The Republican., 1892-05-06
A VOLCANIC REGION.
forty Square Miles Pierced by Boiling
Springs and Spouting Geysers.

Die vOlcaEic 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 soutI. of the international bound
iry line.
The volcanic area is forty miles square
N 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--of 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 a hasty fight.
All the way over from the Colorado,
| twenty miles to the east. our ears had
been assailed by constant rumbing and
noises resembling thunder, excepting
| that the sounds seemed to come from
| the ground, and, rs at times the earth
| quivercd perceptibly, I attributed these
disturbances to earthquakes. We were
greatly annoyed, too, by an intensely
pungent odor of sulphur that at times
| al, e,,fF 4i,,.r All thiS
from the land of mud and fire, as
afterward discovered. Not knowing
this at the time, however, 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 sur feet, not more
than thirty yards distant, we saw gey-
ser, the first, lazily overtiowing the
slightly elevated edge of a sticky-look-
ing, black liquid. AS we stood there,
| watching the wonderful panorama that
slowly unfolded as 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 marsh, and it echoed our foot
steps with 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
l 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 it's entirety. Everywhere were the
conical projections of the volcanoes.
Everything was in active operation, 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,
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 land 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
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 bt
overwhelmed by mass of molten lava
or stream of scalding mud or water
that shoots from these craters without
J warning. One of the party, linemar
named Weeks, was nearly scalded on,
night for his carelessness in sleeping a
the base of one of the volcanoes
beautiful sight can be witnessed a
night in the vicinity of some of tn,
! larger craters which contain molter
lava. The reflection from the fire
] within illumines the whole sky over
head. and as the reflection falls upor
n the clouds of vapor slowly rising, thu
e result is brilliant play of prismati
. colors.
| Almost in tho center of the vOlca N Il