The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-06-22
A VOLCANIC REGION.
Forty Square Miles Pierced ny Boiling
Springs and Spouting Geysers.


1t is the strangest and most remarlSa-
BILE volcanic region anywhere on the
face of the known earth. The locality
is in the upper part of Lower, or Baja,
California, and is, therefore, in Mexican
territory. 1t is only seventy miles, how
ever, from Yuma, Ariz., and about sixty
miles south of the international bound
airy line
The volcanic area is forty miles square
in extent, and every square rod of that
territory is pierced by either boiling
spring or spouting geyser, shooting up
ward showers of mud and hot water
and stones, or else it is dotted by trun-
Gated cones-small volcanoes-ofv varying
sizes with craters on their tops, in which
molten lava and mud seethe and boil.
rising and falling with force of the fierce
heat of the internal fires. Sometimes
the steaming mass settles with gurgling
sounds until it is almost lost to sight in
the apparently fathomless crater; and
again it boils upward and rolls over the
edges of the crater, to pour down its
sides in steaming streams of mud that
force the onlooker to make hasty fight.
All the way over from the Colorado.
twenty miles to the east our ears had
been assailed by constant rumbling and
noises resembling thunder, excepting
that the sounds seemed to come from
the ground, and, as at times the earth
! quivered perceptibly, l attributed these
disturbances to earthquakes. We were
! greatly annoyed, too, by an intensely
| pungent Odor of sulphur that at times
was almost sutfocating. All this came
| from the land Of mud and fire, as |
afterward discovered. Not knowing
this at the time, however, 1 was hardly
! prepared for the sight that burst on my
eyes the evening we reached the west
end of Lake Pasqualitas. As far as we
could see to the west south and north,
lay a dense fog closely hugging the
ground, and from out of which pro-
| ceeded all those noises we had heard
and attributed to an earthquake.
Amid the rumbling we could now also
distinguish sounds exactly like those of
thousand pots all boiling at once 1t
was the seething and bubbling of boil
ing water, from which rose the masses
of steam that, like fog, covered the
ground. Close to our feet, not more
than thirty yards distant, we saw a gey-
SER the first, lazily overflowing the
slightly elevated edge of a sticky-look. !
ing, black liquid. AS we stood there, !
watching the wonderful panorama that
slowly unfolded as a passing gust of
wind lifted the fog, we became conscious
that the ground under our feet was be-
coming painfully hot, even through our
thick-soled shoes, and we had to shift |
our position. also noticed springy |
''fell' of the ground as we walked, Just |
like a marsh, and it echoed our foot
steps with a hollow, metallic-lil1e |
sound, as though we were walking on a !
copper cylinder. / remember, too, that |
a curious sort of horror came over me as
/ speculated on our probable fate, were |
the crust of earth suddenly to collapse
beneath our weight
AS we retreated before the blast of |
sulphurous fumes that the wind drove
against us the fog continued to lift, un-
til finally we beheld the volcanic area |
in its entirety. Everywhere were the |
conical projections of the volcanoes. |
Everything was in active operation, and |
the volcanoes belched forth vapor and |
showers of thin mud or poured plastic
streams down their sides, while the
numerous springs and geysers were
shooting out columns of boiling water,
some clear and others thick and muddy,
while here and there an occasional hard |
worker would spout up sand and small
stones that fell with Gathering sounds
on the peculiarly vibratory surface.
We counted upward of $500 volcanoes
in this region. All of them have the
small crater-like opening at the apex,
out of which poured steam, smoke, mud
and flame, and sometimes small clouds
of ashes. The draft that comes from
these openings when the volcanoes are
in eruption is so hot that it will ignite
cloth and even small pieces of wood,
and a pot of water suspended over the
edge on an iron hook will speedily boil,
a fact we took advantage of in cooking
our coffee. In some of these volcanoes
the escaping mud has been formed into
the most curious pipes that run down
their outer edge, and through which
the steam whistles and Kisses exactly
like an engine blowing off" steam.
About one-half of the volcanoes are
from ten TO forty feet wide at the base
and run from seven TO fifteen feet in
width, and all of measureless depth.
Nearly all these big craters are filled
with mud or water, boiling hot, and not
a few are filled with molten lava. 1t is
from these latter, we found, that the
fumes of sulphurous gases came. These
volcanoes are active for the greater part
of the time, and great care has to be
exercised lest the careless sightseer be
overwhelmed by a mass of molten lava
or a stream of scalding mud or water
that shoots from these craters without
warning. One of the party, lineman
named Weeks, was nearly scalded one
night for his carelessness in sleeping at
the base of one of the volcanoes
A beautiful sight can be witnessed at
night in the vicinity of some of the
larger craters which contain molten
lava. The reflection from the fire
within illumines the whole sky over