ORPHANS & ODDITIES

On page 517 of James Reuel Smith's Springs and Wells in Greek and Roman Literature--a book that is full of odd springs--you can read the story about two springs that burst out close together and had the properties of the poles of a magnet: one absorbed everything, and the other threw everything out!

Schiek's Cave is located in the St. Peter Sandstone, 75 feet below Schiek's Nightclub in downtown Minneapolis.  The cave contains a ceiling spring known as "Little Minnehaha Falls," which issues from a bedding plane in the Platteville Limestone.  Along with another person (who prefers to remain anonymous!) I made two trips to this cave in May, 2000, traveling by way of the sanitary sewers, and collected groundwater samples.  The temperature of the groundwater was 19 degrees Centigrade--twice the expected value for this latitude!  What's your theory?  Boiler wastewater or residual heat from the Midcontinent Rift?

VISIT MINNESOTA'S YELLOWSTONE!  CLICK HERE!

Photo of a spring at the foot of Gasworks Bluff in Minneapolis, taken in 1993.  I noted it in my fieldbook as "bird dropping spring," which will give you an idea of the consistency and odor of the nauseating deposit.  The groundwater issues from the Mifflin Member of the Platteville Limestone, and it may be the same gunk that plagues the nearby MLAC book caverns.

Giant clam?  No, it's a natural spring deposit at High Rock Spring, in the town of Saratoga Springs, New York.  George Washington tried to purchase this spring in 1783, but the owner was unwilling to part with it.

A&P Spring.  Mark Twain, in Roughing It, describes a spring in the Rocky Mountains, the discharge of which drained in two directions: one side to the Atlantic, the other to the Pacific.

Boiling Spring, in Shakopee, MN.  The "boiling" is merely an upwelling of water, due to suspended sediments in the pool which settle down and confine the water until the pressure builds up sufficently to burst through.  Photo courtesy of Bill Stout of Prior Lake, MN.