New-York tribune., 1902-02-08
THE DESERT.
THE IMPRESSIONS OF TWO TRAV-
ELLERS.

PIP. tx, 2S5. Longmans. Green & Co.
Most persons regard desert thing to he
avoided if possible and TO be got through, II
needs be. with all expedition. But Mr. John C.
Van Dyke author of THE Desert thinks
otherwise. To him the desert is the home of
more strange and beautiful things than one
would suspect until he followed the author
through the Colorado and the Mojave. and looks
with his eyes upon unaccustomed and hither-
10 forbidding country. Mr.. Van Dyke writes of
shifting sands, desert winds erosion Of noun
tains. cloudbursts. canyon waters. oases in the
wastes, salt beds, below the sea level" cacti,
T1irages, colored air. warm and cold colors,
desert sunsets. blue shadows upon salt beds.
fire clouds, and the mysteries of space and i'm
mensity. He says:
Deserts are not worthless wastes. Some sec
lions must lie fallow that others may produce.
Who shall say that the preternatural produc-
tlNeness OF California is not due TO the warm air
or its surrounding deserts? Does any one doubt
that the healthfUlness of the countries lying
west Of the Mississippi may be traced directly
70 the dry air and the heat of the deserts?
They furnish health 10 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.
Mr. Van Dyke is adept at surrounding his
subject with an individual atmosphere. Thus
he speaks Of the silent Colorado as it winds
through the desert that is named from it:
The night winds steal along it's shores and
pass in and out among its sedges. but there
no whispering voices: and the stars emerge and
shine upon the fiat floor of water. but there is
no lustre The drear deSolatiOn of it, The
blare Of morning sunlight does not lift the pail,
nor the waving illusions of the mirage break
the stiffness. The Silent River moves on, car
ry1ng desolation with it; and at every step the
waters grow darker, darker with the stain of
red-red, the hue of decay.
It often rains over the desert of Colorado. we
are told but the air Is dry that the raindrops
are evaporated before they can reach the earth.
and carried back to the parent cloud again.
Heavy clouds are frequently seen letting down
long tails of rain. but they never reach the
desert. 1T rains. but there is water, just
the rivers of the desert are far below its sur
face The illusions of the desert many.
The experienced traveller there never speaks
with certainty of distance. 1t may be thirty or
fifty miles to that mountain; he cannot tell. 1t
may be a few hours journey or a two days
ride. One cannot say The vital relation of
this uncertainty to such a necessity as the
water supply is plain. Then there is, of course,
the mirage, apropos of which author says:
II have seen horses hitched to a wagon hanging
high up in the air, with the legs of the horses
twenty feet long and the wagon as large s9a
cabin. Desert cattle in punches of half dozen
in a very astonishing way"
We are told, again. how cacti and greasewood
fight out a desperate existence where no other
vegetation will live, how they protected
from heat. drouth and wild animals Such ami
mails. for some unknown reason. continue to live
there-the mountain lion. the coyote the mule
deer the wolf and the jack rabbit. THE strife
is Desperate writes Mr.. Van Dyke. THE sup
ply of food and moisture is small. the animal is
hun wonder. then.
that there is the determination OF the starving
In all desert lifei Everything pursues or is pur-
sued. Every muscle is strung TO the highest
tension. The bounding deer must get away;
the swift following wolf must not let him. The
gray lizard dashes for a ledge rock, like a
flash of light, but the bayonet bill of the road
runner must catch him before he gets there.
Neither can afford TO miss his mark" 1t is
all strange and curious reading. this book Of the
desert. and has all the fascination of things un-
accustomed
Paul Fountain writes of THE Great Deserts
and Forests of North America" in a very differ
ent vein from Mr.. Van Dyke, and one feels at
times that he has rather misnamed his book, for
he deals at considerable length with such popu-
lous places as Salt Lake City and Carson, New,
which last be describes "a collection of
drinking hells and dives" In justice to Carson
If should be said that Mr.. Fountains visit
deals for the most part with the fora and
fauna, largely the latter, Of the great Western
prairies. the wastes Of Arizona and the Yosem-
ite Valley. The author makes no claim to rank
as a scientific naturalist, yet his observations Of
bird and beast life are close and minute, and,
what is more TO the point in the eyes of the
average reader, set forth in a lucid and
readable way. Not less interesting than his
descriptions of the wild life that still exists is
his picture of the beasts that are extinct or are
rapidly becoming A particularly impress
siye passage is that dealing with the bison:
few weeks after the breaking out Of the
Civil War a party Of scouts riding through the
State of Missouri passed through the main herd
of bison. It was eighty miles long by fifty
broad, and it was ascertained by actual count
ing, roughly calculated, ii is true, yet still by
1,200 head per square mile. This gives the
enormous total OF 4,SO0OO0 head existing
recently as 1861. The railway really
the most deadly enemy the bison ever had. 1t
opened up the prairie country to anybody who
could fire a gun and enabled him TO transport
his spoil to towns where he could coin 1t into
through the herd, and it became a common
occurrence for a train to run among them, kill
ing hundreds and frequently being itself turned
off the track, with occasional loss of life among
the passengers
But Mr. Fountains book is of broad range
and includes such diminutive forms of life as
spiders as well as the bison, which, in it's prime
we are informed, must have been a match for
any wild creature on the North American Con-
tinent The author had his troubles in New
Orleans with centipedes, of which he writes:
1t is all very we'll to be told blandly by gentle
who think they know all about ii that the
bites OF scorpions and centipedes not dan
gerous. II may not be particularly dangerous
to have a redbot wire applied to your flesh, but
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