There are no spouting geysers here, only bubbling springs, but springs of beauty and interest. Here lies one, its waters a creamy white, and yonder another whose waters are deeply tinged with sulphur, while those of its neighbor are as black as the contents of that bottle the undaunted Luther flung at the head of his Satanic Majesty on that memorable day.
The waters of these springs boil over and mingle as they flow away. Steam jets hiss and sputter continually. Of the many strange springs, pools and caverns, the Witch’s Caldron is perhaps the most remarkable. A very pit of Acheron, this huge cavern in the solid rock, seventy feet in diameter, is filled to an unknown depth with a thick inky fluid, that boils and surges incessantly. The waters of these springs, rich in sulphur, iron, lime and magnesia are said to rival in medicinal qualities those of all the famous German Spas.
The geysers are due to both chemical and volcanic action; to water percolating down through the fissures of the rocks until it comes in contact with the heated mass of hot lava; and to water percolating through the mineral deposits.
Suffice it to say that you have not seen California until you have seen the Napa Valley, and taken the trail to Mount St. Helena and the geyser fields.
The very air of this delightful country is rife with bear stories. Stories in which the bear quite as often as the hunter comes off victor.
A cowboy, newly arrived in California, went out on a bear hunt. He went alone. He wanted to kill a grizzly.
He soon found his bear and lassoed him, but Bruin, contrary to his usual custom of showing fight, took a header down a cañon, horse and rider in full pursuit.
Upon nearing the foot of the ravine the bear fell down. The horse fell down and the man tumbled down on top of the grizzly which so frightened him that when the three untangled themselves he set off up the cañon, and the man let him go. Glad, glad to the heart that he was gone.
Assyria had her winged bull, Lucerne has her lion, and California has her grizzly.
The grizzly stands for California, and only awaits some future Thorwaldsen to perpetuate him on the walls of his own rock-ribbed cañon.