The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-10-03 00:00:00

THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT.

"breaking up of the season"), when the -sun gets
The New York Thera' Own Correspondent writes from out of the Lion, when people cease calling 80 de-
Omaha as follows : grees a moderate temperature, and are no longer
"The tourist wholooks for a 'great American desert, fried in the streets by a heat amounting to 130
where his school books placed it, looks in vain. It is, degrees. This year, however, the change was sin-
in fact, a myth, for no such region is found where it is usually, rapid, and was severer than any one remem-
generally represented to be, although something ap- hers. The storm commenced from the south-east on
proaching it is found to the north, in a country which Sunday night with lightning which literally hissed as it
has been a perfect terra ineognita until within the last flashed through the air, and with thunder which made
few years. My first introduction to the desert caused doors and windows rattle. The rain soon followed, not
me much disappointment, as it dashed to pieces all my I as you see it in more northerly climates, in per-
preconceived ideas of it. It is popularly supposed to pendicular lines, but en masse, as if all the buckets of
extend from the Missouri to the western limits of heaven were emptying themselves; and so it continued,
Nebraska, but when I anxiously looked for it in every with brief intervals of repose, till yesterday morning.
direction I could see naught but a gently-rolling, tree- Naples did not suffer much, and happily there were
less plain, extending to the horizon in every direction, no wrecks to be reported, but from Caidellamare to
and luxuriantly clad with buffalo and other grasses, Sorrento, one of the most lovely drives in all Italy,
whose deep verdure was heightened by the many the ruin has been such as I could not have believed
gorgeous flowers which dotted the landscape. Immense possible unless I had actually seen it. As thousands
herds of horned cattle were scattered over the country, m England know full well, the road, which sometimes
and their sleek and rounded bodies proved how tender rises rapidly and at other times descends, is bounded
and profuse the vegetation was, and how little geogra- on one aide by the sea, and on the other side by a chain
phers knew of the region which they represented as a of mountains called the Lactarian Hills. In these
desert. The physical geography of Western Nebraska mountains are deep gullies or ravines, and down these
may be called tame, as it is one suet, apparently level, the floods rushed with an impetuosity which swept
plain from the Rocky Mountains to the North Platte everything before them. For two days the road was
Inver' yet this contour is somewhat deceptive, for we closed; it was covered with the diens of thrividg vine-
know that it is an inclined plane, though it does not yards and olive grounds, with rocks and trees, and
show this to the eye, as the descent is gradual. The with the rich soil which had been breught down from
only elevated land visible are two ranges of sandhills, the land above. There was a scene of desolation such
varying from 50ft. to 200 feet in height, which extend as had never before been witnessed in that neigh'
about 100 miles to the eat, and flank the valley on bourhood. Beginning from the Arsenal of Castella-
both sides. The only. reason that I can assign for mare, the well-constructed road was converted into a
terming it a desert Is the fact that no cereals or mountain of earth and rocks, over which carriages
esculents can be produced without irrigation, as were dragged with infinite labour; even where it
the soil is comparatively light, and but little was more passable the slush was almost knee-deep,
rain falls. The atmospheric result is due, no though hundreds of workmen and the provincial
doubt, to the altitude of the region and the Engineers had been labouring hard for four days. In
pa scity of trees, for nothing higher than a few some parts huge rocks lay across the road, but it was
shrubby bushes which border the streams are met with near Scan°, just after passing Vico, well known to
in an area of several thousand square miles. Where travellers, that the damage was the greatest. After
irrigation is practicable, however, the soil yields a crop crossing the picturesque viaduct and ascending the
of vegetation which will compare with that of any ior- mountain from the top of which one looks down on the
tion of the North-west. At Sidney, the nibst westerly beautiful plain of Sorrento, the ruin occasioned by the
town in Nebraska General Dudley, the commander of storm became more evident. There are several deep
the military post located there, tried the experiment of gullies here, taking their rise from a height little less
irrigation, and found the results exceeded his most san- than that of Vesuvius, and down these rushed a sea of
guine expectations. He raised an excellent crop of escu- water, sweeping away the terraced vineyards, snapping
lents, equal to the product of any portion of the State, olive trees, breaking down walls, and burying houses.
