Morning journal and courier., 1889-02-23
AmRRroA,s GREAT DESERT.

Professor Brewer Gives she First Lee
 Iure I'm the Mechanica' Course Upon
 ss1he Great Bas1n''-Hts Characteris-
 tic Features-DeaGhss Valley-A Mln-
 eraI Reg1On-MfIIiOns in She Great
 Comst0ck Lode.
 The first of the series of lectures in the Mechsnics' course at North Sheffield hall was ing on "The Great Basin" In beginning he said he would describe general rather than particular characteristics. He called the
 term "basin" a. misconception, as the area
 was not Q sunken one into which water
 turned because of the height oi the rim, but
 barren because of climate. It does not drain
 to the sea, for there is not rain enough. It's
 character depends, therefore, not on geo.
 graphical or typographical features, but upon
 evaporation and rainfall. The region lies be-
 tween the Columbia river drainage on the
 north, the Colorado river on the south and
 the California drainage on the west. Its
 north and south span is about 300 miles and
 it's entire area reaches nearly 217,850 square
 miles, a stretch which is enormous when com
 pared with the 4O, 900 spare miles area of the
 large eastern State of Ohio.
 The lakes of this large tract are mostly salt
 although rare exceptions occur, such as the
 beautiful Lake Utah. The size of the great
 Salt Lake varies with rainfall and evapora-
 tion, sometimes rising and again falling.
 Prof. Brewer said he knew of but one fresh
 water lake in the world which did not have an outlet, and that was Lake Tchad in Af- Iica. "I hsve strong suspicion, however" ]" he continued, s'that an outlet will be found \ s-R I. xr- more thoroughly explofed.n If there really WAS no outlet he thought the fresh condition of the lake could be explained by the re- markabls absence of salt in African soil.
 'eMany of the lakes of the great American basin contain other material besides common boracic acid. There are also wide valleys, the beds of dried 1p lakes, which are heavy salt beds, rich in fossils and the like.
 Numerous mountain chains, meee wrinkles in the earth's crnst, traverse the region from north to south. Some of the level tracts are remarkably high, being plateaus of some 5000 feet above the seq, while some of the lowest spots on the continent are to be found. Salt Lake valley is 5000 above. and Deaths valley is 20e feet below. the sea. s'We hear that the American desert has fled before the pioneer" remarked the professor ssRid your mind of this. It is a desert and always will be. You can travel stages of 50 and 60 miles without finding bit of water" :" Sand hills, some of them 800 feet high. run along for miles and render travel almost im- possible. Deaths valley was so named be- cause of the thousands who have perished in ! it's hollow. It is upon the trail and weary ! travellers, looking down into it's depths and I seeing water, are often tempted to descend where they find nothing but poison. Whole trains have thus met death. In 1883 large deposits of borax were found there and ex- tensively mined. The mountains are fur rowed, showing that rain was once abundant. The atmosphere is most remarkable in ef- fects caused by dust refraction. The wealth of the region is mineral, not agricultural. The population of Nevada is decreasing every year, and is now not as large as that as that of this city, although its area is twenty-two times that of Connecticut The great Comstock lode, located in this re- zion, has produced silver and gold enough to change the worlds monetary interests. .issYes- terday," said he, Ca man died in Heidelberg who was known to two continents for his wealth. knew him when he kept saloon out in this barren country. It was sort of headquarters for miners. By lucky specu1a-
 tion in the Comstock lode he made twenty
 million dollars. He was one of the ten bo-
 nanza kings. More than one hundred mill
 lions have been taken from this little region ,
 The lecture was profusely illustrated by excellent stereopticon views, those of the an-
 cient Lake Bonneville, Lake Laboutan, Pyr-
 amid lake, from the middle of which huge
 pyramidal rock rises, Deaths valley and
 other geographical features, being remarka-
 ble for their vivid reality. The next lecture
 is next Tuesday by Prof. Daniel c. Eaton on HOaks"