SCENERY. 85 



in the state. They are seventeen hundred feet above the levd 

 of the sea. >v 



§ 57. 3fud- Volcanoes. — In the Colorado Desert, about lati- 

 tude 33° 25', and longitude 115° 45', are some remarkable 

 mud-volcanoes. They are in that part of the desert below the 

 level of the sea; and if the water of the ocean were turned in 

 upon that low land, they would be lost to sight. As it is now, 

 they are very rarely visited, because they are in a region so 

 desolate, that an excursion to them is accompanied by serious 

 hardships. The volcanoes cover a space a quarter of a mile 

 long and an eighth of a mile wide ; this area is of soft mud, 

 through which hot water and steam are constantly escaping. 

 The noise can be heard at a distance of ten miles, and the 

 steam is visible at a greater distance. The quantity of water 

 thrown up is small ; that of the steam great. The vapor rises 

 steadily in some places, with a hissing noise ; in other places 

 it bursts out with the noise and action of an explosion, throw- 

 ing the mud a hundred feet into the air, with a loud report. 



There are places where the mud is in constant movement? 

 and rises in great bubbles, and bursts as if boiling with intense 

 heat ; while in other places regular cones, apparently hardened 

 into permanency, and with shapes varying from low hillocks 

 to sharp points, have been formed. There are boiling springs 

 which throw up their water twenty or thirty feet ; and there 

 are large basins, one hundred feet across, and five or six feet 

 below the geiieral surface, in which a bluish paste is continu- 

 ally boiling. Some of the springs are surrounded by incrusta- 

 tions and arborescent concretions of carbonate of lime; others 

 are encircled by deposits of sulphur. The air blown from the 

 salses is fetid with sulphur. It is very dangerous to approach 

 the springs and cauldrons, because the whole earth is soft in 

 the vicinity of them, and frequently the crust is broken and 

 thrown up with great force, to establish new spiings, steam- 

 vents, and mud-cauldrons ; and the boiling slime or water 

 thrown up on these occasions would suffice to kill a man in a 

 few seconds. ^ 



