Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/521

Rh It is but a short distance from the island to the eastern shore, where Fremont camped and made the sketch which accompanies his narrative. This is a favorite camping spot for the Indians while engaged in fishing. Upon a projecting point near here there is a large cluster of very perfect tufa domes. They are among the finest about the lake. Several of them stand out from the others and exhibit finely their manner of growth. Starting from a point upon the rocks, the mushroom-like form spreads out until eight or ten feet in diameter and is then completed by a perfect hemispherical upper surface.

Long before we reached the northern end of the lake our attention was attracted by a long line of sharply pointed crags and islands, extending out more than a mile into the lake. The most of these can be reached only by water, so securing a boat from an Indian, we pulled across the three miles of water intervening.

This group of tufa domes and crags is by far the most interesting of any about the lake. Exceedingly picturesque is the effect as one rows among them, gliding over the quiet waters, from whose clear depths rise these fantastic forms. Some are low and rounded, their mammillary or botryoidal surfaces made up of an aggregation of domes. Others are more angular, rising sharply from the water's edge to a height of 300 feet. Beautiful beaches of clean sand stretch between those nearer the shore, sand marked most regularly by the waves of the lake at different stages, as it slowly recedes through the summer months. Upon a warm summer's day when the lake glistens in the sunlight, the caves in the tufa offer most inviting retreats, and the clean gently shelving beaches and comfortably tempered water are irresistible. One enjoys a bath in the mineral waters, but must be careful not to stay in them too long, for they are so strongly impregnated with alkalies that the skin is soon affected.

During the high-water stages of the lake these picturesque towers grew up beneath its surface from numerous warm springs carrying lime in solution. Springs still issue at various places, and the tufa can be observed in process of formation. It is soft and spongy, crushing under one's feet as one walks over the surface, but slightly above the summer level of the lake.

These rocks, as well as those at the southern end of the lake, are the resort of thousands of sea birds, many of which nest here. Pelicans, sea gulls, terns, geese, ducks, etc., abound. The pelican rookeries are large and particularly interesting, with the great uncouth birds swimming about in large numbers and the downy young waddling around the nests. The cavities and nooks in the tufa offer especially convenient nesting places for many of the birds. Then, too, they are seldom molested in this remote place.

Another interesting feature about the life of these rocks is the