10 THE SALTON SEA. 



of this character is to be found well out in the Delta, near Volcano Lake; here, on a saline plain, 

 a few miles in extent, innumerable small mud cones, solfataras, and boiling pools of mud and water 

 emit steam, smoke, and sulphurous gases, accompanied by a dull ruml^ling sound. 



"According to the traditions of the Cocopah Indians, a member of the tribe accused of sorcery, 

 or other serious crime, was sent back to his evil master by the simple process of dropping him into 

 a pool of boiling mud — an obvious entrance to his abode below." ' 



SALT. 



The accumulation of salt in the lowest part of the Desert was well known to the Ca- 

 huilla Indians, who resorted to it for salt for an unknown period. Being a little off the trail 

 or road then traveled from Yuma to the settlements in California, it was not often visited 

 or seen by the early explorers, who, after the long journey of 90 miles without water, 

 pressed forward without delay to the shades and springs of potable water on the seaward 

 slope of the mountains at Warner's Ranch. 



Emory, 1848, mentions the salt lake as three-quarters of a mile long and a half a mile 

 wide, and that the water had receded to a foot in depth. The salt-bed was not conspic- 

 uous in 1853, at the time of Williamson's survey. Its precise position was not ascertained. 

 It was said that it was sometimes flooded with water, which was supposed to have reached 

 it from the overflow of the Colorado, through the channel of New River.^ Evidently 

 this occasional submergence and desiccation must have caused a great difference of ap- 

 pearance at different times, the depression when dry being sheeted with salt, and when 

 flooded appearing as a shallow lake of briny water. (Plate 1 c.) 



This bed of salt, when not flooded, was extensively exploited by the New Liverpool 

 Salt Company. Shipments were made from the Salt on Station on the railway for many 

 years, until the last overflow, which for a time has destroyed the industry. 



In 1892 the lake was described as a salt marsh connected by a branch railway with 

 the main track of the Southern Pacific road. At the end of this track, some 15,000 feet 

 west of the railway, a well was bored by the Company to a depth of 300 feet. The top 

 material largely consisted of black mud resting on a crust of salt, a mixture of the chloride 

 of sodium and chloride of magnesium, 7 inches thick. On passing through this crust the 

 drill dropped through 22 feet of a black ooze containing water over 50 per cent, sodium 

 and magnesium salts, fine sand, iron oxide, and clay. It rested on hard clay, through 

 which the drill passed for the remaining distance, 277 feet, varied only by two or three 

 streaks of cement.' 



The inflow of water from the Colorado River in 1891 is described as follows: 



"In the month of June 1891, a steady flow of water entered the depression (of the salt lake) 

 from the southeast and continued to the northwest uninterruptedly until an area 30 miles long and 

 averaging 10 miles in width was covered to a depth of 6 feet, measured at the end of the Salton 

 Salt Works' branch track. When first examined the water showed a density of 70° Beaume, which 

 gradually increased to 25° Beaume." 



This influx of salt water gave rise to the idea that the water of the Gulf had penetrated 

 through some underground channel, but no such channel could be found. It was fancied 

 that the soft, briny ooze might extend under the crust beyond the marsh even to the Gulf, 

 and so obtain the supply of salt water enriched by passing into and through the ooze. 

 The water, however, entered the basin through the New and the Alamo River channels 

 which led from the lower Delta region overflowed by the unusually severe Colorado River 

 flood, exactly as occurred again in 1905 and 1906. 



' The Delta of the Rio Colorado, Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc, p. 10, 1907, 



' Report Gcol. Rec. California, p. 245. 



• Report State Mineralogist of California, xi, p. 388. 



