Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-08-07
THE POOL OF DEATH.
A Spring That Exhales q Gas Which None
Can Breathe and Live.

A Spring That Exhales q Gas Which None
Can Breathe and Live.
"Talk about Death valley" said Gavin
McNab last night. II know a spot in this
state where no living thing can exist five
seconds, and the place is within thirty feet
of a travelled country road"
"Tell us about it," said the gentlemen
clustered around the speaker.
SWELL" said Mr.. McNab, II will, but if
1 did not know there was q superabundance
of proof concerning the story I am about to
relate to you, I would hesitate to tell it.
Along the foot of the Mendocine noun
tains, in the county by chat name, runs q
much Travelled road which leads from the
town of Hopland to Ukiah. The road is
on a bench or shelf above a valley created
by the Russian river, which, like nearly all
California streams, is constantly changing
its channel, and hence it is sometimes
within a hundred yards of the road at the
nearest point n again a half mile away.
When the annual verlows occuritspreads
over the whole valleyand is a mile or more
wide. l mention this in order that you
may understand the nature of the valley.
1t is a dry river bed, all sand and gravel,
with here and there a bunch of scrubby
willows.
LII CAOLup u GueSe SGuuUeu trees, at a
point about three miles from Hopland and
about thirty feet from the road l have men
toned, there bubbles a 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
it makes as it gushes up out of the gravelly
soil. 1t ounds more like boiling water
with occasional jets of steam escaping than
it does like the ordinary purling of q
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,f foxes, md the
like, and nearly always there will be a body
or W 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 unat-
t~ractive spot from a distance, more especi-
ally if there happens to be the carcass of a
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 a gas SO noxious and so deadly that
one Whit of it is sufficient to extinguish
life.
"The terrible character of the spring."
continued Mr.. McNab, lis well known to
all who reside in the neighborhood, and
ohSy uSA SOA4O uOl41U3C oVOIlCS COuCSEuluS
it.. One day the little six-year-old daugh-
ter of a 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 it's plumage, 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 to get a drink, when she dis
covered the spring and knelt beside it, dy-
ing in that position. The %strangest thing
about it is that, we'll known as is the dead
ly character of the spring, there is abso-
lutely no warning posted, no fence around
1T, nor protection against it Of any kind
other b Il few limbs of trees and bushes
thrown over the place by farmers to keep
their stock away from it, and the last time
I saw the place even the brush had been
scattered until the spring was uncovered.
A venturesome mar once held his breath
and nostrils and leaned over the spring to
hear the noise it made, which he described
as something terrible.
'The water is thought to be compare
lively wholesome, but nothing is known
positively about it, as it has never been
analysed. There can be no doubt, how
ever, that the spring is certain and instant
death to every living thing that approaches
it. "-Sa Francisco Chronicle.