Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 June 1896 — THE DEVIL’S PUMP. [ARTICLE]

THE DEVIL’S PUMP.

Odd Combinations of Natural and Artificial Curiosities. One of the greatest combinations of natural and artificial curiosities on the coast of California is called the Devil’s Pump. The pholas, or shell miners, a species of mollusk which excavates immense caverns in the very hardest stone, have tunneled the entire coast in tlie vicinity of the pump 1 . Water rushes into these caverns with each succeeding tide flow and, in this particular case, finds vent through a cylindrical opening some distance from, the water’s edge. It is estimated that this hole, which connects with the sea cavern, is 75 to 100 feet in depth. Every time the tide rushes into the cavern beneatji tfie “pump” throws water to the height of a full 100 feet above the month of the opening. The Indians formerly called it by a name which signified “fairy water gun,” but the irreverent white men have given it the title of the “Devil’s Pump,” and by that name it will probably bp known by future generations. There is a similar curiosity near Horn Head, County Donegal, Ireland, where a hole in the rocks is called “MeSwiney’s Gun,” says the St. Louis Republic. Like the California oddity,“it is on the seacoast and has connection with a submarine cavern. When the north wind blows and the sea is at “half flood” the wind and waves entei the cavern and send up immense columns of water through the “gun.” Travelers say that each charge of water sent from the “gun” is accompanied by an explosion that can be heard for miles.