The Forrest City times., 1891-08-14
THE SPRINGS OF DEATH.
THAT KILL INSTANTLY WITH
 DEATHLY GAS.
An Appalling Phenomenon Lately Dis- covered-The Famous Death Valley Completely Outdone-Tcrribles stor- tes Of Victims.

The people of Central California are worked up to pitch of wild excited ment over a phenomenon that seems to batfie all explanation. Recently near the banks of mountain stream that runs at the foot of Mendocina mount aims and which is reached from the town of Hapland by much travelled road running to Ukiah has suddenly appeared a series of geysers, the breath of which is death to every living and human thing that inhales its odors.
 The springs as they might be called gushed from the earth near the side of the road and suddenly rendered it i'm passable. A little girl who was pass ing by dropped dead when she came within range of the odors. Hundreds of birds and other animals lay dead in profusion in the immediate vicinity. When man picked up the lifeless body of the girl he also fell dead, and it was then that the character of the springs was dis covered. The only thing peculiarly noticeable about the spring from dis tance is the loud hissing sound it makes as it gushes out of the gEavelly soil. Ii sounds more like boiling water with occasional jets of steam escaping than 1t 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 will be body or two of birds or animals in a more or less advanced stage of decomposition near the edge of the spring. If a man is wise he will be content with an inspection of the unattractive spot from distance, more especially if there happens to be the carcass of steer lying by the side of 1t with the nose an inch or two from the water. There rises constantly from the spring gas so noxious and so deadly that one whitf of it is suffi- cient to extinguish life.
 The terrible character of the spring is now well known to all who reside in the neighborhood and they tell some horrible stories concerning it. The other day the little 6-year-old daugh- ter of a farmer living near the spring wandered away from home. It's ab- sence 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 ht- tie dead bird elutched in her hand. She had evidently seen the bird lying beside the spring and, being attracted by the bright colors ot its plumage, had tried to pick it up and in so doing had 1 inhaled the gas rising from the water and died with the bird.
 The following day squaw. who was supposed to be recovering from spree wandered down by one of the springs. She probably started to the river to get a drink. when she discovered the spring and knelt beside it, dying in that posi-. tion. The strangest thing about it is that, well known as is the deadly char 1 acter of the spring, there is yet abso- lutely no warning posted, no fence around it nor protection against 1t oi man held his breath and nostrils and leaned over the spring to hear the noise 1 it made, which he described as some thing terrible. The water is thought to be comparatively wholesome, but nothing is known positively about it. | There can be no doubt, however, that the spring is certain and instant death to every living thing-insect. animal and human-that approaches it.
 1 The place is visited daily by hundreds of people daily who come a-foot and in carriages They always remain ut | respectful distance, though. Some rude stones with unreadab ble hieroglyphics are in close proximity, and it is though, ! that an ancient burying ground is the cause of the gas.