Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 106, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1913 — HAS A PETRIFIED WATERFALL [ARTICLE]

HAS A PETRIFIED WATERFALL

One of the Natural Wonder* of the . World That la Located In Country of Algeria. 1 - With all the beauty of a cataract of living water, there la in Algeria a remarkable petrified waterfall which recently has been engaging the attention of scientists. This is the Ham-mam-Meskhutin, which means “The bath of the damned,” and is located 62 miles from Constantine. This solidified cascade is the production of calcareous deposits from sulphurous and ferruginous mineral springs, issuing from the depths of the earth at a temperature of 95 degrees centigrade. “The bath of the damned,” even from a near viewpoint, looks for all the world like a great wall of water dashing into a swirling pool at its foot, yet its glowing, graceful curves and the apparently swirling eddies at its base are aB fixed and Immovable as if carved from -the face of a granite cliff. Many centuries have, of course, gone to the making of the deposits, and the springs were well known tot the ancient Romans. The name Ham-mam-Meskhutin was given to the stone cataract in an allusion to a legend that the waterfall was petrified by Allah, punishing the impiety of unbelievers by turning all the members of the tribe into stone. At night, so the story runs, its stone dwellers of the remote ages are freed from their Btrange fetters, eome to life and resume their normal shapes.