In Judge C. R. Magney State Park in Minnesota, there exists a natural phenomenon along the
Brule River known as the Devil’s Kettle- a waterfall that splits in two, with one half
falling about 50 feet into the river below and continuing on its merry way towards Lake
Superior and the other half falling into a large hole in the ground that seems to go
nowhere. In fact, local legend posits that anything thrown into the Devil’s Kettle
will never be seen again. People trying to disprove this have thrown everything from
boxes of ping pong balls to giant logs into the hole to see where they end up, with nothing
ever seeming to emerge anywhere nearbye. So where is the stuff thrown in going?
For many years, the most popular hypotheses put forward were that the water falling into
the hole either flowed into a hidden underground limestone cave carved into the rock by eons
of flowing water or it flowed into a lava tube.
If you're unfamiliar, a lava tube is pretty much what it sounds like- a large tube formed
by flowing lava as it cools. In a nutshell, as the top layer cools and hardens, lava underneath
potentially continues to flow for some time until the source of the lava stops. This can
lead to that inner layer of lava draining and leaving behind a large empty tube in a
lava rock shell. Thus, the hypothesis is that the falling water
cut through the surface rock at some point and fell into an ancient lava tube formed
at the same time as the rest of the volcanic rocks in the area.
This sounds perfectly plausible, but the issue is that while rhyolite, which forms the bedrock
on top of which the river system is located, is a volcanic rock, it doesn't form lava tubes.
And as for the basalt layer underneath, while this can form lava tubes, this particular
type is flood basalt, which comes up from fissures, rather than flowing down from a
volcano. Thus, flood basalt is incredibly unlikely to create lava tubes (more typically
just creating large seepage sheets of rock) and no such lava tubes have ever been discovered
in the area, despite many known lava beds in the region.
As for the other popular hypothesis, this is that there perhaps is a large underground
limestone cave or river system the water drains into. However, the nearest limestone deposits
to the park are hundreds of miles away and rhyolite is much too hard of a rock for such
a cave system to likely have formed in it. Despite these two hypothesis thought to be
unlikely by most, they were long the best guesses simply because nothing anyone ever
threw into the hole ever came back out. So it must be going underground somewhere...
And as the saying goes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth." On that note, over the years scientists and
common-folk alike have conducted dozens of experiments to determine where the water was
going. These experiments have ranged in sophistication and scope, but mostly boil down to the age
old “hucking an object into the hole and trying to find it later”. One of the more
famous such experiments involved pouring hundreds of ping pong balls into the hole onto which
a phone number was etched with a message that anyone who found one and called in would be
given a reward. Not a single ball was found by the experimenters and nobody ever called
in to say they’d stumbled across one. Similar experiments that likewise ended in
failure have involved throwing in everything from dye packs to GPS trackers. One person
even dragged a bunch of large logs to the top of waterfall and threw them in; a few
days later a couple were observed floating around inside the Devil’s Kettle and the
rest had, seemingly, disappeared. This isn’t even mentioning the countless
random objects thrown into the hole by tourists. (For the record, people are asked not to do
this, but it doesn’t really stop them.) Along with the items you’d expect, like
loose change and twigs, there are local legends suggesting that people have thrown televisions,
refrigerators and even a car into the hole. However, given the general inaccessibility
of the area, these more fantastical stories are mostly thought to be apocryphal.
On that note, contrary to rumors floating around on the internet, we couldn't find a
single known example of someone either falling into the Devil’s Kettle or of somebody dumping
a dead body into it. So what exactly is going on here? It turns
out a whole lot of nothing. Early in 2017 the mystery of the Devil’s Kettle was finally
solved when a hydrologist working for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources,
Jeff Green, and retired Minnesotan professor Calvin Alexander deciding to do something
that had apparently never occurred to anyone prior despite it being a ridiculously obvious
thing to do in investigating the phenomenon- they measured the volume of water flowing
in the river immediately above and below the waterfall.
What was the result? They found that at the top of the waterfall the river flowed at a
volume of 123 cubic feet per second, while at the bottom it flowed at 121 cubic feet
per second.... While this isn't technically the same, Mr. Green notes "In the world of
stream gauging, those two numbers are essentially the same and are within the tolerances of
the equipment." And for those who would prefer the numbers
line up perfectly, we can at least definitively say from Green and Alexander's measurements
that nowhere close to half the water can possibly be disappearing into a big hole to nowhere.
