Page 240 - 1915, Springs of CA.

222 SPBINGS OP CALIFORNIA.

OXONE SPRING (SISKIYOU 23).
Oxone Spring rises on the plateau-like slope nearly a mile east of
the grounds of Shasta Springs resort and a few yards from a small
creek channel. It forms a pool 10 feet in diameter and 18 inches
deep, in quartz and lava gravel that covers the surface. Much gas
continually rises in large bubbles in the pool. It is probably carbon
dioxide, for it repeatedly extinguished a lighted newspaper held 14
inches above the open water surface. The spring has been known
locally for many years as Poison Spring, for it is said that birds and
small animals are occasionally found dead beside it, having probably
been overcome by the carbon dioxide. This is probably the spring
that has also been referred to as Scott Springs.1
The water is very strongly carbonated and has a pungent odor and
a "sharp" taste, both of which characteristics are possibly derived
from free carbonic acid. The spring has very little overflow directly,
but it has been piped to the railroad station and there issues in a
spring house 150 yards south of Shasta Springs. It flows quietly into
a cement basin, but it there effervesces and tastes nearly as strongly
carbonated as it does at the spring.
CASTLE SPRINGS (SISKEYOTJ 19).
About 300 yards west of Shasta Springs small carbonated springs
rise near the southern bank of Sacramento River, which here makes
a short eastward bend and then resumes its southerly course. These
springs were early known as Castle Springs, and were at one time
improved to slight extent as a resort. In 1909, however, the place
had evidently been abandoned for many years. Four small carbon-
ated springs were found, 5 to 15 yards apart, within a few yards of
the river's edge. The northernmost one of these has a noticeably
sulphureted as well as a carbonated taste, but another near it is only
pleasantly carbonated. Each of these two springs yields perhaps
2 gallons a minute. The southern two springs have only seeping
flows. One of them deposits considerable iron; the other has a
strongly carbonated and slightly acidic taste. This is one of the three
carbonated springs in the State that was observed to have an acidic
taste, the other two being Oxone Spring and one at the southwest
edge of Clear Lake. The taste is possibly due to the presence of
free carbonic acid.
The springs rise in gravel and soil that border the river, but the
bowlders along the stream and the rocks of the canyon side are of
lava, probably andesitic, like that near Shasta Springs.
'California State Mineralogist Eleventh Kept., p. 452,1893.