Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-07-28
MONTEZUMA'S WELL.
A Crater of Great Width and Unfathomed
Depth.

Depth.
Beaver creek enters the Rio Verde
about a mile above the now-abandoned
fort It's canyon is by no means large
| one, though it has some fine points. A
long and rocky twelve miles up Beaver,
| past smiling little farms of to-day that
have usurped the very soil of fields
| whose tilling had been forgotten when
history was new, brings one to Won
der which is not 1.-The greatest of its
kind" but the only. There is, believe,
nothing else like it in the world.
1t has been named-by the class which
has pitted the southwest with misno-
observation-disclosures Well.
At this point, Beaver creek has eaten
away the side of rounded hill of stone
| which rises more than one hundred feet
above it, and now washes the foot of a
sheer cliff of striking picturesqueness
] can half imagine the feelings of the
first white man who ever climbed that
hill Its outer show gives no greater
promise of interest than do ten thou
! sand other elevations in the southwest:
but IS one reaches fiat shoulder of the
hill, one gets first glimpse of dark
rift in the ilOor-lille rock. and in Il mo-
ment more stands upon the brink OF an
absolutely new experience. There is
vast. sheer well. apparently as circular
as that peculiar rock could be broken by
design. with sides of cliffs. and with
gloomy. mysterious lake al the bottom.
The diameter of this basin approx
mates two hundred yards: and its depth
from brink of cliff to surface of water
is some eighty feet. One does not real
ize the distance across until powerful
thrower tries to hurl a pebble to the
farther wall. believe that no one has
succeeded in throwing past the middle
of the lake. At first sight one invaria-
bly, takes this remarla bic cavity to be
the crater of an extinct volcano. like
that in the Zuni plains already referred
to: but study of the unburned lime
stone makes one give up that theory.
The well is Il huge sink" of the hori-
zontal strata in one particular under
mined spot. the looSened circle of rock
dropping forever from sight into a ter
rible subterranean abyss, which was
doubtless followed out by the action of
springs far down in the limerick. As
to the depth of that gruesome, black
lake. there is not yet knowledge / am
assured that sounding-line has been
sent down three hundred and eighty
feet. in vain attempt to find bottom:
and that is easily credible. Toss large
stone into that midnight mirror and
for an hour the bubbles will struggle
shivering up from its unknown depths.
The waters do not lave the foot of
a perpendicular cliff all around the
sides of that fantastic wall. That I'M
fathomed slump is in the center, and
is separated from the visible walls by
narrow, submerged rim. One can
wade out few feet in knee-deep water
If one have the courage in that
creepy" place-and then, suddenly as
walking from parapet, step off into
the bottomless. Between this water
covered rim and the foot of the cliff is,
in most places. a wild tumble of enor-
nous square blocks. fallen successfully
from the precipiccs and lodged here
before they could tumble into the low
er depths.-C. T. Lummis, in st. Nicho-
las