James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 4

by Edwin James; Stephen H. Long; Thomas Say

During the winter the steam which rises from the springs is condensed to a white vapour, which is often visible at a great distance.

The water of the springs is limpid and colourless, and destitute, when cooled, of either taste or smell, {152} and, according to the analysis of Dr. Mitchell, purer than ordinary spring water. It however deposits, as it comes in contact with the air, a copious sediment, which has gradually accumulated until it has become an independent rock formation of considerable extent. This rock appears to consist of flint, lime, and a little oxide of iron. It is often of a porous or vascular texture, and the amygdaloidal cavities are sometimes empty and sometimes contain very delicate stalactites. Hæmatitic iron ore occurs disseminated in every part. Also extensive caverns, sometimes filled with a bright red metallic oxide. Dr. Wilson, who has been some time resident at the springs, informed us, that the continued use of the water occasions salivation, from which it has been commonly inferred that mercury exists in the water in solution.[40]

The time of our visit to the springs being one of very unusual drought, the quantity of water was somewhat less and the temperature higher than ordinary. The time required to boil eggs, as much as they usually are for the table, was fifteen minutes. In the same time a cup of coffee was made by immersing our kettle in one of the springs.[41]

A number of baths have been made, by hollowing out excavations in the rock, to which the hot water is constantly flowing. By cutting off or increasing the supply the temperature can be regulated at pleasure; over some of these are built small log cabins, and in the neighbourhood are twenty or thirty huts, occupied at some seasons of the year by persons who resort hither for the benefit of the waters.

Three miles north-east from the hot springs is a large fountain of water, of the ordinary temperature, forming the source of the small stream already mentioned as flowing down from that direction. It rises from the summit of a little knoll, six or eight feet in diameter, and divides into two streams, one of which flows towards the east, the other towards the west. Both, however, unite at the base of the knoll, and {153} the brook flows thence south-west, between two petrosiliceous hills, to its confluence with another from the north-west, to form the hot spring creek. The quantity of water discharged by this spring can scarcely be less than from eighty to one hundred gallons per minute. Immediately on the south rises a large hill, and the elevation of the spring itself, above the level of the highest of the thermal springs, is thought to be not less than one hundred and fifty feet. The water is transparent, but has a perceptible metallic taste, and deposits upon the stones over which it flows a copious rust-like sediment. The spring is known in the neighbouring settlements as the "poison spring," a name which we were told it had received from the following circumstance, said to have taken place many years since. A hunter who had been pursuing a bear, and was much exhausted with heat and fatigue, arrived at this spring in the middle of the day, and finding the water cool, and not unpleasant to the taste, drank freely of it, but immediately afterwards sickened and died. His death was occasioned, probably, not by any deleterious quality in the water, but by the disease commonly induced by drinking too largely of cold water when the body is heated. The neighbouring inhabitants, however, imputed the hunter's death to some supposed poisonous property in the spring. Not long afterwards a discontented invalid, residing at the hot springs, came to a resolution of putting a period to his own life. This he concluded to bring about by drinking the water of the poison spring. He accordingly repaired to it, and after drinking as much as he could, filled his bottle, and returned home. Instead of dying, as he had expected, he found himself greatly benefited by his potation. Notwithstanding this discovery of the sanative quality of the water the spring still retained its former name. It is however used without apprehension, and is much resorted to by people who visit the warm springs.

