Читать книгу The Mystic Mid-Region: The Deserts of the Southwest - Arthur J. Burdick - Страница 3

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Between the lofty ranges of mountains which mark the western boundary of the great Mississippi Valley and the chain of peaks known as the Coast Range, whose western sunny slopes look out over the waters of the placid Pacific, lies a vast stretch of country once known as the "Great American Desert."

A few years ago, before the railroad had pierced the fastness of the great West, explorers told of a vast waste of country devoid of water and useful vegetation, the depository of fields of alkali, beds of niter, mountains of borax, and plains of poison-impregnated sands. The bitter sage, the thorny cacti, and the gnarled mesquite were the tantalizing species of herbs said to abound in the region, and the centipede, the rattlesnake, tarantula, and Gila monster represented the life of this desolate territory.

More recently, as the railroads have spanned the continent at different points, we have knowledge of several deserts. There are the "Nevada Desert," the "Black Rock Desert," the "Smoke Creek Desert," the "Painted Desert," the "Mojave Desert," the "Colorado Desert," etc.; the "Great American Desert" being the name now applied to that alkali waste west of Salt Lake in Utah. As a matter of fact, however, these are but local names for a great section of arid country in the United States from two hundred to five hundred miles wide, and seven hundred to eight hundred miles long, and extending far down into Mexico, unbroken save for an occasional oasis furnished by nature, or small areas made habitable by irrigation.

Where the old Union Pacific drew its sinuous line across the northern section of the desert, a trail of green spots was left to mark the various watering-stations for the engines. The Southern Pacific railroad left a similar line of oases down through the Colorado Desert, and the Santa Fé, in like manner, dotted with green spots the Great Mojave Desert. The water at these stations is obtained in some instances by drilling wells, and where it can not be obtained in this manner it is hauled in tank cars from other points.

THE DESERT From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.

A portion of the desert lies below the level of the sea. Death Valley, in the Great Mojave Desert, has a depression of one hundred and ten feet below sea-level, while portions of the Colorado Desert lie from a few feet to four hundred feet below ocean-level. In the latter desert there are 3900 square miles below sea-level, and there are several villages in this desert which would be many feet submerged were the mountain wall between sea and desert rent asunder.

There is a mystery about the desert which is both fascinating and repellent. Its heat, its dearth of water and lack of vegetation, its seemingly endless waste of shifting sands, the air of desolation and death which hovers over it,—all these tend to warn one away, while the very mystery of the region, the uncertainty of what lies beyond the border of fertility, tempts one to risk its terrors for the sake of exploring its weird mysteries.

Strange tales come out of the desert. Every one who has ventured into its vastness, and who has lived to return, has brought reports of experiences and observations fraught with the deepest interest, which tend to awaken the spirit of adventure in the listener. The most famous of the American deserts are the Great Mojave and the Colorado, the latter lying partly in the United States and partly in Mexico. As trackless as the Sahara, as hot and sandy as the Great Arabian, they contain mysteries which those deserts cannot boast. Within their borders are the great salt fields of Salton and of Death Valley, which have no counterpart in the world; the "Volcanoes," a region abounding in cone-shaped mounds which vomit forth poisonous gases, hot mud, and volcanic matter, and over which region ever hang dense clouds of steam; the great niter fields and borax plains of the Mojave, and other equally strange exhibitions of nature.

There are other mysteries in the desert. Amid its sands are gold and gems for the fortunate finder, and many are they who have lost their lives in search of these treasures. Hovering over the desert, too, is that phantom, that desert apparition, the mirage, a never-ceasing wonder to the fortunate traveler who wants not for water and who is in no doubt as to his way across the dreary waste, and a never-ceasing torment and menace to the thirst-tortured wayfarer lost in the dread solitude. Imagine the mockery to the thirsty traveler of a rippling sheet of water, its blue waves rolling ever in view but receding as he advances, leaving only the burning sands to the perishing one! Is it any wonder that men go mad in the desert? And yet, locked in the breast of this waste is more fertility than is necessary to supply the continent with sustenance.

MOUNT SAN JACINTO FROM THE DESERT From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.

The Colorado Desert is thus called because the great river of that name carved it out of the sea. It is also destined to lose the name of desert because of that same river.

At one time the Gulf of California extended nearly up to Banning, where rise those two sentinels of the plain, Mt. San Jacinto and Mt. Grayback, each towering nearly two miles above the surrounding country. This was before the Colorado River had cut its way through the mountains to the sea, forming that magnificent chasm known as the Grand Cañon. For endless centuries the great river has been eating out the heart of the continent, pulverizing the rock and earth, and bearing it in its turbid tide down from the mountains and tablelands to the lower plains and to the sea.

A part of its burden of silt was laid down over the northern portion of the gulf, and a part of it was carried by the force of the current far down into the great body of water and was piled up ninety miles below the present boundary line between Mexico and the United States. This bank was about sixty miles long, extending in an easterly and westerly direction. Along the right side of the current was formed a lateral embankment, which eventually shut off the river from its former inlet into the gulf and directed it to its present mouth, some two hundred miles lower. This, joining with the sixty-mile embankment, severed one portion of the gulf from the main body and left an inland sea where now is the desert. Then the thirsty sun drank up the waters of this sea and left the land of desolation. How long ago all this happened is a matter of conjecture.

There are many places on the boundaries of the desert where the ancient beach-line may be traced long distances. Here are found numerous shells and corals. Many of the shells are unbroken, and one might almost believe, to look upon them, that they were tossed there by the restless waves no longer ago than yesterday. The varieties of shells and of sea relics correspond very closely with those now abounding in the sea.

ANCIENT SEA BEACH, COLORADO DESERT, NEAR COACHELLA From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.

There are evidences that the desert has been dry land many centuries. Upon its breast are found Indian pottery and implements of a style and pattern antedating those in use at the time the white man reached this country. Then, too, as far back as the sixteenth century, when the earliest exploration of that region was made, the desert-dwelling tribes seem to have been thoroughly established in the territory once occupied by the gulf. It doubtless required centuries, after the waters were cut off from the region, to dry up the inland sea and make it possible for man to enter in and occupy the territory.

It is the belief of some scholars that the land was submerged when the first Spanish explorers reached the coast. In support of this theory they point to certain maps which show the gulf as covering that region.

A map of the early navigators recently in the possession of General Stoneman of the United States Army, which was obtained by him in the City of Mexico, shows the Gila River as entering the gulf, whereas the Gila River now enters the Colorado River ninety miles north of the present mouth of the Colorado.

A map of California, published in 1626 by N. Sanson d'Abbeville, geographer to the King of France, pictures the Gulf of California as extending along the entire eastern boundary of the State, and connecting with the Pacific Ocean on the north. This map was made from sundry drawings and accounts furnished by the early navigators, and is glaringly incorrect. It is certain that the gulf did not then, or at any time, extend to the Pacific. The early explorers and map-makers conveniently guessed at matters upon which they could get no information.

WHEN CALIFORNIA WAS AN ISLAND From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co. From an old Spanish map.