The Background
This is the sixteenth in a series of articles written for The Atlanta Journal in 1890 and 1891 by W.W. Goodrich, an architect who practiced in Atlanta between 1889 and 1895.
After nearly 2 years of stories, Goodrich’s billowing font of bullshit was clearly running out of steam.
In the following article from November 1891, he once again draws inspiration from his brief residency in Washington state for another croaky blast of hot air, conjuring up a tale about a noxious “fountain of death” that kills every living creature near it — “one whiff of it is sufficient to extinguish life.”
This toxic body of water never existed, of course, but that doesn’t stop Goodrich from crafting a macabre story about a little girl who wandered from home and died at the foot of the fountain “with a little dead bird clutched in her hand”. The Victorians were some twisted fuckers, no?
Never content to stick with just far-fetched, Goodrich then dives into patently absurd, claiming that the ozone levels in the higher elevations of Washington are “so intense” that they eliminate all disease from the body (“Asthma is cured there in a few weeks”). Sure, Dr. Goodrich.
He also claims to have sent a 20-ton “bowlder” rolling down a mountain, which absolutely didn’t happen. Incidentally, Goodrich misspells Mt. Tahoma as “Mt. Tacoma” and Mt. Saint Helens as “St. Helena”. Keep in mind that he lived in Washington for, at most, 6 months and likely never set foot in any of these places, so there’s a reason he can’t even get their names right.
In addition to being an obvious prevaricator, Goodrich was a terrible orthographer, hence such spelling atrocities as “fissues” and “flou spar”.
The remainder of the article is a string of anecdotes about other locations that never existed, complete with mummies and hieroglyphics (again), “an adult dwarf”, “an Indian of giant stature”, and a lake where giant animals were gathered up and drowned by the Paiute tribe — he mispells that name, too.
By all accounts, 1891 was a banner year for Atlanta’s architects, with the city’s leading firms designing and supervising major works across the Southeast. Goodrich, however, still had plenty of time to spew his nonsense in the pages of the Journal. Read into that what you will.
Fatal Mists.
A Fountain Of Death On The Great Divide.
A Spring Whose Noxious Fumes Kill All That Approach It.
An Atlanta Man’s Visit to the Wonderful Geyser Basin.
Digging Into the Graves of a Prehistoric Race–Curious Hieroglyphics on the Rocks–Interesting Tradition.
Between the headwaters of the Nooksack and the Yakima, from out the side of a massive rock, spurts a spring of clear running water, intensely cold. By placing the edge of the hand in the pool the water can be turned into the Puget Sound basin by the Nooksack river, or into the Columbia river basin by the Yakima, so close together is the line that divides the two basins.
What a panorama is here before the observer. To the north is Mt. Baker, to the south are Mts. Tacoma, St. Helena and Shasta, to the west the Pacific ocean, northward the British possessions and Alaska, South Oregon and California. To the east, as far as the eye can see, the Columbia river basin, and still farther, on the distant horizon, western Idaho, that gem of the mountains.
The Fountain of Death.
In a clump of stunted trees, at a point about three miles from the Nooksack, and about thirty feet from the trail, there bubbles a spring of the clearest sparkling water that one ever saw. The only thing peculiarly noticeable about the spring from a distance is the loud hissing sound it makes as it gushes up out of the gravelly soil. It sounds more like boiling water with occasional jets of steam escaping than the ordinary purling of a stream.
Approach it and you will be startled to see lying around the spring hundreds of birds, scores of small animals, such as coons, foxes and the like. Nearly always there are bodies of birds or animals in a more or less advanced stage of decomposition near the edge of the spring. If a tourist is wise he will be content with an inspection of the unattractive spot from a distance, more especially if there happens to be the carcass of a steer lying beside it with the nose an inch or two from the water.
A Noxious Gas.
The fact is that there rises constantly from the spring a gas so noxious and so deadly that one whiff of it is sufficient to extinguish life.
