Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-02-11
WANTS 70 PRESERVE OUR DESERTS.


Nearly everybody in this unitarian
age with practical ideas regards our
great deserts in the west as sections
that may be redeemed from their bar
renness and made fertile fields by irri-
cation. To such people nothing seems
impossible, and In this age Of invention
and progress even barrent nature must
become fruitful. 1t is interesting when
public opinion and desire seem to be
running In one direction to find some-
body rising to enter objection or to pre-
vent another view. John c. Van Dyke
has recently written book entitled
"The Desert" which presents some
phases of our western waste places not
usually noticed. To Mr.. Van Dyke the
desert is the home of more strange and
beautiful things than one would sus-
pect until he followed the author thru
the Colorado and the Mojave, and looks
with his eyes upon an unaccustomed
and hitherto forbidding country. Mr..
Van Dyke writes of shifting sands,
desert winds, erosion of mountains,
cloudbursts, canyon waters, GASES in
the wastes. salt beds, below the sea
level" cacti, mirages colored air, warm
and cold colors, desert sunsets, blue
shadows upon salt beds, fire clouds, and
the mysteries of space and immensely.
He says:
Deserts are not worthless wastes.
Some sections must lie fallow that 9TH
ers may produce. Who shall say that
the preternaturaI productiveness OF
California is not due to the warm air
of it's surrounding deserts? Does any
one doubt that the healthfulness of the
countries lying west of the Mississippi
may be traced directly to the d;y all
and the heat of the deserts? They
furnish health to the human; why not
strength to the plant? The deserts
should never be reclaimed. They are
the breathing places of the west and
should be preserved forever"
This writer states that if often rains
over the desert of Colorado. but the ali
is SO dry that the rain drops are evap.
grated before they can reach the earth
and so carried back to the parent clout
again. Heavy clouds are frequently
seen letting down long tails of rain, bu
they never reach the desert. 1t rains
but there is no water, just as the rivers
OF the desert are far below its surface
The Illusions of the desert are many
The experienced traveller there never
speaks with certainty of distance. L
may be thirty or fifty miles to tha
few hours journey or a two days ride
One cannot say. The vital relation o.
this uncertainty to such necessity as
the water supply is plain. Then there
Is, of course, the mirage, apropcs o.
which our author says: Il have seer
horses hitched to a wagon hanging higf
up in the air, with the legs of the
horses twenty feet long and the wager
as large as cabin. Desert cattle IL
punches OI ldll u uoLei VIII SOiutllItiCs
walk about on the aerial ceiling In {
very astonishing way"
We are told, again, how cacti ant
greasewood fight out desperate exist.
ence where no other vegetation viii
live, how they are protected from heat
drouth and wild animals. Such ami
s. n
mails. for some unknown reason. con.
tinue to live there-the mountain lion
the coyote, the mule deer, the wolf ant
the Jack rabbit. The strife is desper-
ate writes Mr.. Van Dyke The sup
ply of food and moisture is small, The
animal is very hungry and thirsty
What wonder, then, that there is thu
determination of starving In all deser
life! Everything pursues or is pursued
Every muscle is strung to the highes
tension. The bounding deer must ge
away; the swift following wolf mus
not let him. The gray lizard dashes fol