while his flowers grew in the most wayward luxuriance. At one point a road had been carried away, all except
It was a pleasure, indeed, to visit the garrison grounds, a spot on which rested•a chapel. While looking down
and note the contrast between them and the surrounding below, no traces remained of a cottage in which a family,
country, for while they displayed a profusion of the consisting of two persons, were swallowed up. A
gramma, flora, and garden vegetables, not another cul- little further on to the left stood a house, the walls
tivated spot was visible anywhere. The question may of which at the back had been destroyed, while
be considered here of how far the country is capable of every room was filled with earth and slush. Three
irrigation, as the rainfall seldom exceeds 12in. per annum persons were buried here, and as yet the number of
and the streams are few. The principal river in this the lives lost is not known. In Sorrento the depth
vicinity is Lodge Pole Creek, and thatis of comparatively of water in the lower parts was fully five feet, and
little importance, as portions of it are dry in summer, this was occasioned by the rainstorm on Monday
and even m the spring WS volume is quite limited. It night; indeed, the whole of the beautiful road from
has, however, in my estimation, a capacity sufficient to Castellainare to Sorrento is seamed, broken up,
irrigate land enough to produce all the crops required and covered with debris. The damage done to
to feed the population dwelling along its course, and property is very great, and five lives are already
this must be an important economic item toward ascertained to have been sacrificed. The Sicilian
settling that sparsely populated region. Several good- journals report even greater disasters, from the
sized streams are found north of the line of the rail- same storm, perhaps, at Palermo. Considerable
road, and by cutting canals from these in various damage was done to the shipping in port; two
directions they could be used for purposes of irrigation, vessels were sunk, and one capsized, but fortunately
This, however, would require quite a large capital, so only two lives were lost Some walls and the first
I refer to it only for the purpose of showing what can storeys of several houses in construction were thrown
be done when our increasing population may need this down, and the roofs of several—four or five cottages—
land. The entire area of Western Nebraska is used at were carried away ; two women were severely wounded,
present as a grazing range, and for this purpose few and a woman and child were dragged out from under
regions excel it, as grass is always abundant, and the ruins of a wall by Carabineera l'wo persona
rattle require no further care the year round than were killed by the lightning. The storm, severe, as it
being herded. The indigenoua grasses are short and was, lasted only a few minutes, and them hurrying
succulent, and retain their nutritive qualities through- northward, scourged the neighbourhood of Naples.
out the seasons, and the winters are usually mild; Such has been the first scene in the act of the breaking
hence the country possesses the most desirable qualities up of the season; and it is to be hoped that it is 'the
for 'sutural pursuits, last, at all events, of a character so destructive.
"That portion of Nebraska which might with most
propriety be called the ` Desert ' is that adjoining the
Loup and Niobara rivers, far to the North near the
Dakota line. This is the `Maureists Terms' or bad
lands of the old Canadian voyageurs, and the dreaded
' Makowset-cha' of the Dakota Sioux, for its white, The Dail!, News says :—Deerstalking is rapidly
rugged, and dreary plateaus reveal naught but the becoming as tame an amusement as pigeon-shooting, a
most barren desolation. It was, and is yet, a terror to sport at which even Mr. Briggs might assist without
all travellers, for not only is it difficult to traverse, over-exerting himself. Sc-rope said, writing in 1839,
owing to its ruggedness, but it is also•devoid of wood that 'a long catalogue of deer killed in one day would
and water, the two greatest necessaries to the wander- only be a tedious repetition of events." This tedious
ing wayfarer. Though forbidding as a landscape, it repetition of events will soon form the uneventful
yet possesses the greatest interestforthepaleontologist, history of deer-stalking. It is no longer lonely, no
as it is undoubtedly the most extensive cemetery of longer adventurous. The poetry of it has fled with the
fossil animal's in the world. Almost every species superstition; the gilly who, with six others, carries a
known to this continent in its various ages are found battery of rifles, is not likely to fall in love with fairies,
there in profusion, and many which have not been or, like a poacher mentioned by Scrope, to have a fight
found in other portions. It is estimated that with a vampire. "There are forests where sportsmen
several thousand species now extinct lie buried actually sink convenient trenches, from which they may
there. Among the latter fauna, which occupy the shoot their unsuspecting victims." This must be
upper beds, we find several species of camels, nearly as thrilling an amusement as shooting at the
varying in size from the present Arabian type to " running deer" target at Wimbledon. In the
one little large than a Shetland pony' numerous decadence of Spain the Due de St. Simon reports that
specimens of the equidw, ranging in bulks from the Philip V. used to pursue the chase in this manly and
heavy Flemish carthorse to one the size of a New- royal fashion. The deer are not now so wild as they
foundland dog, and furnished with three hoofs to each were, and they have lost their natural sentinels,
foot, though toe lateral ones were merely rudimental. Grouse are kept down in the forests, and the stags
The carnivorous animals are represented by wolves are not warned of the approach of danger by
and foxes, some of which were larger than any now the whirr of the mooreock's wing. The fact is,
living •, three species of the hyruedon, which were most that the grouse disease threatens to become a national
remarkably rapacious, and five:varieties of the felidw, calamity. Sheep do not interfere, or interfere very
whose skulls display the terrible conflicts they had little, with the comforts of grouse, and so the
with their contemporaries. Among the larger and proprietors of moors make little objection to the
more interesting animals found there, owing to the ' existence here and there of a scattered shepherd's
fact that none of them now exist on this continent, cottage. But with deer fore,' t it is a different
are the pachyderms, which were quite numerous, I thing. The wild or the tame animal must drive
They ranged in size from one no larger than a cat the other way. The red deer loves a quiet life, he dies
to one having the ponderous dimensions of the out before the approach of cattle and herdsmen, as the
African -hippopotamus. Several species of the Red Indian flees before the face of the white man.
