Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1894 — "The Well of Serpente." [ARTICLE]

" The Well of Serpente."

There is a horseshoe-shaped mountain up in Manitoba which literally swarms with snakes twice every year. In the early fall these slippery customers gather here from all directions, mostly from the prairie country to the south. In one side df the mountain there is a circular hole, about fifteen feet deep, and as smooth as if it had been fashioned with a well augur, where tens of* thousands of reptiles gather to spend the cojd winter months. Persons who have tried to explore this immense snake den during the summer, when the regular tenants were absent, say that dozens of subterranean passages lead out under the mountains in all directions from the bottom of the well. Captain Silvers, Royal Engineers, estimates .that he has seen as many as 800,000 snakes of all sizes knotted together and piled up in a semi-torpid state in this “Well of Serpents,” as it is called in the Northwest.—[St. Louis Republic. ‘ The pelisse is the novelty of tbe season. It is a dress in itself, and a very graceful and becoming one, too. It is close fitting, fairly full at the qick, and reaches to the feet. The only dress one could wear under it wouUnbe a silk skirt and blouse.