Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-09-04

southern idaho, twenty miles south of The
little town of Shoshone and five miles
down the river below the great Shoshone
falls. The hole is about 700 feet ueep
and embraces GDo or $40 acres of bottom
surface.
For ages and ages this Devils Corral
has just been staying here, silent. CHASTITY
unknown. The prehistoric people, and, /
fancy, the Indians Of later date, passed
around it when fishing along the Snake
river. The moro daring white man looked
at il. gave it name, and made money out
of other while men by bringing them along
TO see it. One adventurous parsonage,
about half-white man, decided that down
in the depths of this great basin beside
the river there ought TO be gold. Accom-
panied by an Indian wife or two and half
a dozen children. he clamDered down, To-
Gated mine and began to work it. His
progress Is not worth recording.
Burt Perrine young man from Indiana.
seeking his fortune in the west, came out
to see the Great Shoshone fails and to See
this satanic corral He cldmbered down
the cliff to where the miner was. He was
not impressed by the mine. but he was i'm
pressed by the situation and general APP
pearance Of this rock-wailed basin. His
first thought was: The north wind can
never find its way down here. This place
ought to be transformed into a ranch or a
truck garden a fruit farm
Upon closer examination he found that
if the rocks were rolled out of the way,
and the miscellaneous bushes around were
grubbed up and burned, there would be
several hundred acres of very choice soil.
In the highest parts of this big basin he
discovered, connected together. two elo-
rious cold-water lakes. They We're forty
to fifty feet deep, and the two covered
about al acre of space. They were as
clear as crystal. as blue as the sky above
Will xz-hi md list mi in fnA
bottom, and very lively trout of the noun
tain sort darting through them. From
these lakes the entire basin could be easily
irrigated.
Big Undertaking.
Against the undertaking was the almost
incalculable amount of work necessary to
clear and level and irrigate the land; the
uncertainty as to what the winters that
brought snow six feet deep over all the
plains above might DO down here, and the
possible power of the north wind TO find
its way down after all. AS an additional
menace to the undertaking, there stood
giant lava walls, towering above from 800
to 500 feet, and slopine from an angie OF
40 degrees to straight perpendicular.
These lava walls, burnt, rent, torn ana
twisted into confusing shapelessness by
the fires of former ages, seemed now as
enduring as time.
friends about it. They told him he was
crazy. Without exception, they laughed at
the idea of putting this great "hole in the
ground to any useful purpose. They said
that even the solitary miner was half
witted or he wouldn't try to get gold dust
ont of there But he decided to put his
opinions to the test, and bought out the
claim Of the miner so as to have the hole
all 10 himself. He surveyed the place, and
found that 1T contained 400 acres that
could be worked or reclaimed. He horne
steaded a part of the land and made des-
ert entry on the balance.
Then he began the work of transforma-
ton. He managed to blaze out along the
rocky descent a trail down which pack
animals could travel, and it may be well
to remark Just here that the little mules
and the little burros used in this country
can almost climb a tree or walk into a
well. To do the work necessary down in
this corral. Mr.. Perrine had to have wag-
ons scrapers, .harrows, plows, powder and
dynamite and all sorts Of things to work
with that even pack animals couldn't car
~. These had to be let down with ropes
over a perpendicular lava wall of GOO feet.
They were so let down. Think for a few
little moments of the care end work that
this required.
Genuine Puzzle.
But to get a road up that 200 feet of mis-
cellaneous precipice YVES the real puzzle.
Perrine had done some surveying and
little railroad engineering back in Indiana,