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THE DEAD SEA OF CAL’.FO 2!:A.BY MAIlt;K TWAINMofco Lake* ob the Bsjid Sin of California-, is ono of her inoBt extraordmaBj cui’iOMi'ties. but hoin situated in a very-j-^ont-^f-tbe-way oorncr of the country, and away up amongI ttes ©tercal snows of tbe Si» rrus, it is little known and my,seldom visited. A.jninii.g lt;x-.beiucsnt Garricd hip lln-ro ou«*e,and I spout several months in its ue'ndy. It lies in a lift-“ lcs%^hii3ccms desert, 8,000 foot above the level of thetiU), and is guarded by mountains 2,000 feet higher, whoso summit aare hidden always in the clouds. Tins solemn, silent, ffilliessea—this lonely tenant of tho loneliest spot on eaith — is little graced with this picturesque, It is an unpretending expanse of grayish water, about a hundred miles, in circmfereuce, withtwo islands in its centre, mere upheavals of rent, and scorched *rd blistered lava, snowed over with gray banks and drift6 of punkostono and ashes, the winding sheet of t hedead volcano, whose vast crater Iho lake h: s seized upets i.lxT occupied.The lake is 200 feet deep, and itlt;? ribggish waiters fti*© sostRng with alkjtUi that if you only dip the most hopelesslysoiled garment into them once or twice, and wring it out, itwill bo found as clean as if it had been through your ablestwasher worn vnh bands. Whd© we camped tbu’3 our laundrywork was ©asVr VYe tied the week’© washing tv* torn of our bout, and stillt;*dacj^uart^rofainih*, an 1 t'leji b was eo*nple»«*,all to the wringing out. If we the water on our head*and gave them a rub or so, the white hither would pile up three inches high. This water is not good- for bruise 1 placesand abrasions of the skim We had a valuable dog. Ho had raw places an him. He had more raw places on himth an sound ones* He was. the rawest dog I aluiori ©yor^stlW.Ho jumped overboard one day lo get away from thlt;? fli©S.—But it was had judgment. ” In his condition it wi u'dLave been ,ptet as comfortable t© vtt. Up 'HO tb©fins. Tl« iilkitli water nipped him in all the raw places wwrulianeously, and he struck out ior the shore wiih considerable interest. He yelped,, and barked, rnl howled as hewent—and by th© time he got to the shore, there was no bark in him—for he had barked the bark all out of his inside, and tbe alkali water had cleaned the bark all off his outside,and he probably wished he had never embarked in any such enterprise. He ran round and round in a circle, and pawedthe earth and clawed the air, and threyr double somersaults Sometimes backwards and sometimes forwards, in the most frantic and extraordinary riumnor. He was rot a demonstrative dog as a general thing, but rather of a grave and seriousturn of mind, and I never saw him take so milch interest in anv thing before. He finally struck out over the mountains,at a gait which we estimated at about 250 miles an houi‘, andhe is going yafc. This was about five years ago. We lookfor what is left of him along here every day.A white man cannot drink tbe water of Mono Lake, for it_ A A * «is nearly pure lye. It is said tliat'the Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes, though. It is not improbable, for they^_______t* ~ tt* *__ rnr»!w x liars r ^verditional charge for this joIrer except to parties requiring an explanation of itn This jTke has received high qommenda-{ion from som-e of the ablest minds of the age. HoraceGreeley ramarlred to a friend of miue that if bo were everto make a joke like that,’ he would not desire to live anylonger.]' There are no fish in Mono Lake-*~no frogs, no snakes, nopollywogs—nothing, in fact, that goes to make life desirable.Millions of wild ducks and seagulls swim about the surface, but no living thing exists vneter the surface, except a white, feathery sort of a worm, one-half an inch long, which lookslike a bit of white* thread frayed out at the sides. % If you dipup a gallon of water, yon will get about fifteen thousand ofthese. TKey give the water a sort of grayish-white appearance. * Then there is a fly, which looks somlt; thing li fr ourhous#fly, Thesie settle on the beach to eat tho worms thatwash ashore—and any time you can sec there a belt of Hiesan indh deep and s!x feet wide, and this belt extends cleararound the Lake—-a belt of flies one ‘hundred miles long. Ifyou throw a stone among them, they swarm up so thick*thatthey look dense, like a cloud. You can hold them ur ?r water as long as you please—they don’t mind it—they are onlyproud of it.