{154} About two miles to the north-east of this spring, a little to the left of the road leading to the settlement of Derdonai, is the principal quarry from which the Washita oilstones are procured. It is near the summit of a high and steep hill of the petrosiliceous rock already mentioned. The oilstones are found in the perpendicular seams or fissures of the rock, from which they are detached with little difficulty, having, as they are dug from the quarry, nearly the requisite shape and size. They are then carried by hand, or thrown to the foot of the precipice, whence there is an easy transportation of ten or twelve miles to the Washita. By this river they descend to New Orleans, and some have been carried thence to New York, where they are known as the Missouri oilstones. These stones are said not to be inferior in quality to the oilstones from Turkey.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the hot springs we observed a number of interesting plants. The American holly (ilex opaca) is a conspicuous and beautiful tree in the narrow vallies within the mountains. The leaves of another species of ilex (I. cassine), the celebrated cassine naupon frequent about the springs, are there used as a substitute for tea. The angelica tree (aralia spinosa, Ph.) is common along the banks of the creek, rising to the height of twelve to fifteen feet, and bending beneath its heavy clusters of purple fruit. The pteris atropurpurea, asplenium melanoraulon, A. ebeneum, and other filices are found adhering to the rocks. In the open pine woods the germandia pectinata, considered as a variety of G. pedicularia, is one of the most conspicuous objects.

The sources of the Washita are in a high and broken part of the Ozark mountains, in north latitude 34° 15´, and between 93° and 94° west longitude, and sixty or an hundred miles south-west of the settlement of Cadron on the Arkansa. From the same mountainous district descend towards the north-east the Petit Jean and Le Fevre, tributaries to the Arkansa; on {155} the north-west the upper branches of the Poteau; on the south-west the Kiamesha; and on the south-east the Mountain, Cossetot, Rolling Forks, and other streams, discharging into Little river of Red river.[42] The principal source of the Washita is said to be very near that of the Fourche Le Fevre, and to descend towards the west from the same hill, out of which flow the upper branches of the Le Fevre towards the east. These particulars are, however, of little importance, except as serving to illustrate the character of that portion of the country. The whole of that region is strictly mountainous, and its numerous streams are rapid and circuitous, winding their way among abrupt and craggy hills, so thinly covered with pine and post oak, that the sober gray of the sandstone is often the prevailing colour of the landscape. The hills, at the sources of the Poteau and the Kiamesha, abound in clay-slate, and a slaty petrosilex destitute of organic remains.[43] It is remarked by hunters, that the most remote and elevated sources of all the rivers of this region are joined in or near extensive woodless plains. As far as this is the case, it would seem to prove that the existing inequalities of the surface have been produced almost entirely by the currents of water wearing down and removing extensive portions of the horizontally stratified rocks. In districts where secondary rocks only are found, as in the country of the Ohio, there appears little difficulty in attributing this origin to all the hills; and even in the mountainous district under consideration, as the most recent rocks, and those of horizontal stratification, occupy the highest portions of the hills, we may perhaps be allowed to suppose they formerly covered a much greater extent of country than at present, overlaying those strata of more ancient deposition, which now appear upon the declivities of the mountains. It cannot escape {156} the remark of any person who shall visit the range of country, which we call the Ozark mountains, that the direction of the ridges, (particularly of those where sandstone is the prevailing rock,) conforms to the course of the principal streams.

None of the tributaries to the Washita, above the hot springs, have hitherto been explored. The Little Missouri and the Fourche-au-Cadeau, enter it in succession from the west, in the course of a considerable bend which it makes to the south, after receiving the waters of Hot Spring creek.[44] These two streams run mostly in a mountainous country, though some fertile lands and some settlements occur on each. On the Little Missouri, Hunter and Dunbar found the maclura, a tree confined to fertile soils. The first considerable stream entering the Washita from the north is the Saline, rising in three principal branches, twenty or thirty miles north-west of the hot springs. The road from Derdonai to the springs crosses these streams near their sources, in an extremely rugged and mountainous region. The Saline, like the Washita itself in this part, and the other tributaries already enumerated, is liable to great and sudden floods, and also to great depression in seasons of drought. Originating in a mountainous tract, and in the continuation of the range so profusely supplied with springs in the country about the sources of White river, we might expect that the Washita would be fed by numerous and unfailing fountains. It appears, however, to derive the greater part of its supplies from the water of rains, and consequently to rise and fall according to the time of year and the state of the weather. Where Major Long crossed the Washita, on the 31st December 1817, six miles south-west of the hot springs, the river was one hundred and fifty yards wide, about four feet deep, and extremely rapid.