Passaic City record., 1891-07-25
COLORADO DESERT.
THE GREAT ARID REGION OF
THE FAR SOUTHWEST.
An Area of 5000 Square Miles
Where Only the Cactus Sur
vives-Its Intense Heat
and Animal Life.

Desert is an area of more than 30O0 square
miles. Throughout this desert the only
thing that survives is the cactus, and In
some places the extreme heat has sue
ceeded in destroying this plant. Further
up on the mountain slope of the San Ber-
nardino range the vegetation becomes
proiuse, especially in the spring. There
is an abundance of flowers and limited
amount of grass, but all this disappears
when the dry season sets in. There are
about fifty kinds of cactus to be seen,
the most notable of which is the oquitillo
beautiful red flower. Along the Colo
RADIO River there is species that grows
to the height of forty feet. Throughout
the country for almost thousand miles
around nearly every species of vegetation
is armed with thorns or spikes. In the
more fertile regions nearest the Pacific
Ocean there is a clover known as the
"Burr" clover. 1t is abundant in the
region of the San Bernardino Mountains,
but is rarely found in the desert. It
springs up and natures in four or five
weeks or less. When it dies it leaves
thorny, spirally formed knot, almost
globular, filed with oily seeds. Some
times this will cover the ground to the
depth of half an inch. It is an extremely
nutritious food for sheep. Flocks are
driven in there, and the only water they
get is what they can obtain out of the
sheepshead cactus. East of the Colorado
River there are several species of yusca,
the fibre of one of which is extensively
used in the manufacture of paper, one of
the chief industries of the Mojave Desert
in the north.
The most common animals are the
large black lizard and the horn toad.
The chuckwalla lizard is the strongest
and most vicious of the species. The
Indians are very fond of it as an article
of diet. Rattlesnakes are plentiful.
The best known of these is the 'sside-
winter" about twenty inches long. Its
skin is of grayish color and mottled.
Over each eye is short horn. This is
the most dangerous of all tae reptiles
found in the region, and is an object of
great terror to the natives.
The summer heat of this region is in
tense. Frequently the thermometer
will reach 130 degrees in the shade. In
the sun it is generally about 140 to 145
degrees during the hotter part of the
day. Rain storms are almost unknown.
When one occurs it comes in the form of
a cIoudburst. There is darkening of
the sky, then deluge of water, cover
ing the surface to depth of three
inches. sometimes In fifteen minutes.
Then it clears off, and the sun is shining
almost before you know anything has
happened. The cloudbursts have been
very expensive things to the Southern
Pacific Railway. Almost without a
moments warning the food of water
will wash out the embankments and
leave the track complete wreck for
mile, and sometimes for three or four
miles. In various places the track has
been diked with brush banks on each
side in order to divert the course of
floods.
The Arroyo del Muerto, or Death Val
ley, and the sink of the San Felipe, both
in the southern part of California, are the
only depressions at present known in the
Western Continent. At Kings Spring,
Death Valley is 225 feet below the level
of the ocean, but sinks to a greater
depth in some other places. The de-
preston of the Conchilla Valley is much
larger, extending one hundre miles by
thirty. 1t is now conceded by geogra-
pliers that this valley is continuation
OF Death Valley. 1t is only few miles
from the point where the Southern Pa
cifc Railway crosses the valley at
depth of 261 feet below sea level, that
the celebrated ''Ship of the Desert" was
discovered some years ago. Between
1865 and 1872 man named Perry
owned ferryboat crossing branch OF
the Colorado. His boat was little too
small ano he set about buildings a larger
one. Twenty miles from the ferry there
was clump of cottonwood trees. Perry
and his workmen felled the trees and
built scow hulk for ferryboat. Per-
ry's idea was to drag the boat across the
sands of the desert by means of OK teams,
but the heat was so intense that his oxen
died and he abandoned the scheme,
leaving the hulk stranded in the desert.
1t became partly covered up by the drift
ing sand. A few years later some one of
imaginative turn discovered it and an
nounced it to be the hulk of
ship. The discovery created a
considerable sensation, and there were
various theories advanced to ex-
PLAIN the mystery, the best received of
which was that the ship had entered the
Gulf at the time when all this region is
supposed to have been an arm of the sea,
and that it had stranded there and had
been finally uncovered by the winds.
The fact, however, that it was an old
abandoned ferryboat is positively stated
by living witnesses. This supposed"Ship
of the Desest" was made more famous
by Poet Joaquin Miller.
The common idea is that the soil of
the desert is composed of sand, and that
its surface is low and level. This is
mistaken notion. Nothing is so scarce
in deserts as sand. Even water is more
4 TI.L