Show p sa DOWN DEEP boff hava bar name lol th oo go dawn to ur the water the most interesting thing I 1 hime hare seen keen in many a day said mr harvey geer of lamont lament colorado at the ebbitt a few nights ago according to the washington Van star was a prairie dog well did you yon ever see one it often that a chance occurs to explore the homes and haunts of these expeditious little inhabitants of the plains A few miles from my town a large force of men has been at work this summer eummer making a deep cut cot for a short railroad up into the mines A friend of mine la is in charge of the job and I 1 went out a week ago to see him and the work that had been done the thing that attracted my attention when I 1 got there was the fact that the cut was being made through an old alfalfa field and the roots fringed the sides of the cut and hung down fifteen to eighteen feet up at the surface of the ground were the stubbed green plants and reaching down deep into the earth were the tat fat businesslike business like roots getting their living far below where ordinary plants forage for subsistence but the most remarkable thing was the prairie dog wells wella that had bees dug into the cut went through a dog village and being a deep one some forty feet it went below the town the there re has always been a discussion about where the prairie dog gets his drink some say eay he goes eternally ory dry and does not know what it is to have an elegant thirst on him usually their towns are miles from any stream and in an arid country where there is no surface water at any time sufficient for the needs of an animal requiring drink the overland travelers back in the days of pioneering used to find the dog towns out on the prairie scores scares of miles from the streams there was no dew the air was dry as a bone the buffalo grass would be parched brown and there would be absolutely nothing to quench thirst 1 I remember a discussion begun thirty years ago in the Am american erlain naturalist by dr sternberg now surgeon general on the subject and he argued in favor of the well theory but there near lamont lament is ocular proof of the well theory the nest holes of the dogs were five or six feet deep but four or give holes went straight down as deep as the excavation had been made and evidently on into the water carrying sand gand beneath these tese holes appeared to be used by the whole colony commonly and were a little larger than the holes boles used tor for their homes |