The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1924-10-30

crater. Then after the slight erup-
lions subsidized there would be boil
ing up and sputtering and throwing
the bubbles out upon the rim until
1t built up a cone some four hundred
fet high. all more or less loose like a
dyke of cinders, yet more or less
welded together by successive over
| flows. At long periods there would
be blowing of fine cinder that would
be shot into the air and would fall
about the outside of the chimney,
building up great sloping cone of
perhaps a mile or so across the
base and as high as the chimney it
self
Then came a tremendous eruption
a flow of lava so hot and liquid, and
so heavy that as it boiled up in the
chimney, it's great weight cracked
the cone from center to circumfer-
ence and began pushing back the
mass on the weakest side. Masses
of it four hundred feet high were
moved back without upsetting. In
comparison with the hot lava, the
mass was light, and floJ,ted as soon
as it was surrounded. With the ter
rife pressure of the hot lava coming
out of the five hundred foot opening
heretofore spoken of as the spring,
the mass was constantly pushed back
away from the rest of the chimney,
and kept breaking up into smaller
sections and fragments, but all the
time moving away from the base of
the mountains and out into the
plain, just as water turned loose at
a break in a canal finds it way into
the lowest parts Of the plain. The
lava in it's flow could not soak into
the landscape and disappear like
water, nor could the floating mass
disappear because of its lightness in
contact with the liquid lava. 1t
fioated like strawstacks on a sea OF
hot molasses. AS they broke asund-
er, the fragments tumbled, took new
form or stood upright as chance
might determine. The flow started
north and in a half mile had curved
to the east where 1t flowed on and on
ever widening in it's scope, ever. af-
fording more and more room for the |
oncoming flood. Biologists say it
moved slowly, but with heat that
was intense and slow to cool. There
were great whirls and eddies, twist
ing, bubbling, upheaving, collapsing
of bubbles and SCATTERING of the
cooling surface as the mass moved
on after the thin top sheet had
hardened The fragments were
baptised in the liquid mass and
again became liquid, rolling, seeth
ing, engaging in stygian struggles
out ever moving onward out upon
he sea of lava covering thousands
If acres The mass of floating Gin
Ter, hereafter spoken of as float,
travelled onward with the tide but
lot at the speed of the tide. AS it
ouched bottom it hung and fingered
Until the liquid hardened around it
,r until the surge broke it from its
mornings and pushed it on in the
general melee.
AS the visitor rides into the north
vest entrance today he crosses this
liver of lava but he does not under
tand it, 1t looks as if the river
lad run through section of
mountain peaks made of cinder and |
lad filled up. about them until only s
he tips and pinnacles remained !
bove the lava line. He thinks "a /
title more of the food and it would {
ave covered them all" But as he !
tudies it all he finds these submerg- /
u p0dhS are IlOdI, GU LII IhCii |
Quincy until the liquid lava froze /
bout them. The cinder float is of '
ed, black and brown, and it travel S
d down the stream in masses of all
imensions from a hen coop to the
ize of a great ocean steamer a
thousand feet long, a hundred feet
Ugh and a hundred foot beam.
ONE of these giants have different
ecks, some have pinnacles like
lasts or church steeples towering
bove the mass, and some look as ii
great barge or ship had had an i'm
tense warehouse fall on it, the two
Gliding together in a mass of ruins
lat fioated down the river Styx un
i it struck bar or shoal or fioated
ut to sea, rolling, tipping; derelict
n the high seas adding one more
sature to the play being staged by
Is satanic majesty in the birth OF
world
Whatever one reads as to what
light have happened or what prob
bly, happened in the creation and
nishing of the world to make 1t
lady for the use Of man, the visit
Is to this region can climb the Gin
or buttes and look out over this
rand phenomena and see the river
lava just as 1t froze up, with the
set travelling in majestic flocks and
occasions to the coronation of the
ng. At his leisure he can go among
llks or climb up on the decks and g
udy the power of the surging flood