SCENERY. 85 
in the state. They are seventeen hundred feet above the level 
of the sea. 
§ 57. Mud-Volcanoes.—In the Colorado Desert, about lati- 
tude 33° 25’, and longitude 115° 45’, are some remarkable 
mud-voleanoes. 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 
stcam 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 general 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 springs, 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. 
