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Show 230 TEAVELS AND ADVENTUEES IN THE FAE WEST. were not far from its source. Several of us turned from the road, and at a short distance,we found its head waters. It was a large spring, the water bubbled up as if gas were escaping, acacias in full bloom, almost entirely surrounded it-its was forty-five feet in diameter; we approached through an opening, and found it to contain the clearest and purest water I ever tasted; the bottom, which consisted of white sand, did not seem to be more than two feet from the surface. Parley Pratt prepared himself for a bathe, while I was considering whether I should go in, I heard Mr. Pratt calling out that he could not sink, the water was so bouyant. Hardly believing it possible that a man could not sink in fresh water, I undressed and jumped in. What were my delight and astonishment, to find all my efforts to sink were futile. I raised my body out of the water, and suddenly lowered myself, but I bounced upwards as if I had struck a springing-board. I walked about in the water up to my arm-pits, just the same as if I had been walking on dry land. The water, instead of being two feet deep, was over fifteen, the depth of the longest tent pole we had with us. It is positively impossible for a man to sink over his head in i t ; the sand on its banks was fine and white. The temperature of the water was 78°, the atmosphere 85°. I can form no idea as to the cause of this great phenomenon ; Col. Fremont made observations on the spot in 1845, and marked its existence on his map as Las Vegas ; but he has since told me he did not know of its bouyant qualities, as he did not bathe in it. In the absence of any other name, I have called it the Buoyant Spring. |