Page 252 - 1915, Springs of CA.

234 SPEINGS OF CALIFOENIA.

RUBICON SPRINGS (ELDORADO 3).
Rubicon Springs form one of the oldest places of resort in the
Lake Tahoe region, as they were visited in the sixties, when there
was only a pack trail leading to them. The springs are in a little
flat on the east side of Rubicon River, 12 miles by road westward
from Lake Tahoe. In 1909 there was a small hotel and three log
cabins on the property, and the place was open to guests during the
summer months. A rustic spring house has been built over the
principal spring, which rises at the base of a low granitic hummock
or ridge at the edge of the flat. Like most other carbonated springs it
is of small flow, the yield being only about half a gallon a minute. The
water is cool, strongly carbonated, and is much prized for drinking.
It tastes noticeably of iron and has deposited considerable iron along
its overflow channel. As the following analysis shows, it is a primary
and secondary alkaline water:

Analysis of water from main Rubicon Springs, Eldorado County, Cal.
[Analyst, N. E. Wilson. Authority, owner of springs. Constituents are in parts per million.]
Properties of reaction:
Primary salinity. ........... ........................................ 2
Secondary salinity........... .. .... .......................................... 0
0
Primary alkalinity ... .. ..................................... 40
Secondary alkalinity ........ ........................................ 57
2
By Reacting
Constituents. weight. values.
Sodiu m (Na) ........................................................................ 1,213 52.75
Lithium (Li).............. ..... . . ........................................ Trace. Trace.
726 36.21
397 32.65
Iron(Fe).. ............... ..... . .. ......................................... \ 11 .47
/ "
Sulphate (SO4). ..................................................................... 24 .51
Chloride (Cl).. ...................................................................... 129 3.65
3,523 117.45
Silica (SlOii)... ...................................................................... 84 2.77
6,109
Present.
Attempts to bottle the water on a small scale have been unsuc-
cessful because many of the bottles were broken by the carbon dioxide
and others were so stained by iron as to injure the sale.
About 100 yards north of the main spring, along the border of the
granitic outcrop, a carbonated spring that yields perhaps twice as
much water, rises in a rock-walled basin and is used to some extent
for drinking. About 200 yards farther north, downstream, another
small carbonated spring issues at the base of a pine tree near the
river, but it has not been improved. A fourth carbonated spring,
which has been known as Potter Spring, is three-quarters of a mile
south of Rubicon Springs, at the southern edge of the meadow along