- When you let them go, they pop up to tke surface as dry as a Patent Office-* ©port, and walk off as unconcernedly as if they had been educated especially with a viewto affording instructive entertainment to man5in that particular way. Providence leaves nothing to go 4y chance. Allthings have their, uses and their proper place in Nature a economy. Tbe ducks and gulls eat the fiie:—the fie? eat the wortns—the Indiana eat the flies—the wild-cafo eat the Indians-—the while folks eat the wild-eats when the er-ps fail—and thus all things are lovely.Mono Lake is 150 miles in a straight line from the ocean,—and between it and the ocean are one or two ranges ofmountains—yet thousands of **ea gulls go there every seasonto lay’their eggs and rear their youug. One would as soon expect to find sea-gulls in Tennessee. And in this connec*^ fcioja Jet us1 observe another .instance of Natuv’s wisdom. The islands in the lake being merely huge masses of lava, coatedover with ashes and pumice-stone, utterly innocent of vegetation or anything that would burn; and sea-gulls' eg£S being enfely useless to anybody unless they foe cooked, -Nairn ehaslt;provided an unfailing spring of boiling water on thelargest island, and you can put your* eggs in there and in fourminutes you. can boil them as hard as any statement I havemade during the past fifteen years. Within ten feet of theboiling fpHng 19 It spring Of pure cold water, sweet ancls. wholesome. So, in that island yon get your board and washing flW of cbapgc—and if Nature had gpnc further and fura-isiiedra niee Aineriean hotel clerk who was crusty and lt;tis~obliging* anil {llt^t know anything iibout tllG time tables, 01til© yaili;qadiw\tcs^or—anyihing—and was proud of a—xwould not wish for a moie desirable boarding- house.-I£df a‘dozen little mountain brooks flow into Mono Lot*, but not a stream of any kind flows out of it. It nei her i Uasnor falls, apparently, and what it does with its surplus water.is a dark and bloody mystery All. the rivers oi Njvnda sink into tbe earth mysteriously after they hive run a hundredm^iRS or so—none of thfem flow to th© sea, as is th© fashionof rivers in all other lands. ^Tlicr© are ooly two sfiflsofis itl tlifi region VOU.ll(I {iboutno Lakn, and these are thu breakiug up of o ie winter andth© beginning of the next. More than one© I * have seen aperfectly blistering morning open 'Up Wlttl Tll© tll©rilfom©t©lvat nienty degrees at eight o’clock, and sSfen the snow fidifourteen inches deep and that same identical thermometer _g.»down to forty-fom4 degrees under shelter, before 9 o'clock atnight. Tender favorable circumstances it snoWs at least on,#oin every sftigl© rSdnih ih the year, in th© littlo town of Mo-no.’ So uncorkin is tlio climate’in slimmer that a lady whogoes out visiting can rot hope to be. prepared for ali lt;mer-sh© taW her Amundet1 om arm and her nnow-under the other. When they hive a, Fourth of Julyprocession rt‘generally snow^ on‘ihem, and they do say t ifitds h general thin^. wheii a man calls for a brandy toddy therethp bar-k©eper chops it off with a hatchet aud wraps it up m a; papei’, lika’maple sugkr. And it is further reported thatthe .old Boakers haven't any teeth—wore them out eating gmeocSfcaife and dy punches- I don’t endbrse that state-mfap-l simply give it for w€at St is worth—and it is worth—well, I Bhoiild-SSy, million’s, *to*»any man who can beiievoit vrith^ut fetoining But do endorse the snow onthe Fotirth of July—because I know that to be true. But-. jdo Wprm, .. ,
Newspaper Details
Elizabethtown Post
Elizabethtown, New York, US
Thu, Nov 25, 1869
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Dean T.
USA 30 Nov 2022
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