The Souvenir of Western Women/Mineral Springs, Nature's Health Reservoirs
Mineral Springs Nature's Health Reservoirs
By WALLIS NASH
THERE is no region in the Northwest where mineral springs are not found. The western slope of the Cascade Mountains is cut and seamed by swift creeks and rivers, and in nearly every one of these valleys the "soda spring" is found. That at Sodaville, in the valley of the South Santiam, has the distinction of adoption by the State of Oregon, and of consequent improvement and dedication to public use. The other developed springs in the South Santiam Valley are those known as Waterloo (close to the Willamette Valley) and the Upper and Lower Soda Springs, high in the mountains.
The hot and sulphur springs on the Mackenzie, some forty miles east of the City of Eugene, situated among the magnificent forests, and on the banks of that most picturesque stream, have a wonderful record of cures of the various developments of the rheumatic poison.
The slopes of the Coast Range are not without their soda and sulphur springs—using the common names bestowed very often without any real knowledge of the constituents of the water.
In Eastern Oregon, throughout the region of the Blue Mountains, medicinal springs are common. Some nine miles along the line of the 0. R. & N. eastward from the town of La Grande, in Union County, Oregon, is found "Hot Lake."
On both sides of the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington medical springs are found, and in the Klamath River Valley, in the extreme south of Oregon, mineral springs are also reported.
In Spokane County, Washington, is "Medical Lake," situated 2,000 feet above sea level, a mile long and half a mile wide, the water being strongly mineralized. The Eastern Washington Hospital for the Insane has been built there.
APPENDED BY THE EDITOR
These reservoirs for the alleviation of human suffering created for the use of man were doubtless intended by the All wise One to be as free to all as the sunshine, the rain, and the ozone in the air we breathe; not as sources of wealth to those who might chance to stumble upon them and through this mere accident hold them for personal profit to the exclusion of all sufferers who may be unable to meet such charges as the chance owner may fix.
The government has seen fit to reserve, for public use and pleasure, those parts of its domain peculiar for beauty and grandeur. The justice and wisdom of these reserves no one questions. Should it not with equal wisdom and justice withhold from private possession these health reservoirs, where pain-laden humanity may find relief and through these waters lay down their burdens and untrammeled take up the labors of life?