The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-05-11
Nevada.s ayaltzlng Glant.

I
cont in Nevada. said Joseph
Grandlemeyer, mining man from
White Pine, to a New York SRp cor
respondent, two have the sublimest
dance that any man ever saw We
call it the dance Of the giants. Great
cylinders Of sand, from s to 20 feet in
| diameter, and sometimes immensely
tall, come carcerng across the desert
with whirling, waltzing motion that
is very graceful. l have often seen
them when trey must have been two
or three miles high, for their tops
reached up into the clouds. But oft
ener there will be one big column,
with a lot Of little columns attending
it, all waltzing along together. The
effect is the straDgest thing imagina-
bic. It's both Sublime and grotesque.
II inspires You with awe, and at the
same time fills YOU witii .sssz 81! ,a65ire Z 90
laugh an the odd performances. And,
if the man IS superstitious, the weird,
fantastic sight can make him feel
mighty uncomfortable. They are never
seen except in the summertime, and
are most frequent in July. They have
their beginning in some little, incip-
lent whirlwind, which snatches up
handful of sand while the surrounding
air is still, and then they keep on
growing and moving onward.
'sThey are not like the cyclones far
ther east, for they move with very lit
tie noise, and, instead OF being funnel
shaped, are of the same size from top
to bottom The motion is the same,
being both circular and advancing.
They draw up into the cylinder fabu-
lous quantities. of sand, tons Of sage
brush, and sometimes good-szea
stones. How far they travel nobody
can tell. The very big ones must have
waltzed along in their silent majesty
over the lonely deserts for long dis
tance, They must travel the whole
distance of the White Pine valley, $50
miles, and sometimes they come down
through Spring valley from Idaho to
the Peranegat VALLEY
"Joe McCann, one of the pioneers OF
White Pine, solemnly declares that he
owed his richest strike to one of these
waltzing giants. He was plodding
through the valley, leading pack
mule laden with his prospecting outfit,
when half dozen sand columns came
dancing silently along Joe tried to
dodge one Of them aud got rightin the
way of the biggest one Of the whole
gang. Itpicked up MIN and tho mule
as though they were feathers aud
packed them across tho valley in the
liveliest waltz u oe ever shook leg in.
He got SO dizzy That lie couldn't tell
where he was going, and he had Just
about made up his mind To be smoth-
cred in sand and carried to heaven BY
this dancing dervish Of tho desert when
his feet struck solid ground, and after
whirling about a Few times he fell into
the bed Of a creek that was almost dry.
When hc picked himself up there was
the mule Kicking solemnly and meth
odically at shower of sand that was
falling around him. The waltzing
column had struck side-hill and col
lapsed, as they often do, and the.apper
part of the column was just coming
down Where the foot Of the column
struck the bed Of the creek it had torn
up the gravel to depth Of three or
four feet and exposed some of the rieIs,.
est pockets Of small nuggets that Joe
ever saw. He stayed with the claim
about two months, and cleaned upl
nearly 100000. Then lie started to 90
back to tie States, and blew III the
whole pile in a faro-bank in Pioche.
Joe has wandered through those Me-
vada valleys for years since then, but
hasn' had tho luck to be picked But
for partner by another waltzing
giant