478 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



was so considerable that it seems probable that the floods of early 

 spring, when the snows are melting under the hot sun of this region, 

 must be powerful enough to wash everything down to the cone of 

 debris at the mouth of the gulch." Mr. Arnold Hague, on the occa- 

 sion of his visit, was more successful in obtaining evidence of the 

 presence of carbonic-dioxide gas. He writes: " The day I went up 

 the ravine I was able in two places to extinguish a long brown paper 

 taper. The day I was there it was very calm, and where I made the 

 test the water was trickling down a narrow gorge shut in by shelving 

 rocks above." 



It was at noon on the 22d of July in the summer of 1897 that 

 we made camp near the month of Cache Creek, about three miles 

 southeast of the military post and mail station of Soda Butte. In 

 company with Dr. Francis P. King I at once started up the creek, 

 keeping the left bank, that we might not miss the gulch, which joins 

 the valley of Cache Creek from the southern side. We had a toil- 

 some climb through timber and over steep embankments, cut by the 

 creek in a loose conglomerate, and after going about a mile and a 

 half we noticed that some of these banks were stained with whitish 

 and yellow deposits of alum and sulphur, indicating that we were 

 nearing the old hot-spring district. Soon a caved-in cone of traver- 

 tine was seen, with crystalline calcite and sulphur in the cavities, and 

 the bed of the creek was more or less completely whitened by these 

 deposits, while here and there could be seen along the banks oozing 

 " paint-pots " of calcareous mud, in one case inky black, with de- 

 posits of varicolored salts about its rim, and a steady ebullition of 

 gas bubbles rising from the bottom. In other cases these pools were 

 crystal clear, and always cold. The vegetation, which below had 

 been dense close to the creek's bank, here became more scanty, espe- 

 cially on the southern side, where the bare rock was exposed and 

 seen to be a volcanic breccia, much decomposed and stained with sol- 

 fataric deposits. A mound of coarse debris seen just above on this 

 side indicated the presence of a lateral ravine, which from its situa- 

 tion and character we decided was probably the gulch sought for. A 

 strong odor of sulphureted hydrogen had been perceptible for some 

 time, and when we entered the gully the fumes became oppressive, 

 causing a heavy burning sensation in the throat and lungs. The 

 ravine proved to be as described, a V-shaped trench cut in the vol- 

 canic rock, about fifty feet in depth, with very steep bare whitish 

 slopes, narrowing to a stony rill bed that ascended steeply back into 

 the mountain side. 



Climbing through this trough, a frightfully weird and dismal 

 place, utterly without life, and occupied by only a tiny streamlet and 

 an appalling odor, we at length discovered some brown furry masses 



