Los Angeles daily herald. [volume] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1873-1876, 1874-03-15
The Colorado Desert.
BY DIR. J. p. WIDNEY.


Crossing by the San Gorgonio Pass,
the continuation of the Sierra Nevada
range back of San Bernardino, the
traveller leaves the fertile coast valley,
and enters upon what appears to his
astonished eyes the parched and death
stricken remains of some ancient
world. AS he came through the
broad, rolling pass, upon his right
lowered San Gorgonio Peak, huge,
unbroken mass, 10000 feet in hight,
the great trees up its rugged sides
dwindling to mere shrubs. Upon the
left, forming the other wall of the pass
pine-clad San BernardinO, more
broken and irregular in outline,
reaches an altitude of II 800 feet. But
leaving now the mountains behind, he
decends into what seems the scorched,
blasted bed of some old cyclopean
furnace, wreck of the days when
"there We're giants in the land''. San
GorgOnio and San Bernardin0 on this
side have lost their pines, and brown,
barren and desolate, frown down upon
yet greater desolation. Upon the
west, as far as the eye can reach,
stretch the Sierra in an intending
line-a forbidding, rugged wall. At
the north spur from this main chain
turns off eastward, and then curving
around bears to the south, parallel to
the Sierra making another abrupt
wall, which at last drops down and is
lost near Fort Yuma. Enclosed by
these mountains, open only toward
the south, where 200 miles away it
faces out upon the waters of the Gulf
of California, is the Colorado Desert.
From it's upper end the eye lifts mile
after mile toward the southeast over
the broad eXpanse-no trees, no hills,
no water, no life-only the glare of
the never-ending sand the deceptive
mirage, and she silence of death.
Here and there a lone whirlwind reafs
it's stately column of sand hundreds of
feet in the heated air and travels
slowly on for hours. At times fierce
blasts of scorching wind rage for days,
carrying the fine sand in clouds that
obscure the sun, and give to the sky a
dull red glare. These are the dreaded
sand-sto. us of the desert.
What is the Colorado Desert In
the Sp:-iig of 1867 1 crossed it's upper
end with troops, on the road to La
Paz. L found the sand white with
innumerable sea shells, some minute,
some fragile-such as are only found
in sheltered arms of the sea. For
miles and miles / traced with the eye
a strange, we'll defined line along the
mountain sides, always at the same
level. 1t was as undertaking as the
chalk line of s. carpenters marking
Irvine. Riding out to it found it to
be the old beach of sea.
The rocks were worn and rounded
up to the level as by the constant
washing of water, with coarse coral
formations in these crevices and upon
their under sides. Above that line
the rocks were sharp and jagged. The
worn rocks showed that for ages the
water had stood at that level. No
other beach could be discovered. The
water, consequently, when 1t ADAM
doned that level, must steadily, have
diminished, until it disappeared. The
surveying. party OF the Southern
Pacific Railroad, in running the line
to Fort Yuma, struck the present sea-
level the moment their instruments
reached this ancient beach. Further
south they gradually descended, until
q depression of 2l5 feet below the sea
was found. The great basin of the
desert the chief engineer, Mr.. Phelps,
estimated to be at least $50 feet below
the level of the sea. The whole area
now below the sea-level is supposed to
be about $500 square miles-l30 miles
in length by thirty miles average
width.
The inquiry naturally arises, "At
what point has this desert been con-
nected with the sea, and how has it
been shut OFF," Surrounded upon
every side by mountains, except in one
direction, and there opening out upon
the head of the Gulf of California, the
answer is plain. The desert is a por-
ton of the old gulf, which then ex-
tended 200 miles above its present
limit. It's headwaters then were i'm
mediately back of San Bernardino,
with only the mountains intervening.
The cause of the separation Of. The
per end of that gulf making u&NS
now the Colorado Desert, is SO appa-
rent that moments examination re-
veals it. The same aNeagfz3B41l II at
work, constantly whitening ffYie space
between the gulf and the desert. Here,
nearly $50 miles from the head of the
ancient gulf came in from the east
side the Colorado river, bearing in its
thick floods quicksand and the red
mud from the great plateaus of North
ern Arizona, which gives the river its
color and it's name.
The contour of the country shows
the gulf to have been narrow here.
The filling in of this alluvial deposit
went on increasingly, as at the mouth
of every great river which enters the
sea at a sheltered point. The water
grew constantly shoaler until at length
the separation was complete. The up
per end of the gulf, thus isolated from
the sea, and not having rainfall suffi-
cent to keep up its supply, finally
dried up and became a desert-basin.
The alluvial deposit has steadily in
creased the distance between the gulf
and the low bed of the desert until
now the division is marked by a mar
row neck of thirty or forty miles of
land but little raised above the sea-
level.
The length of time which has elaps-
ed since this great change took place
is also another interesting question;
the more so because the change is
plainly recent one, and the data ex-
ist for at least comparatively accu-
rate estimate. Among the many shells
which whiten the sand of the desert
found numbers of a thin, fragile BIZ
valve, about one and one-half inches
in length by an inch in width, the
shell scarcely thicker than half dozen
sheets of ordinary note-paper closely
pressed.
These shells are drifted about in the
restless winds, beaten upon by raging
sand-storms, secured and worn by the
constant attrition of the sharp grains
and yet to-day they may be gathered