Page:Recollections of My Boyhood.djvu/27

 I don't remember seeing Fremont and his party at any other place than this soda spring.

We probably remained at this camp a day or two. Some of the women improved the opportunity offered by plenty of hot water here at the springs to wash a few things. While at this camp, some of our party visited the river, and found near the bank of the stream, a spouting soda spring. Like all the geysers, it threw up water convulsively. This spring would heave up about every three or four minutes. The mouth of this spring was at the top of a rim-like formation raised up about eight inches from the common level. This rim was composed of deposit from the water. The mouth was nearly a foot across, and nearly or quite round. There were puffs of steam issuing from the mouth. Also eight or ten feet from the mouth there was a hole in the ground four or five inches across, and whenever the spring went into convulsions and commncedcommenced [sic] throwing up water, gusts of hot steam and spray would issue from this hole with a noise like that from the escape pipe of a boiler. This hole evidently connected with the spring. The boys seemed to regard it as of more interest than the spring. Some tried to keep it from puffing by closing it with sods and with grass, but whenever the spasm came the caulking would be thrown out. One young man had a wool hat which he placed over the hole, and held there with his hands and knees planted firmly on the brim. This I suppose was generally regarded as a "corker," but when the puff came, the hat crown stretched for a moment and then burst at the top. This spring was called the Steamboat Spring; it puffed like a steamboat.

As we returned from this spring to our camp, we passed by a rock or some compact substance, standing up six or seven feet above the ground, of funnel shape, three feet across or more, and nearly the same at top and bottom. I think it was as hollow as a gun, and I saw there was a hole in one side. This was the "Bellowing Rock," for we were told that at one time it bellowed like a bull. How long since it had bellowed I did not learn, but I visited this, to me, inspiring rock, twice, while at our soda spring camp, and stood a long time near it, listening and thinking it might conclude to bellow again. I remember very little else about this part of the country, but