Page 106 - 1915, Springs of CA.

100 SPRINGS OF CALIFORNIA.

there will be 30 developed springs, though only 12 have been of
importance. Several of the group yield cold water.
Spring No. 1, a hot sulphur spring, issues mainly in a pool a few
feei west of the Wilbur property, on land that belongs to the Man-
zanita Mining Co., but warm water also seeps out several yards east
of the main pool. This pool has been used occasionally as a foot bath,
but in 1910 the adjacent seepages had not been developed.
The Hot Black Sulphur Spring (No. 10) is a few hundred yards east
of No. 1 and about 500 yards west of the Wilbur Hotel. Its water
issues at the southeast edge of the creek, and when visited formed a
pool that was covered by a tent and used as a foot bath.
The Main Springs (No. 22) are about 200 yards west of the hotel, at
the upper edge of the barren area along the creek. Two concrete
basins or small reservoirs, a few feet apart, are built around the
springs, which yield a flow of hot, strongly sulphurefced, and salty water
at a measured rate of 30,000 gallons a day (21 gallons a minute).
The water is clear and its color is distinctly yellow, like that of the
water from Lower Blue Lick Springs, Ky., whose color has been
assigned by Palmer i to alkaline sulphides in solution. The more
strongly mineralized waters of the Wilbur springs probably contain
alkaline sulphides in solution in medicinal amounts, but this character
was not shown in the form in which the analyses were reported. The
water is piped to cooling tanks and thence to tubs in an adjacent
bathhouse, opposite the hotel. A thin crust of white, apparently
amorphous sulphur rapidly collects on the surface of the water in the
cooling tanks. On being disturbed it settles as a sludge, of which a
considerable quantity has been used as a salve.
A few feet north of the Main Springs is a smaller one, over which
a men's mud-bath house has been built. A continual flow of water
in the mud bath is thus directly obtained. A women's mud-bath house
has been constructed in the same way, over another spring 30 or
40 yards eastward. Near the northeast corner of the men's mud-
bath house there is a shallow pool, about 4 feet in diameter, called
the Chromatic Spring, for material that changes color from day to
day and is probably of algous (vegetable) nature usually coats its
bottom. On one morning it was bright green in the central part
of the bottom and reddish purple over the marginal third. On
the following morning the coating had a uniform dark-olive tint.
The water is said to be sometimes as black as ink and to contain a
black substance (probably iron sulphide) that gradually settles. At
other times the pool is clear and contains no noticeable growth. In
connection with the water of this spring, a red water may be men-
tioned, that during hot dry weather collects in a few small depressions

1 Matson, G. C., Water resources of the bluegrass region, Kentucky, with a chapter on the quality
of the waters by Chase Palmer: U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 233, p. 209,1909.