Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-06-23

full not to fasten too tightly. I'll
ms you can, and you will have u
tradition. now known to be justified,
has affixed the name of Enchanted. 1t
rises in a lonely corner of the desert to
q height OF more than four hundred feet
above the plain, and aneiently there was
a town upon its top. One day a terrific
earthquake hurled down the only acces-
slble side of the rock mass, and there
was no way of return for those who had
descended to work in the fields, nor any
way for the aged and the children and
the women on the top to get down. The
water stored at the summit gave out
presently; no food could be shot on the
arrows of those below to their wives
and babies above. and so the faces that
peered from the cliffs edge into the
thin and sad, and after a little they APP
peared no more. Then the survivors
wrapped the cloaks about them and left
that land forever.
There is a difference between this des-
ert of the South and that of the North,
although the two are continuous.
Though more barren, and relieved by
fewer cases than the arid lands of Mon
tana. Wyoming. and Utah, these lonely
reaches of California, Arizona and New
Mexico promise better. They are as
dry as the moon, but are comparatively
free from alkali. If you have ever been
out in a dust storm in Nevada you re-
member the peculiarly penetrating and
is with salt that efiorescs on the
ground and at night in dim white
patches that make you think it must
have been raining and freezing, and that
these spots are patches of ice. Sand
there is, and occasionally lava. in black
ish. tumbled heaps, but little of the
binding, smarting, sight destroying
powder in the air that is dreaded in the
Salt Lake country.
Niragcs of the Desert
There is at loon a frequent mock OF
water in the mirage that fickers up
from the hot sand. The heated air of
the desert reflects light and sky color
in the anne way, and at a little dis
lance You say that there is surely a
lake where you may Stake a mighty
thirst. But there isn't any lake-ex-
cept sometimes.
The air is wonderous clear, u~pspoiled
by exhalations of factories or smelters.
as well as free from the microbes that
abound where humanity has strewn
them. and In this thin atmosphere the
distance comes TO you with suddenness.
You know the old yarn about the Eng
lishman who started to walk 10 the foot
of a mountain before breakfast. to get
up an appetite. He> toiled into camp
at night and he had not got so far as
the base OF the mountain. Next day he
came to a creek anu began to undress.
What are you taking off your clothes
for?" asked mis- guide
ITO swim the river"
why. you can jump it"
mo. you don't. That mountain didn't
look to be more than a couple of miles
away. and this river doesn't look to be
more than four feet wide, but it may be
half a'mile before I get over"
Spite of its tragedies. the desert has
a never-ending charm. Whether below
the level Of the sea or on ~plateaus more
than a mile above it: whether the sun
is blazing upon it, cloudless. dazzling.
or clouds are descending n the lowell
est opalescent fragments. which o.
have trouble in believing to be rain
bows, are drifting. playing. fading along
the mountains feet: whether you are
shut in by crags and terraces, with
fronts sculptured by the elements into
lskenesses of towers that the rods alone
could have built or lived in. or are
vending across vast reaches OF plain
where the mountains recede into clouds
and needles and pillars of rock pierce
the sky as phantasms evoked from the
mirage, there Is no place nor hour that
has nnt its beauty.
Health is here. they tell us, in lis dry.
untained air. and certainly there = a.
hilaration Of spirit and the selns 4 =
great frSedom a uhich one ~
draw bl3 1rS5ths and enxe n
nooe horlo1. fcnlnr