22 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



all of us being greatly interested, and more than willing to devote much 

 longer time and labor to a more complete examination of these ruins, should 

 another opportunity present itself when we were better prepared to do them 

 justice. 



A great many more most interesting things were seen by us in New Mex- 

 ico, but the limits of this paper have been reached, and an account of the 

 remainder must be postponed until another time, with the closing suggestion, 

 that had these industrious and ingenious natives not been disturbed and 

 driven out by the thriftless and avaricious Spaniards, who never improved 

 any country by their conquest of it, they would in all probability have built 

 up the ruling empire of North America, and thus at least have kept alive 

 the fire of civilization kindled by Montezuma — the culture god — in their 

 minds, until the day of his return, in the millennium. 



THE GREAT SPIRIT SPRING. 



BY PROF. G. E. PATRICK, STATE UNIVERSITY, LAWRENCE. 



The "Great Spirit" or "Waconda" spring, situated near Cawker City, 

 Mitchell county, Kansas, is a natural curiosity that has excited much inter- 

 est among both the savage and civilized inhabitants of the State. From 

 time immemorial, this spring has been held in devout reverence by the In- 

 dian tribes that but a few years since hunted over middle and western Kan- 

 sas; and since the advent of the white man, it has become widely known as 

 an object of wonder and speculation among lovers and students of nature. 



The spring is distant from Cawker City about two and one-half miles, in 

 a southeasterly direction; is just within the lower bottom of the Solomon 

 river, being perhaps 300 feet from the first terrace, and about sixty rods 

 from the present bed of the river. It flows, not after the manner of most 

 springs, from some hidden nook or cavern, but from the summit of a nearly 

 symmetrical mound, shaped like a low-statured sugar loaf — or, to be more 

 mathematical, like a truncated cone. This mound is forty-two feet high, 

 nearly as level on the top as a floor; and in the center of this small table- 

 land is found the spring itself, which is quite as remarkable as are its sur- 

 roundings. Instead of a gurgling rivulet, trickling away among the rocks, 

 the visitor sees before him a smooth, almost motionless body of water, more 

 than fifty feet across, and filling its basin to overflowing — or if not to actual 

 overflowing, so near it that its surface appears to be upon a level with the 

 top of the mound, and in imminent danger of flowing over at any and all 

 points. The only reason why such overflow does not occur is, that the rock 

 forming the mound is very porous, and afibrds innumerable minute outlets, 

 just equaling in combined capacity the subterranean inlet. 



