The effect is strikingly beautiful
at all times: in summer, when it is surrounded with verdure, or in
autumn, when it contrasts its bright immaculate surface with the
withered herbage. Seen from a distant eminence, it then shines like
a mirror, set in the brown landscape. Around this plain are clustered
numerous springs of various sizes and temperatures. One of them, of
scalding heat, boils furiously and incessantly, rising to the height of
two or three feet. In another place, there is an aperture in the earth,
from which rushes a column of steam that forms a perpetual cloud. The
ground for some distance around sounds hollow, and startles the solitary
trapper, as he hears the tramp of his horse giving the sound of a
muffled drum. He pictures to himself a mysterious gulf below, a place of
hidden fires, and gazes round him with awe and uneasiness.
The most noted curiosity, however, of this singular region, is the Beer
Spring, of which trappers give wonderful accounts. They are said to turn
aside from their route through the country to drink of its waters, with
as much eagerness as the Arab seeks some famous well of the desert.
Captain Bonneville describes it as having the taste of beer. His men
drank it with avidity, and in copious draughts. It did not appear to him
to possess any medicinal properties, or to produce any peculiar effects.
The Indians, however, refuse to taste it, and endeavor to persuade the
white men from doing so.
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