaping than
it does like the ordinary purling of a
stream. Approach it and you will be
startled to see lying around the spring the
skeletons of hundreds of birds, scores of
small animals such as coons, foxes, and the
like, and nearly always there viii be body
or two of birds or animals in a more or less
advanced stage of decomposition near the
edge of the spring. If man is wise be will
be content with an inspection of the unat-
tractive spoS from a distance, more especi-
ally if there happens to be the carcass of q
steer lying beside it with the nose an inch
or two from the water. The fact is, gentle
men, that there rises constantly from the
spring gas so noxious and SO deadly that
one Whit OF it is sufficient to eItinguish
life.
''The terrible character Of the spring."
continued Mr.. McNab, SIS well known to
all who reside in the neighborhood, and
they tell some horrible stories concerning
IL. One day the little six-year-old daugh-
ter of farmer living near the spring wan
dered away from home. Its absence was
not noticed for an hour or two, and then
the parents went in search OF their child.
They found her lying dead beside the
spring, with a little dead bird clutched in
her hand. She had evidently seen the bird
lying beside the spring, and, being attract
ed by the bright colors of its plumsge, had
tried to pick it up, and in so doing had in
hailed the gas rising from the water and
died with the bird.
Another time" said the narrator OF
this strange story, "a sQuaw wandered
down by the spring. She probably started
TO the river 10 get a drink, when she dis
covered the spring and knelt beside it, oy-
ing in that position. The strangest thing
about it is that, well known as is the dead
" character of the spring. there Is abso-
lutely no warning posted. no fence around
il, nor protection sgSipst il of any kind
other than few limbs 81 trees and bushes
thrown over the place by farmers 70 keep
their stock away from II, and tbs last time
| saw the place even the brush had been
scattered Until the sprilz was uncovered