Page 135 - 1915, Springs of CA.

HOT SPRINGS. 125
thrown up to a height of 3 or 4 feet, but this action has been partially
stopped by stones that have been cast into the pool. A temperature
several degrees above boiling has been claimed for this spring, but
204°, near the center of the pool, was the highest temperature re-
corded. This is the same temperature at which water boiled in a
bucket over a fire near the spring and is practically the calculated
boiling point for this elevation (3,975 feet). A bathhouse that
extended ovfer a part of the pool was in 1909 used as a vapor bath.
In 1882 Russell 1 estimated the flow of this spring to be 100 cubic feet
a minute (748 gallons a minute), but in September, 1909, the average
of three float measurements indicated a discharge of only about 175
gallons a minute. It does not seem probable that this great difference
is due to error in measurement, and it is believed to show that the
flow has actually decreased, possibly because of the partial choking
of the vent with stones. Two other hot springs that discharge about
65 and 10 gallons a minute, respectively, and 6 or more hot pools
that have no surface outflow, are formed in the nearly level salt-grass
area in a distance of about 125 yards southwest of the main spring.
In his monograph on Lake Lahontan 2 Russell says of these springs
and the associated tufa:
This spring occurs at the southern end of a long row of tufa crags, fully 50 feet high
and somewhat greater in breadth, a few of which still have small springs issuing from
their bases. The tufa at the base of the crags, and forming the nucleus of the deposit,
is amorphous, but is coated with a heavy deposit of the dendritic variety. * * *
The former was a direct precipitate from spring water, but the latter was plainly
deposited from the former lake. The evidence is such as to lead to the conclusion
that this spring was fully as copious during the existence of Lake Lahontan as now,
and that its point of discharge was crowded southward .along a fissure as its former
outlets became filled with calcareous tufa deposited from its own waters.
Russell also gives an analysis of the water, which is here reproduced,
together with analyses that were made of the spring and lake waters
in 1909. The analyses show that the spring water is a primary saline
solution containing a large proportion of silica. The comparatively
small amounts of calcium and carbonate present are of interest
with respect to the large tufa crags, but calcium carbonate is easily
formed and precipitated, so that large amounts are not necessarily
present for the production of prominent deposits. The lake water is
characterized by primary alkalinity as well as primary salinity.

1 Russell, I. C., Geological history of Lake Lahontan: U. S. Geol. Survey Mon. 11, p. 51, '885.
2 Lake Lahontan is the name that has been given to a body of water that occupied Honey Lake
Valley and adjacent valleys during early Quaternary time.