The Ground Burning Up

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 1, 1872

The Ground Burning Up.

[From the Memphis Avalanche.]

ONE of the strangest phenomena of the times is reported to us from the site of old Fort Pillow, 60 miles above this city. It is no more nor less than that the bluff bank of the river, which rises 50 or 60 feet above the water-level, is on fire, and for the past several weeks has been steadily burning like a volcano for a distance of several hundred yards along the east side of the river on a line 10 or 12 feet above the water-level. At night, a lurid flame or blaze of fire rises from the side of the bluff to a height of two or three feet, which then spreads into smoke and passes on over the summit of the hill, distributing itself with the atmosphere and floating away skyward. The steamer Celeste, on her last trip, passed by the place in broad daylight, and at a time when a light wind blew from the shore, carrying the smoke toward the Arkansas shore and covering the river with a thick haze almost like a fog. What strange combustible formation comprises the river-bluff of the old fort, or what first set it on fire, to burn after the fashion described, is one of the most marvelous events of the times, and puzzles the people of the vicinity not a little. We shall seek to be further informed upon this wonderful phenomenon with no little curiosity.