rhinocerous family also roamed over the lacustrine New deer are not liable to the disease which is thin-
marshes existing there in the tertiary era, and, later ning grouse, and it therefore becomes a profitable
still, the elephant and mastodon sought the shade speculation to turn the sheep off an estate, and intro-
of the tropical forests then prevalent in Nebraska. Of discs the red deer. After that there is of course no im-
all the animals found, however, none equals in numbers provement of the land. The forests are "taken a
the ruininantia, for over 700 varieties of one species waste, kept a waste, left a waste." There must be a
have been found. Among these the ruminating hogs, point where this sort of thing becomes dangerous to
to us, are the most interesting, as none now exist, public interests.
These fossil bones are preserved with the greatest care,
for they display no sign of abrasion, and they are as '
white and clean as if they had been bleached, and
the fact that they are not worn in any way would go
to prove that they have not been carried any distance The Omaha (Nebraska) Tribone says - -
by water or drift, and that the animals inhabited the o
region in which they perished. One peculiar fact in For some days past a man of stalwart frame and
mm nding stature has moved along our streets', the
connexion with thin fossil fauna is that 110 crocodiles Dressed• buckskin jacket
have been feund among it, notwithstanding the commanding
of all observers.in a
and breeches, the latter tucked in his boots, a broad-
Southern axiom that pigs were made to furnish meat
and mimic to this lazy creature. The crocodiles of brimmed felt hat upon his head, and no ornaments
about his person save the countless strands of buck-
those days were nut evidently educated to an ap- skin which are necessary' adjuncts of such a suit, he
peeeiation of the dulcet 'hog music,' therefore sought '
it not. would instantly b 11.9 e regarded an unusual personage,
and the query could but arise—Who is he? Upon in-
" This gigantic cemetery, which extend,' far to the r 'ry we found he was the veritable Arkansas Bill'
west of the south-western brow of the Black Hills of who, in 1867, had that terrible fight with a bear, in
Dakota, is one ~f the wildest regions in the world, and, which his companion, Jesse Bell, was almost torn to
notwithetanding the glittering reports of General pieces, but lives to day the wonder and admiration of
Custer, it will be many a long day before any pioneer,
no matter how adventurous, will be content to seek a ' the old hunters of the West. Arkansas Bill, who in
about 29 years of age, and stands about fift. 3M. in
home amid its desolate wilds. A few pleasant parks his stocking feet, early in the Spring of 1867 fell in
may be found in the seething which he traversed, but I with Jesse Bell at Green City, and the two, with a view
they must be exceedingly limited, for I know by experi- ' of P roepesting, made for the head waters of the Snake,
ence that the 'lad lands which I have been consider- Green, -anti Wind Rivers. No hales being discovered
ing envelop nearly the greater portion of the northern I werthworking,theystruck south, reachedHorseCreek,
area of the Black Hills, 'the amuse, in that region ie and supped to rest themselves and their animals
also very severe in winter, for thousands' of buffaloes for a few days. Here, following an antelope eight
have been known to perish there from cold on several miles across an alkali flat, they turned a sharp point
occasions. The grass also dice' out early in October, so in a bluff ti get within closer range. Just as Jesse,
that little is left there to Irur she Easserin settler I who wiee about biS feet in advance of Bill, was in the
away from his home. The 'bad lands' of Nebraska act of crawling over a sharp rock, he discovered on the