Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/152



144 JASON LEE

Some miles before we came into [ ] began to observe

volcanic appearances and soon discovered what I was satis- fied was lava. Saw what [is] called here white clay but I think it is soft chalk.

There seems to be a large bed of it very white but could form no idea of the quantity.

Wednes. July 9, 1834. Did not move camp was employed most of the day in repairing pack-saddles &c. A few yards from our camp is a curious spring called the Soda Spring. There are several places where it boils up within a few rods and though large quantities are thrown up it does not run off upon the surface but finds its way to the river underground where you can see it bubbling up in various places. The boil- ing in one place resembles very much the rapid boiling of water in a large chaldron the agitation being fully as great.

The water is evidently impregnated with gas it has and acid taste is rather pleasant and resembles very much the soda made from powders. There is another half a mile distant still more curious and astonishing. It [is] so warm that the ther- mometer stands at 90 in it. From an aperture in the rock or incrustation formed by the precipitation of particles from the water a large quantity is thrown several feet below into the River. It alternately spurts for a few seconds with consider- able noise and flows more gently for the same length of time. A few feet distant is a hole of an inch in diameter where the atmosphere strongly impregnated with sulphur issues in a manner that strongly resembles respiration and with such force as to be heard several rods and is quite warm. A man on whom I can depend who visited the spring before I did said when the hole was stopped there was a cracking under- neath resembling the report of a gun. The pressure was so great that I think I did not succeed in entirely preventing the escape of the air though I put a wet tuft of grass upon it and forced it in with my foot, but observed while the grass was closely pressed into the hole that the waters spurted with more