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Show CURIOSITIES OF NEVADA. Nevada is a land of curious natural phenomena. Her rivers have no visible outlet to the ocean. She has no lakes of any magnitude. She has vast stretches of alkali desert, however, that give every indication of having been the beds or bottoms of either seas or lakes. Down in Lincoln county there is a spring of ice-cold water that bubbles up over a rock and disappears on the other side, and no one has been able to find where the water goes. At another point in the same county is a large spring about twenty feet square, that is apparently only some eighteen or twenty inches deep, with a sandy bottom. The sand can be plainly seen, but on looking closer it is perceived that this sand is in a perpetual state of unrest No bottom has ever been found to this spring. It is said that a teamster, on reaching the spring one day, deceived by its apparent shallowness, concluded to soak one of his wagon-wheels to cure the looseness of its tire. He therefore took it off and rolled it into, the, as he supposed, shallow water. He never laid his eyes on that wagon-wheel again. Our mountains are full of caves and caverns, many of which have been explored to a great distance. Speaking of caves, a rodero, or gathering of cattle, was held last spring over in Huntington Valley. During its progress quite a number of cattle were missed, and for a time unavailing search was made for them. At last they were traced to the mouth of a natural tunnel or cave in the mountain. The herders entered the cave, and following it for a long distance, at last found the cattle. It appears that they had probably entered the cave, which was very narrow, in search of water. It had finally narrowed so that they could proceed no further. Neither could they turn around to get out. They had been missed some days, and, if they had not been found, must inevitably have perished in a short time. As it was, they were extricated from their predicament with difficulty by the borders squeezing past and getting in front of them, and scaring them into a retrograde movement by flapping their hats into the faces of the stupid bovines. |