The terrible character of the spring is well known to all who reside in the neighborhood.
One day the little six-year-old daughter of a farmer living near the spring wandered away from home. Her absence was not noticed for an hour or two, and then the parents went in search of the child. They found her lying dead beside the spring with a little dead bird clutched in her hand. She had evidently seen the bird lying beside the spring, and being attracted by the bright color of its plumage, had tried to pick it up, and in so doing had inhaled the gas rising from the water and died with the bird.
Knelt to Her Death.
Another time a squaw who was supposed to be recovering from a spree, wandered down by the spring. She probably started to the river to get a drink, when she discovered the spring and knelt beside it, dying in that position. A venturesome man once held his breath and nostrils and leaned over the spring to hear the noise it made, which he described as something terrible.
The water is thought to be comparatively wholesome, but nothing is known positively about it, as it has never been analyzed. There can be no doubt, however, that the spring is certain and instant death to every living thing–insect, animal and human–that approaches it.
Life Giving Ozone.
Above the timber line is one of vast expanse of blue air. So intense is the ozone that its inhalation sends the blood through the system with accelerated quickness, its penetrating power rapidly revivifying the hemoglobin of the blood’s red corpsucles [sic], eliminating all diseases and rejuvenating the body. Indeed, if one afflicted with living or liver troubles could stay on the Divide and have the comforts of life at command at an altitude of 12,000 feet, he would be speedily healed. Asthma is cured there in a few weeks.
On the Divide all is bare rock with stunted growth of buffalo grass in spots. Except for an occasional spring and the falling snows, there would be no water. Two thousand feet below, or 10,000 feet above the ocean we left all forms of trees and vegetation. What there was, was stunted, twisted, gnarled and dwarfed.
Geysers in Ebullition.
Looking toward the northeast is seen, far down the mountain’s side, in a grand canyon, vapor arising in puffs, some higher than others, toward which we wended our way, our guide telling us they were geysers in a state of ebullition.
This is a peculiar rocky formation. On little mesas were huge bowlders [sic], brought there by glaciers and worn round like balls. One of these, near the verge of a declivity, weighing by observation some 20 tons, we undermined and started down the mountain’s side into a canyon below, a distance of a mile, with a descent of some 45 degrees. On it rolled, fast gaining momentum. Its flying force was terrific. It crashed through giant trees like as though they were pipe stems, starting over other stones, and they in turn others, until it seemed as though an awful avalanche was crushing and grinding the sides of the mountains into a mass of splinters and powder.
It was a grand but a terrific sight. The noise was as the noise of the ocean waves against the rocks of the coast when there is an awful storm on old ocean and the seas are lashing themselves into foam.
In the Basin.
In the basin, there were several geysers in commotion, one throwing up mud, another hot water, still others mud and steam. By the sides of the geysers were crystals of sulphur in beautiful and fanciful shapes. Peculiar mineral waters came from the mountain’s sides, some salt, some lime and others in varied proportions of different salts and lime. The spouting of these geysers made peculiar rainbows of different colors and shadows.
All about the basin, which was about twenty acres in extent, were skeletons of animals, from the hairy elephant to the human being, veritable valleys of bones, some petrified, some partly so, some embedded in the rocky formation by the sillification [sic] of the mineral waters.
Mummies in Caves.
Many caves of different sizes were all about the rocks, in which were mummies wrapped as are the Egyptians. Stalagmites and stalactites were seen in remarkable profusion and beauty.
One [sic] one amesa [sic] some two hundred feet above the geysers were several mounds.
The little hillocks were dug into and ghastly skeletons were brought to light, a strange revelation of an unknown race. Copper war weapons, shaped something like a harpoon, only much shorter and stouter, were beside each skeleton. Curious characters were etched on the blade of the instrument, and their had survived through centuries.
Excavating a Prehistoric Grave.
