The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-11-04

lieve. Footprints on the sands of time,
II you will, though no man knoweth of
the time, even through tradition. There
they are. and quite plainly, indicating
that a human being walked over that
lava after the eruption had been Stilled
and its frey product was yet in a, plaS-
tic state at that one particular spot.
After that great eruption had subsidized,
some curious and adventureSome mortal
strolled forth to witness the results and
learn Of the changed contour Of hill and
dale he had once, mayhap, known as he
joined IN the chase The footprints give
us to know that the fellow was exceed
ingly astonished; aye, frightened. After
the first couple of steps, he paused to
consider would he turn back, and while
momentarily pausing to decide he sank
deeper-it was time to move. He moved.
It was his 'move''-better that he had
let the other fellow had it, for the game
of life was plainly at stake. and he
lost. The footprints from that on dis
close in their zigzag course and ire
mendous leaps that he was treading on
something hot, something like a man
would act in these days when he had
unwittingly stumbled into a nest of
tacks that his spouse or the hired
girl had neglected to sweep up after the
carpet had been put down.
We follow the trail, and further on
find where, in his agony, he stopped-he
was dead strickland. he surrendered to
the fiery and fatal ordeal. There is the
yet legible print Of his writhipg body as
he laid down never more to rise.
This brief pen picture is not engen-
dered through any highly wrought and
vivid Imagination; it is but the simple
results of a mind and observation that
is free and untrammeled in setting forth
some facts of prehistoric age-facts
that have for us in this age more than
passing interest
This being made eminently clear to
our satisfaction, we move on with a
sort of drama-like movement and ex-
preston, feeling that now we are for
the nonce in close touch with an age
and race gone before. All around US
are 'pot-holes'' worn in the lava They
range in depth from a foot to twelve
feet in few instances, and in diameter
from six inches to two feet. How
caused? Action of the water-yes. Pre-
historic age?-you quizzicaliy ask. Well
partly past and partly present as I'll
explain to you. My explanations are
nothing if not simple. For countless ages
and right down through all the years to
last spring, the mighty Snake river rose
up, and in its watery way makes havoc
with lots of things contiguous to it, 1t
gets to cavorting and booming over
this lava strata at such times, and
stones are caught up and whirled about
in its mighty embrace, and so soon as
finding a haven from the onslaught of
the mad waters they cease to travel
more and to be dashed into a gyrating
that after a time wears away
a round and smooth hole applicable in
size TO the cutting power. After a time
the stone so imprisoned is worn away.
Then what? The cutting and wearing
process still goes on, as the next rise
will wash in helper" and SO it goes.
Here and there we find several stones
in one of these holes. and it's all quite
plain how the process as explained goes
on through all the years, making for
the tourist scenes of added beauty and
wonderment.
$4,000 HORSE POWER.
Now we cautiously lower ourselves
down the dark, forbidding sides of the
lava rocks that we may drink in UNI
stinted the beauties and weirdly grand
effect of the falls in all their majesty
Right there is $4,000 horse power If
there is anything these Idaho Falls peo-
PIE are watching, it is that 125, 600 horse
mistake. Why need they so
ieaiously guard it? | want to unequiv-
ocally and unreservedly say that no one
will have the temerity to pick it up in
their arms and "yamose" with it to
any great distance. I was strongly i'm
bued with this belief the first five min
utes I sat there. and figured out mans !
utter helplessness as compared with ma
lures mighty, and I might say appaH-
ing forms, as there made strikingly
manifest.
BEYOND DESCRIPTION.
Describe it? I can't-not until there
are coined new words to give expression