By Arthur J. Burdick With 54 Illustrations G. P. Putnam's Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1904 Copyright, 1904 BY ARTHUR J. BURDICK Published, April, 1904 The Knickerbocker Press, New York...

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, be

When the "tenderfoot" first strikes the desert country he is surprised to learn that he is expected to pay for the water he uses for himself and for his beast. A little later he becomes indignant upon finding himself unable to purchase even a small quantity of the necessary fluid because of the extreme caution of the proprietor of some desert well where he has expected to replenish his stock of water. It is not an unusual happening for the desert traveler, who has toiled hours over the burning s

In the mystic mid-region grows vegetation as weird and wonderful as the region which it inhabits. The Mojave yucca ( clistoyucca arborescens ) is a strange freak of vegetation found nowhere else in the world. The palo-verde stands grim and sentinel-like, along the banks of the Colorado River which skirts the deserts, an evergreen but leafless tree with curious branches which cross and recross each other, forming a perfect network of green vegetation. Cacti in innumerable variety abound in certai

The representatives of the animal kingdom in the desert are fully as strange and curious as are the specimens of vegetable life. It may seem strange that animal life should exist at all in this region of death and desolation, but several forms of creatures seem to find this dread region congenial. In keeping with its surroundings is the crotalus cerastes , one of the most deadly of the rattlesnake family. It is known to the frequenters of the desert region as the "sidewinder," because of its all

Why human beings should have chosen such a place as the desert for their habitation is a mystery without a solution. Possibly the forefathers of the present dwellers of the region fled thither to escape the oppression of tribes more powerful and war-like than their own. Be that as it may, there dwell in the Great Mojave and in the Colorado deserts several tribes of men who, according to their traditions, have made their home there many centuries. Up in the Death Valley region is a tribe known as

In the great weird wastes which make up the Mojave Desert, Death is king. He sits enthroned in the terrible region known as Death Valley, and from that fiery pit he stretches forth his fleshless fingers over all the desert region, and exacts a fearful toll from the desert-dwellers and from those who travel through his domain. To the Mojave Indians, a visit from the Great Destroyer comes as an event. In their lives few incidents occur to relieve the monotony of existence in that barren, isolated,

In the midst of a region so repellent that a large part of it remains comparatively unknown and unexplored, one art has reached a state of perfection unattained in civilized communities. This is the art of basket-making. When, in 1539, Marcos de Niza, in his explorations northward from Mexico, entered the great desert region, he found peoples equipped with baskets of wonderful make and of marvelous fineness, such as the enlightened nations of Europe could not produce. The basket-makers of that t

An account of the desert which omitted to make mention of the burro would be woefully incomplete. The burro has been one of the most important factors in desert exploration and development. He is far more sagacious and enduring than the horse or mule. He is to the American desert what the camel is to the deserts of the Eastern hemisphere. Few persons are aware that camels were once used upon the American deserts, but such are the facts. Ten years after the Pathfinder, General John C. Fremont, cr

If "the love of money is the root of evil," it is, as well, the germ of progress. It was the imaginary glitter of the yellow metal that lured De Soto across the continent to the Mississippi and beyond; it enticed De Balboa to the shores of the Pacific, led Cortez through the land of the Aztecs, and its magnetism drew Alvarado down into Central America and carried Pizarro to the conquest of Peru; it dragged Coronado across the arid plains of Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona in search of the fabled

In the most desolate, dangerous, and terrifying locality in the United States, if not in the whole world, lie the largest known deposits of borax in the universe. Death Valley is the repository of more mineral wealth than has ever been brought out of the Klondike, but Death stands guard over the hoards of gold, silver, copper, salt, niter, borax, and precious stones known to abound there. Every year prospectors brave the terrors of the desert and enter the dread portals of the gateway to the val

Gold and borax, which have been given chapters in this work, are by no means all the minerals found in the California deserts. The deserts have tempted the prospector ever since California became known as a mineral field. For a time gold was the prime object of his search, but later it became known that other minerals were capable of yielding profits quite as great as the yellow metal, and he has become more critical in his observations. His care has been liberally rewarded. Borax was one of the

The most remarkable harvest-field in the United States, if not in the whole world, is located in the heart of the Colorado Desert. The spot is known as Salton, and it lies 265 feet below the level of the sea. The crop which is harvested is salt. So plentiful is the natural deposit of this necessary article that it is plowed with gang-plows, is scraped into windrows as hay is raked in the field, and, like hay, it is stacked into heaps from the windrows and is then loaded into wagons and later int

Of the 157,000 square miles of territory which comprise the State of California, 35,000 square miles are desert. Of this area more than two thousand square miles lie below the level of the sea. The lowest point in all this submarine field is found in Death Valley, the most terrifying and forbidding region in the world. Death Valley has been rightly named. It was christened with blood and has ever lived up to its title. Sixty-eight out of the seventy Mormon emigrants who wandered into that dread

"The Volcanoes" is the name given to a most peculiar and terrifying region in the lower Colorado Desert. Its character is such as to lead certain of the Indians who inhabit the desert to believe it to be the gateway to the land of evil spirits. Indeed, it would seem to be the very gateway to Hades, and one is reminded, upon visiting the region, of John Bunyan's description of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death" through which Christian is forced to pass. "About the midst of this valley I perceive

There are several localities in the deserts, about which cling stories and traditions of unusual interest. Superstition Mountain, situated in the southwestern portion of the Colorado Desert, is one of these. This mountain is nearly in the line of the old trail taken by the early overland pioneers on their way to the coast by the way of Yuma. The mountain is remarkable in one respect—it scarcely ever presents the same appearance twice. Its contour is constantly changing, owing to the fact that it

The printing-press has sought many strange corners in the universe. It has, in these modern times, led rather than followed civilization. In the new West it usually is, first the printing-press, then the town. One of the most peculiar phases of journalism is found in the desert region of California. There are, in the two great deserts of the State, four weekly papers, two in each desert. In the Mojave Desert are the Randsburg Miner , published in the gold-mining town of Randsburg, in the norther

There must be, we are told, an end to everything, and the beginning of the end of the desert is at hand. Already two hundred thousand acres of the great Colorado Desert has been taken from it and placed with the productive acreage of the State. This is but a fraction, to be sure, of the vast amount of arid land in the State and but about one five-hundredth part of the arid area in the United States, but it is a beginning, and when it is considered that it is the work of only two years it will be