Show FREAKS OF NATURE A pittston pa banker with interests in ogden sends hii local representatives an editorial clipping from a paper published in his city and ho asks the question what is there to ill I 1 doubt the truth of it to which we icely your doubts arc well founded editorial is inspired by tha dispatches sent out from salt lake aad ia as follow b ONE OF NATURES FREAKS among the large projects which E H Harri maii has in hand to shorten the line of anc southern pacific railroad is ons known as the lucin cutoff cut off which runs across tho northwest end of wonderful great salt lake the corn of this one piece of roadbed is only a few miles long would shorten by sixty miles the run from alt lake to sun francisco but it seems to be nn open question whether mr han annin will ever be able to complete it some time ago he had it so fay advanced that by means of great piles laid across the waters of the lake a track was in readiness for a trial iain of the locomotive when the engine had gone a half mile irom shore the track suddenly sank the engine pitched forward into tho lake and I 1 the fireman was drowned scientists have since been investigating the lakes bottom at this point and they have arrived at some surprising conclusions in their experiments six 40 foot steel piles have been driven down one above the other and the entire feet disappeared as if sucked into a bottomless pit ono hundred carloads of stone were then dropped into the hole and ten minutes later could not be located by the deepest sounding eliat could be taken other efforts to reach bottom so as to a support for the railroad track have fared similarly and now after the expenditure of more than on one little spot bigger than a cellar door the great mr and his staff of able engineers and scientists jiabo had to confess themselves beaten and will hunt for a new route tha explanations of the experts are two in number dr kechler of the institution at washington says the bottom of tho lake for an indefinite depth aft composed of precipitated malinc material partially soluble the upper art of which under pressure from above has gradually encrusted according to this theory sir troubles came from the collapse of this top crust the other theory ia that the route of the cutoff cut off happened to follow or cross the old bed of a former riar which had he come filled w ith alluvial deposit in strong to bear up tinder tap pressure whatever the truth the spectacle certainly is interesting and carious cn rious the above w certainly bad enough to provoke a laugh even here in ogden where the amusing feature of the un truths are seen through the animus of jealous satt lakers the critical reader of the above as far away as pitts ton must have asked himself why biar riman was spending a million dollars to fill a spot as big as a cellar door when a hundred dollar culvert could be made to span the bottomless hole As we have frequently stated the whole story is a tissue of falsehoods and ia to be classed with the yarns that old lying jim townsend of inyo county oali fomia put in circulation ho told of a luminous tree he bad discovered which gave off a light at night BO bright that ordinary newspaper print could be read he said boac examination dia closed a phosphorescent exudation mad up 0 a uin en casing an insect with the properties of tho firefly fire fly eastern people ready to accept the phenomenal west said it was a most wonderful freak of nature and t like dr kechler of the smithsonian institute gave learned opinions on the why and wherefore the credulity of our friends in the aas is moot marked when tho unscrupulous newspaper writer of startling cx places the scene of bia roma in tho west |