All evidence would seem to indicate it's simply disappearing into a hole briefly before coming
out the other side to rejoin the other water. This might all have you wondering then where
all the stuff thrown into the hole went. Well, Alexander’s hypothesis is that
“The plunge pool below the Kettle is an unbelievably powerful system of recirculating
currents, capable of disintegrating material and holding it under water until it resurfaces
at some point downstream.” In other words, stuff thrown into the Devil’s
Kettle doesn’t get dragged to a mysterious underground cave or lava tube- it just gets
obliterated by thousands of tons of falling water smashing it against rock, or otherwise
doesn't resurface until well down stream, effectively making it seem to disappear.
In order to silence the remaining doubters, when the flow decreased in the fall of 2017
coming, Green and Alexander had planned to dump a whole lot of dye into the hole. Unlike
previous attempts at this, they planned to use a dye that is visible at 10 parts per
billion. Combined with the decreased flow, this should have then been readily visible
on the other side. However, when we here at TodayIFoundOut in the summer of 2017 contacted
the parks department to inquire as to when this would happen so we could go film it,
they informed us the plan was called off, though did not explain why.
Bonus Fact: Speaking of throwing things in other things,
ever wonder how the practice of throwing coins into fountains got started? Well, wonder no
more. People have been throwing coins into fountains seemingly as long as there have
been coins and fountains. The tradition all started with water. (Shocker, I know.)
Water, of course, is vital to sustain human life. While many people in the developed world
today have clean, drinkable water readily available from their kitchen taps, this was
not always the case. Potable drinking holes in many regions weren't the easiest things
to find. Thus, where clean water was available, many early European tribes believed that such
areas were a gift from the gods. The idea that drinkable water was sent from
the heavens remained even as wells and fountains were built. Often, a small statue of a god
could be found next to early wells and fountains, turning them into a type of shrine.
Presenting gifts to gods is an ancient practice that was usually meant to appease angry gods,
or to act as a payment for a request or prayer. In the case of fountains and wells, people
would toss in a coin while sending up a prayer—an early version of making a wish.
One rather prolific well can be found in Northumberland, England, and was used to pray to the Celtic
goddess of wells and springs, Coventina. 16,000 coins from different eras of the Roman Empire
were found there. Interestingly, most of the coins found in the Coventina Fountain were
low denominations, much like today where people are usually more willing to part with a 5
or 10 cent coin rather than a full dollar, euro, or pound.
Of course, it wasn’t always coins. The Well of Pen Rhys in Oxford, England called for
pieces of clothing to be tossed in. In this case, it was thought that the water had healing
powers and that the clothing carried disease, so by tossing a button, pin, or piece of fabric
into the well, you would be healed. The belief in the healing powers of the Well of Pen Rhys
remained popular well into the 18th century. These days, believing in gods watching over
the wells or the thought that water has healing powers has largely lost favour, but people
still practice this ancient tradition, in modern times usually making a wish.
Probably one of the most famous examples of a wishing fountain is the Trevi Fountain in
Rome. The Trevi Fountain was built as the ending point of a 21 kilometre long aqueduct
called Virgo, named for the goddess who would guide soldiers to water when they were thirsty
and tired. Originally, tossing a coin in or taking a drink from the fountain was supposed
to ensure good health. Eventually, the tradition evolved to what we know today: if you toss
a coin over your shoulder into the fountain, you will one day return to Rome.
This idea was popularized in the 1954 film Three Coins in the Fountain, which also suggested
that if you throw two coins in, you’ll fall in love with a Roman, and if you throw three
coins in, you’ll marry him or her. Since the movie, this practice has become so popular
with tourists that it’s estimated that around €3,000 in coins are thrown in the fountain
every day. Obviously, all of those coins can’t just
sit in the fountain forever. The Trevi Fountain shuts down for one hour every day and the
coins are swept out by the Roman Catholic charity Caritas, which pays for food for the
poor as well as Aids shelters. The coins have to be cleaned, sorted into different denominations,
and sent off to the bank. As for the more general case, some wishing
wells will have a sign saying “proceeds go to…” which makes it pretty easy to
figure out where your coins end up. Lacking a sign, however, it’s most likely that your
coin will be collected and donated to a charity, or perhaps put toward the upkeep of a historic
building or a zoo. Even the coins thrown in fountains owned by private businesses tend
to be donated rather than kept by the business itself.