The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-11
GREAT LANE
 UNDER EARTH
HEMARExABLE sHEEVr OF WATER
 IN OREGON COUNTY, MO.
Two Streams Unite and Tunnel Course Under Big Mountains-- Hidden Lake is Reservoir for Larg-
 est Spring In the World.

The Southwest.
 Month after month papers and mag l azines publish glowing accounts of the beauty and grandeur of the lakes of Switzerland. the rivers of Germany or the glaciers of Greenland. Tourists and globe trotters have stood on the l Alps, 'gonfoiated" in Venice or climb ed the Mhtterhorn. but how many American tourists know anything of the wonders of their native land out side the old schoolbook wonders of l Niagara, Yellowstone and Yosemite7 In Oregon county, Missouri. and Fulton county. Arkansas. are grouped l Grand gulf. Mammoth spring and Spring river. natural curiosities so wonderful, so beautiful and furnishing so many openings for investors that were they hid in the forests of Africa or within the shadow of the mountain peaks of Southern Europe artists would haunt them with their sketch books and poets would rave of the soul -inspiring beauty.
 The Grand gulf Is the crowning won der of the group. Two shallow streams 1 about one-fourth of a mile distant from each other flowing in the same direction over an elevated plateau suddenly drop into canyons 800 feet deep.
 Streams Tunnel sEountaips.
 These two canyons form a junction half a mile below. where they strike a mountain lying directly across their ! path. This mountain has been tunnel I led, by the action of the water and tho 1 natural bridge thus formed Is no less a curiosity and almost equal in size to the famous natural bridge of vir- ginia. After passing through this mountain the united stream strikes another mountain and tunnels 1t for several hundred feet and then spreads outinto an immense underground lake, the area of which has never been as- certained Many parties have entered the tunnel and pienics have been held by torchlight on the margin of the lake. but still 1t remains mystery. No light can exist long over the bosom of the lake. and nothing can be heard save the far-away rumble of the waters as they rush on.
 This underground lake Is the reser- voir which supplies Mammoth spring. the largest spring in the world, with it's 60.o00 cubic feet nf water min- ute. The most surprising feature in connection with this extraordinary natural curiosity is the fact that when these great canyons are filled with water even to the arch of the natural bridge hundreds of feet deep the volume of water in Mammoth spring Is not increased.
 cVFAAk UEWuNAAuh-
 Mammoth spring covers eighteen acres of ground 200 feet deep with crystal water. Spanned by an immense steel bridge, navigated by naphta laSnches and flowing its 60,000 cubic feet of water a minute over a dam of solid masonry ITO feet long and twen- ty-eieht feet high, it presents an ad- mirable picture.
 It is too beautiful for an attempt at description and the spring alone sup plies water power equal to thousands of horse power. It seems to hold it's own more serene than the pyramids and as unchangesble as the decrees of fate. Nothing affects it. Its purity remains undimmed when showers of spring transform mountain streams into veritable sewers; cloudbursts [ that drown wide valleys and drouths that drive cattle to the distant low lands neither add to nor take from It's consant. never-varvinR flow. and the keenest blast of old winter that ever scaled the Ozarks and rushed as conqueror down these sunny slopes has never yet been able to capture and imprison in its icy fetters a single wavelet on the placid bosom of this mighty spring.