The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-09-09
BETTER THAN THE SURF.
Peculiar and Surprising Delights OF
Dead Sea Bathing.

Peculiar and Surprising Delights of
Dead Sea Bathing.
1t may seem preposterous to talk of
the finest sea-bathing on earth a thou
sand miles from the ocean; but truth
is no less truth because it appears
absurd. The sea-bathing in Great Salt
Lake infinitely surpasses anything of
the kind on either the Atlantic or
Pacific coast The water contains
many times more salt and much more
soda, sulphur, magnesia, chlorine,
bromine and potassium than any ocean
water on the globe. 1t is powerful in
medicinal virtues, curing or benefting
many forms of rheumatism, rheuma-
tic govt, dyspepsia, nervous disorders
and cutaneous diseases; and it acts
like magic on the hair of those unfor-
Inmates whose tendencies are to bald
headedness. 1t is a prompt and po-
tent tonic and invigorant of body and
mind, and then there is no end of fun
in getting acquainted with its pecu-
Harities. A first bath in it is always
as good as a circus, the bather being
his or her own amusing trick mule.
The specific gravity is but a trifle less
than that of the Holy Land Dead Sea,
the actual figures with distilled water
as unity being, for the ocean, 1927; for
Salt Lake, 1.1O7, and for the Dead Sea,
1.116 The human body will not and
~ ~ -, Va, IL
in it where it is fifty feet deep, and
your body will stick up out of it like
fishing cork from the shoulders up
ward. You can sit down in it perfect
ly secure where it is fathoms deep.
Men lie on top OF it with their arms
crossed under their heads and smoke
their cigars. It's buyoancy is indie
scribabl and unimaginable. Any one
can float upon it at the first trial; there
is nothing to do but lie down gently
upon it-and float But swimming is
an entirely different matter. The mo-
ment you begin to paddle your own
canoe" lively and-to the lookers-on-
mirth-provoking exercises ensue.
When you stick your hands under to
make a stroke, your feet decline to stay
anywhere but on top; and when, after
an exciting tussle with your refrac-
tory pedal eXtremitieS, you again get
them beneath the surface, your hands
fly out with the spalsh and Splutter Of
a half dozen ffutter wheels. II, on
account of your brains being heavier
than your heels, you chance to turn
a Somersault and your head goes under,
your heels will pop up like pair of
frisky didapper ducks. You cannot
keep more than one end of yourself
under water at once, but soon learn
how to wrestle with it's novelties, and
then it becomes "a thing of beauty and
a joy for any summer day. The water
is delight to the skin, every sensa-
ton is exhilarating, and one cannot
help feeling in it like gilded cork
adrift in a jewel-rimmed bowl of
champagne punch. In the sense of
luxurious ease with which it envelopes
the bather it is unrivaled on earth.
The only approximation to it Mosquito
Indian coast. The water does not
freeze until the thermometTic mercury
tumbleS down to eighteen degrees
above zero, or fourteen degrees below
the ordinary freezing point. 1t is as
clear as crystal, with bottom or snow
white sand, and small objects can be
distinctly seen at depth of twenty
feet. There is not a fish or any other
living thing in all the twenty-five
hundred or three thousand square. miles
of beautiful and mysterious waters, eX-
cept the yearly increasing swarms of
summer bathers. Not a shark or a
stingaree to scare the timid swimmer
or f1oater, not a crab or a crawfish to
nip the toe of the nervous wader, not
a minnow or a frog, a tadpole or
polIyWog-nothing that lives, moves,
swims, crawls or wiggles. 1t is the
ideal sea-bathlng place of the world
Exchange.