ROCK AVALANCHES 



1095 



More recent than the Ehn rockslide and nearer home 

 was the disaster which ground to atoms part of the town 

 of Frank, Alberta. Frank, an important coal minint; 

 center, is overshadowed by Turtle Mountain, a precipi- 

 tous series of cliffs arising some 3,000 feet above the 

 valley. Without warning, on April 29, IDO.'i, a huge rock 

 mass half a mile S(|uare and several hundred feet thick 

 broke away from the mountain and plunged into the 

 vallev beneath, breaking int(.) inmnneraljle fragments and 

 hurling itself uj) onto the opposite slopes to a height of 

 400 feet. Within a minute a square mile of pleasant 

 valley was co\ered with jagged rocks from 3 to ITiO 

 feet deep. Providentially the greater portion of the town 

 lay outside the course of the rock deluge ; nevertheless 

 seventy people were killed. One man, hearing the fall of 

 the niduntain. ran to his door in time to see the slide Hash 

 by, only a few feet in front of him. .\nothcr, hearing' the 

 noise, looked in time to see the fall of the mountain and 

 almost instantlv the spread of the material over the valley 

 like a viscous fluid. Yet some of the rocks constituting 

 the flow are forty feet square. Over two miles was 

 traversed by the flow, which constituted ■10,(I00,(I0() cubic 

 yards of rock. It is believed that coal mining in the 

 valley hastened the slide, nevertheless Turtle Mountain 

 undoubtedly possessed a weak base. As it was, only one 

 peak of the mountain slipped. Had the steep shoulder 

 which looks directly down upon Frank gone, too, the 

 entire connnunity would have been engulfed. The 

 Canadian Geological Survey investigated the phenome- 

 non and warned the people to move up the valley, away 

 from the mountain ; the second peak, too, might go at any 

 time. Little attention, however, was paid to the warn- 

 ing, so heedless is humanity, until winter before last, 

 when the fearful groaning and grinding in the mountain 

 told the inhabitants of the town in unmistakable term^ 

 that they stood in the pathway of inmiinent destruction ; 

 then the entire community hastily emigrated up the 

 valley beyond the possible grasp of their fearsome 

 neighbor. 



gushed forth. This arrow head is about 1,500 feet in 

 length and perhaps one-half as broad. It is due entirely 

 to the barrenness of tlie soil and the light color of the 

 growth w ithin its area as contrasted with the surrounding 

 dark green chapparal. To the Mormon immigrants, 

 liowever, as to the Spaniards who had preceded them. 



HUGE NATURAL ARROW 



FEW )nore singular natural phenomena can be 

 found anywhere in the country than the great 

 arrow head which mav be seen on the desert-like 

 slopes of the Coast Range in California. Strange, too. 

 that this arrow should point directly to water in a part of 

 the country where water is recognized as the most vital 

 of Nature's gifts. 



In 1851 Captain Hunt, leading a band of Alormon im- 

 migrants, descended the western slopes of Cajon Pass. 

 California, after a journey of 500 miles across the Great 

 American Desert, and beheld before him a smiling and 

 well-watered valley, such as had not greeted his tired 

 eyes and those of his companions since .he departure of 

 the caravan from the slopes at the base of the \\'asatch 

 Mountains, in Utah. On the mountain side near the 

 Cajon Pass the travelers beheld the perfect form of a 

 gigantic arrow pointing directly to a terrace at the base 

 of the mountain where the few Spanish inhabitants of 

 the valley told them great springs of healing waters 



IXDIAN ARROW UliAD 



Untf of the most singular natural features of the Pacific Coast of Cali- 

 fornia is a gigantic, barbed arrow head which, strangely enougli, 

 points directly to a group of springs with medicinal and healiiig 

 properties. 



and particul.irlv to the aboriginal Indians, such a matter- 

 of-fact e.Nplanation as this did not suffice. It was to 

 them the symbol placed upon the mountainside by the un- 

 seen hand of the Supreme Being to guide them to the 

 '^aling waters at the base of the slopes. 

 ., The hottest of the waters that rise from this groui) 

 of springs has a temperature of 202 degrees, and the dis- 

 charge from all the various associated springs, some hot 

 and some lukewarm, amounts to several thousand gallons 

 a minute. A resort has l)een built adjacent to some of 

 the more important of the springs and their water is used 

 in bathing pools and for medicinal purposes. Water 

 from other of the springs escapes to the stream flowing 

 from Waterman Canyon which is taken out at the edge of 

 the valley and used, as are other waters from these same 

 mountains, for irrigation of orange orchards in the lower 

 lands. The hottest spring of the group is called El 

 Penyugal. Another, and a cool spring, Fuento Fria, is 

 located about one-quarter of a mile north of the present 

 hotel. 



