Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1876 — Eyeless Fish that Live in Hot Water. [ARTICLE]

Eyeless Fish that Live in Hot Water.

A most singular discovery was yesterday made in the Savage mine. This is the finding of living fish in the water now flooding both the Savage and Hale and Norcross mines. The fish found were five in number, and were yesterday afternoon hoisted np the incline in the large Iron hoisting tank and dumped into the pump tank at the bottom of the vertical shaft. The fishes are eyeless, and are only about three or four inches in length.. They are blood red in color. The temperature of the water in which they are found is 128 degrees Fahrenheit —almost scalding hot. When the fish were taken out of the hot water in which they were found, and placed in a bucket of cold water, tor the purpose of being brought to the surface, they died almost instantly. The cold water at once chilled their life blood. In appearance these subterranean members of the flDny tribe somewhat resemble gold lisli. They seem lively and sportive enough while in their native hot water, notwithstanding the fact that they have no eyes nor even the rudiments of eves. The water Ity which the mines are flooded broke in at a depth of 2,200 feet in a drift that was being pushed to the northward in the Bavage. It rose in the mine —also in the Hale and Nor Cross, the two mines being connected—to the height of 400 feet; that is, up to the I,Boofoot level. This would seem to prove that a great subterranean reservoir or lake has been tapped, and from this lake doubtless came the fish hoisted from the mine last ingEyeless fishes are frequently found in the lakes •!' large caves, but we have never before heard ot their existeneein either Stuffaee or subterranean water, the temperature of which was so high as is the water in these mines. The lower workings of the Savage mine are far below the bed of the Carson River, below the bottom of the Washoe Lake—below any water running or standing anywhere within a distance of ten miles of the mine.— Territorial.