One of the mounds I excavated, exposing a flat stone of flou spar [sic]. It had been designed as a door to a sepulcher. After being raised, there was exposed a grave, walled on all sides and tightly cemented with sulphur. In it was a dwarfed body doubled up in a sitting position, a custom followed by the ancient Indian and Aztec tribes all along the Pacific slope. The formation of the skull was like that of a Chinaman. The body, though small, was that of an adult dwarf.
Several other graves were opened and the bodies in all of them were similar in anatomical construction and size. In many of the graves were hewn utensils, evidently used for cooking, together with arrow heads, known to have been used by coast tribes for centuries.
A Veritable Valley of Death.
A remarkable formation was the canyon’s side walls; huge fissues [sic], emitting fumes and steam, of unknown depth, streams of hot water, from the tiny rill to the brook, coursing down the canyon’s sides. No life anywhere. All was solitude, save for the sound of the mud as the gases came to the surface, emitting strange and weird noises. The Indian never comes into this basin.
The Earth Trembled.
Occasional earthquakes shook the earth with violent convulsions. And the grim sentinel rocks at the mouth of the canyon waved spasmodically at each quake. Terrific rumblings and violent roars, as of terrible combat between Herculean giants, were constant. Nature here was grand, and a lover of nature could here see Sacra Tyhee in his might.
To the eastward of this valley is a mixed formation of sandstone, carboniferous limestone, slate, igneous rocks and lava. Here is a hill called “Curious Butte.” It is composed of stratified material of several colors, bright blue and yellow predominating. Near this hill is a deposit of itacolumite or flexible sandstone, indicating that the region is diamoniferous [sic]. It is possible that the blue strata exposed in the hill are of the same nature as the “blue stuff” in which diamonds are found in the south African mines. No one has ever prospected the place for diamond.
Much of the limestone in this region is fossiliferous, but near the plutonic rocks the fossils cannot be made out, owing to the metamorphosis of the limestone by heat. However, in several places have been found corals and sponges, and ammonites, tenenebratlas [sic] spirifers are often abundant.
Hieroglyphics on the Rocks.
Near a Galena mine, three miles from the spring, east of the valley, many hieroglyphics are carved on the rocks. It is a sort of picture writing, and is popularly supposed to have been the work of Aztecs. It is certain that the writing was not done by the present race of Indians of this basin. Similar hieroglyphics are found near Candelaria; also in Humbolt county, on Star Canyon, near the Sheba mine; on the Carson river, below Ragtown, and in many other localities.
Legend of a Giant.
The Indians have a tradition that extends they know not how far into “the long ago,” of an Indian of giant stature who gave them great trouble. They say that the giant warrior came from the north. He took up his abode near Pyramid Lake and made war on the Piutes, killing many of their men. The giant was finally slain by a Piute Cavid, who crept up behind him and drove a poisoned arrow into his body between the shoulder blades.
Two or three of the giant’s tracks and his grave are shown to this day. The tracks are near the Truckee river, between Wadsworth and Pyramid Lake. They are in soft sandstone and are still kept clear of sand and soil. Every Indian that passes the spot stops and sweeps out any dirt that may have lodged in the big tracks.
The Giant’s Grave.
The giant’s grave is not far from where the tracks are seen. The grave is always kept clear of vegetation any grass or weeds seen growing on it are pulled up by the roots. In this way the spot has always been kept marked.
The Indians also have a tradition of huge animals that roamed the country. They say the animals had horns with which they were able to uproot trees. To rid themselves of the great beasts, the whole Piute tribe turned out, surrounded the herd and drove them into Pyramid lake, where all were drowned. Even now, when the lake is rough and black waves are seen rolling about far out from shore, the Indians point to the waves and say they are the backs of the monster beasts.
It may be that the big animals were the elephants that made the tracks at the Carson quarry, and that the supposed human tracks are the footprints of the Piute Goliath.
W.W. GOODRICH.1
References
- Goodrich, W.W. “Fatal Mists”. The Atlanta Journal, November 14, 1891, p. 9. ↩︎