Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-04-01
TIE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT
Ono OF the Several Strange Corners of
Our Country.

Ono or the Several Strange Corners of
Our Country.
The great American Desert was al
most better known a generation ago
than 1t Is to-day. len thousand of
the hardy Argonauts on their way to
waste on foot with their dawdling OK
teams and hundreds of them left their
bones to bleach in that thirsty land.
The survivors OF those deadly Jour-
neys had very vivid idea of what
that desert was; but now that we can
roll across it in less than day in
Pullman palace-car its real-and
still existing-horrors are largely for
gotten. ] have walked its hibiscus
length alone aud wounded. and realize
something more of it from that than
great many railroad journeys acre IS
it have told me. Now every trans
continental railroad crosses the great
desert which stretches up and down
the continent west of the Rocky
mountains for nearly two thousand
miles. The northern routes cut its
least terrible parts; but the two rail-
roads which traverse its southern half
the Atlantic and Pacific railroad and
the Southern Pacific-pierce some of
its grimmest recesses.
The first scientific exploration of
this region was Lieutenant Wheeler 3
United States survey about 1850; and
he was first TO give scientific assur-
that ho1 nrt nh
solute as the Sahara If its parched
sands could speak their record what
q story they might tell of sufferings
and death; OF slow Flooding caravans,
whose patient oxen lifted their feet
ceaselessly from the blistering gravel;
of drawn human faces that peered at
some lying image OF placid lake and
toiled frantically on to sink at last.
hopeless and strengthless. in the hot
dust which the mirage had painted
with the hues and the very waves of
water.
No one will ever know how many
have yielded to the long sleep in that
inhospitable land. Not a year passes
even now. without record OF many dy-
ing upon that desert, and of many
more who wander back in a delirium
OF thirst. Even people at the railroad
station sometimes rove off, lured by
the strange destinations of the desert,
and never come back; and OF the ad-
venturous miners who seek to probe
the secrets of those barren and strange
hued ranges there are countless vic
tins.
A desert is not necessarily an end.
less, level waste OF burning sand, ac-
cording to Charles +. Lummis in the
st. Nicholas The Great American
Desert is full Of strange burnt ragged.
mountain ranges. with deceptive
sloping broad valleys between
though as we near its southern end
the mountains become somewhat less
numerous, and the sandy wastes moro
prominent. There are many extinct
volcanoes upon it. and hundreds of
square miles OF black bristling lava
flows. A large part of it is sparcely
clothed with hardy greasewood; but in
places not plant OF any sort breaks
the surface, as far as the eye can
reach. The summer heat Is unbear-
able. often reaching 1876 degrees in
the shade; and a piece OF metal which
has been in the sun can no more be
handled than can o red stove
Even in winter the midday heat is in
siderable, while at night ice fire.
quently forms on the water-tanks.
The daily range of temperature there
is said to be the greatest ever record
ed anywhere; and change of 80
degrees in few hours is not rare.