Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1902-07-17

rises 500 feet above the plateau. 1t is
great reddish-brown truncated cone,
exceedingly difficult to climb. The
crater, viewed from the top. is
yawning abyss of dizzy depth and
savage grandeur. A few hundred feet
oelow the rim under cliff of roasted
rock little grove of cottonwood trees
fiourishese in this gruesome spot,
the roots clutching amid the ashv
rocks and the tops hundreds of feet
below the rim. In the caves of this
dead crater many bears have their
dens.
Like an Immense Bowl.
The crater is 700 yards across tho
top and 500 yards deep. 1t was a
warm time when this great caldron
was full to the brim with boiling
rock. A terrible potful it must have
been, an doubly fearful, says the
Baltimore Sun, when that stupendous
weight burst out the side of the pot
and poured and roared down the val
ley flood of fire. Think of a lake
OF lava so heavy that it simply tore
out mountain side 500 feet high and
500 feet thick at the bottom.
The break in the crater is nearly "
shape, 1000 feet across the top. and
over 500 feet from rcp to bottom. All
that great mass of solid rock, weigh
ing millions of tons, was knocked out
as unceremopiously as though a giant
had cleft it with axe.
1t was from this sort of spring that
the rivers of stone had their source
many centuries ago. First above the
soughing of the pines rose deep pent-
up rumblings, and the solid earth
rocked and shivered. Then there was
great explosion, just where that
still brown cone stands today. This
great wart was heaved up from the
level plateau, and vast cloud of
steam and ashes sprang far into the
sky.
Then the molten flood of rock rose
in the graet bowl and brimmed it, and
ran over in places and boiled and
seethed. And suddenly, with 2 report
louder than hundred cannon, the
wall of the crater broke, and resist
less deluge of fire rolled like an
avalanche down the valley, blowing "a
channel fifty feet deep in the bed
rock at it's outlet, moving down giant
pines as if they had been straws,
sweeping alone enormous boulders
like driftwood, and spreading death
and eternal desoiation for leagues
around.
How the Lava Cooled.
The process of cooling begins very
quickly and goes on rapidly. A shell
will begin to form within a fortnight
SO here is the phenomenon of river
running inside a stone conduit of it's
/ own making. The shell becomes hard
long before it is cool enough to walk
upon: and within the fiery food pours
along.
A great deal of gas and steam is
imprisoned in the molten flow. Some
times it only makes huge bubbles,
which remain frozen in the eternal
stone. Some of these bubbles, 10 feet
in diameter, are curious, arched
caves, in which whole party might
encamp. But if the volume of gas be
too great, terrific explosions occur;
and in places the top of the flow for
hundred acres Is rent into a mil
lion fragments, so sharp pointed that
no creature can cross them.
The chief river of stone from this
crater is fifty-seven miles long, and
its black, unmoving flood covers some
fo
unite with a smaller flow in the valley
of the San Jose. At the bend it
actually ran couple of miles up hill,
in it's reluctance to turn a corner.
Near the elbow in the stone river
the Pueblo Indians dwelt for unknown
ages in this part of New Mexico. A
few miles from Cebollita were some
small farm houses of the prehistoric
Pueblos in the pretty valley as it then
existed. The proof of this is that d
current of the stone river ran directly
through one of these houses. There
it stands to this day, that ancient
house long roofless, but with strong
walls still; and through gap in them
and over the floor lies the froze,,
black tide.
There are two islands in this
peculiar river, and as peculiar as it.
self. Instead or rising above the
flood they are below it-lonely parks
with black lava, which stands twenty
feet above the level. The largest of
these insular parks contains 10000
acres.
The flow of this stone river runs for
several miles beside the track of the
Atlantic and Pacific railway, just west
of McCarty, and comes to an abrup~
end in a pretty meadow there. The
small blush San Jose creek rises IN
cold spring, which pours forth from
cave in the lava. The creek ev1-
IDENTIFY belonged in the valley before
the lava came, and despite that fearful
invasion of fire it still holds it's OWL.
For miles it runs through the great
black river of stone, now in winding
channels, and again heard but unseen
in long caves under the lava.
There is also in this part of the
flow a dozen or more nearly circular
basins, some filed with water from
the brook, and a favorite breeding
place for wild ducks.
The widest and most interesting
part of this stone river is near its
head. Everywhere it keeps it's ola
waves and its very eddies, frozen into
rock. There are successive
'slumps" where the solid rock De-
fn