 | Saratoga in 1901 |  |
CONGRESS SPRING.
Congress Hall, July 31.
I did not believe the story that snakes have been
frequently found in the different springs here,
though I thought it might sometimes be the case.
To-day, as an honest journalist, I must tell you when I changed
and what caused me to change my opinion.
Yesterday, to test this long-mooted question, Professor
Chandler applied electricity from a powerful battery on Congress
spring. The powerful charge ran down the tubing and was
drawn off by the excess of bi-carbonate of iron in the water,
causing the liquid to boil and seethe like a cauldron. The shock
was so powerful that it shook the ground to such a degree that
Colonel Johnson ran out of his office to ascertain the cause.
Notwithstanding Prof. Chandler's extra electro-magnetic charge,
but two very small striped snakes were thrown to the surface,
and they glided away in great fright into the grass near the
lovers' walk.
Mr. Marvin, who, with Judge Hilton and A. T. Stewart, saw
the snakes, says they were of a species—noctua-zylina or American
copperhead, not common to Saratoga, but frequently found
on Manhattan Island. Fernando Wood recognized the species
at once. This evening the Professor applied Professor John
Foster's electro-magnetic apparatus from Union College, and
revelations too horrible to publish were disclosed on the surface
of the spring. Bushels of débris were thrown to the top, and the
poor Indians, who have had a very quiet time of it lately, were
engaged all night carrying away the refuse from which Congress
forms now moving back and forth through the moonlight between
their encampment and the spring.
I write these facts seriously and honestly, but, like the author
of the “Battle of Dorking,” I shuddered at my own narration.
At the first charge of the battery, bushels of oxydized egg-shells,
among other light things, came to the surface—some were
empty, some with the yolks petrified, and others containing
petrified chickens. Meerschaum pipes, faded to a pure white,
saturated caddys of plug tobacco, old Indian blankets, undissolved
Schweitzer kase, and bones of known and unknown animals,
were now thrown to the top. Old salt sacks, marked “Dennis
McCarty, Syracuse;” old white hats, marked “H. Greeley;”
calves' feet and glue in undissolved packages, marked “P.
Cooper;” and old bundles of Brick Pomeroy's Democrat, bubbled
to the top.
DREADFUL DEVELOPMENTS.
Everybody was startled.
“Turn the crank again?” said Professor Chandler to Senator
Robertson, who, with Professor Agassiz, had charge of the
battery.
The crank turned. Lightning streaked from the turning
wheel, and flashed luridly around the tubing. Losing their
specific gravity, and floating on the surface were old hammers,
horseshoes, tin pans, kerosene lamps, coal scuttles, basins of soap
grease, brass kettles, case knives, German-silver spoons, lizards'
teeth, fish hooks, photograph materials, gimlets, and petrified
human skeletons, which sailed on the water like Banquo's
ghost. All day these dreadful revelations have been developing
themselves. Night has put an end to the Professor's labors, and
the town reposes only to resort to the spring again at daylight.
Colonel Johnson has fled, a voluntary exile, to Moon Lake; the
Chesterfieldian Hathorn kicks his faithful dog Brave, looks
mournfully into his new Hathorn spring, and trembles at the
revelations which may ruin him in the morning.
William Leland is a raving maniac, and Warren's giant
intellect “totters to its fall,” as he sings and whistles a listless
air, unmindful of the coaches loaded with new guests for Congress
Hall. Charles Leland and the giddy guests of the Clarendon
have gone into mourning, closed the blinds of the aristocratic
boarding-house on the hill, and the balcony where the young
gentlemen were wont to hold the hands of sweethearts, and
whisper in gentle ears the lover's siren tale of love and hope, is a
deserted waste. A funeral pall has fallen over this once happy
village. Beautiful is the sublime resignation of the people.
“I knew it must come!” said the heroic Marvin, the hot-scalding
tears rolling down his manly cheek: “I knew this devilish
modern science would find us out some time;” and then he went
and sat down among the crumbling butments of the old United
States—a ruined man!
The poor villagers seem grief stricken at the horrible
revelation. Young men and maidens stand
sobbing upon the corners of the deserted streets,
while old gray-headed fathers sit buried in silent
grief. No word of hope can break the solemn stillness
of despair.
J. Morrissey walks like a deserted sentinel up and down by
his once happy club-house, with its festive board deserted, and its
laughter and its songs turned to grief. His eagle eye is dimmed
with tears, and turns not upon his once happy guests, but down
upon the floors of deserted halls. We know not what another
day may bring forth.
I will hasten to telegraph the result to the Commercial in the
morning. Other newspapers are evidently bribed, and Captain
Ritchie as yet makes no allusion to the astounding facts in the
Daily Saratogian. The rest to-morrow.
| Saratoga in 1901 | |