The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1907-10-19
= =
GREAT LAKE UNDER EARTH
q
REMARKABLE SHEET or WATER
in OREGON COUNTY, MISSOURI.
Two Streams Unite and Tunnel
Course Under Big Mountains-Hid.
den Lake Is Reservoir for Largest
Spring in the World.

Month after month papers and ma
gaines publish glowing accounts OF
the beauty and grandeur of the lakes
of Switzerland, the rivers of Germany
or the glaciers of Greenland. Tourists
Alps, ''gondOlated" in Venice or
climbed the Matterhorn, but how
many American tourists know any
thing of the wonders of their native
land outside the old schoolbook Won
ders Of Niagara, Yellowstone and Yo-
semitic?
In Oregon county, Missouri, and
Fulton county, Arkansas, are grouped
Grand gulf, Mammoth spring and
Spring river natural curiosities so
wonderful, so beautiful and furnish
ing so many openings for investors
that where 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-in spring beauty.
The Grand gulf is the GROWING
wonder of the group. Two shallow
streams about Qnefourth Of mile
distant from each other flowing in
the same direction over an elevated
plateau suddenly drop into canyons
500 feet deep.
Streams Tunnel Mountains.
These two canyons form a junction
half mile below, where they strike
mountain lying directly across their
path. This mountain has been tun-
neled by the action of the water and
the natural bridge thus formed is no
less curiosity and almost equal in
size to the famous natural bridge of
Virginia. After passing through this
mountain the united stream strikes
another mountain and tunnels it for
several hundred feet and then spreads
out into an immense underground
lake, the area of which has never
been ascertained. Many parties have
entered the tunnel, and picnics have
been held by torchl;ght on the mar
gin of the lake, but still it remains
a mystery. No light can exist long
over the bosom of the lake, and moth
ing 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
its $4,000 cubic feet of water minute.
The most surprising feature in con-
nection with this extraordinary ra-
tural 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 vol
ume OF water in Mammoth spring is
not increased.
Mammoth Spring Beautiful.
Mammoth spring covers eighteen
acres of ground, 200 feet deep. with
crystal water. Spawned by an i'm
mense steel bridge, navigated by
naphtha launches and flowing it's co.
900 cubic feet of water a minute over
dam of solid masonry ITO feet long
and % feet high, it presents an ad-
mirable picture.
It is too beautiful for an attempt
at description, and the spring alone
supplies water power equal to thou
sands of horse power. 1t seems to
hold it's own moreserene than the
pyramids and as Interchangeable as the
DEGREES of fate. Nothing affects it.
It's purity remains undimmed when
showers of spring transform mountain
streams into veritable sewers: cloud
bursts that drown wide valleys and
drouths that drive cattle to the dis
tant lowlands neither add to nor take
from its Constant, nevervarying 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 it's icy fet-
ters single wavelet on the placid
s~1,4~ ,;r,cr