I don't
care for any of their theories concerning its source. It is better as it
is--the miracle of the smitten rock.
You can fancy what wild presumption it must seem that a mere man should
think to reverse those torrents and make them climb the bluff or cram them
into an iron pipe and send them like paid laborers to hoist and pump and
grind, and light the streets at Silver City, a hundred miles away. And how
the cataracts will shout while these two pigmies compare their rival claims
to ownership--in a force that with one stroke could lay them as flat as
last year's leaves in the bottom of a mill-race!
The particular fall my schemer has located for his own--other claims to be
discussed hereafter--is called the "Snow Bank." He says he doesn't want the
earth: this one cataract is enough for him. To look at the whole frontage
of the springs and listen to their roar, one would think there might be
water enough for them both, poor children! Hardly what you'd call two bites
of a cherry!
If the springs were the half of a broken diamond bracelet, the Snow Bank
would be its brightest gem, lying separate in the case--perhaps the one
that was the clasp.
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