Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-21
THE GREAT DESERTS
How It is Believed They
Were Formed.
AREAS BELOW THE SEA
DIGGING SALT LIKE FROZEN
SNOW.
Some Thriving Towns, With News
papers and Churches-The Great
Borax Industry.
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.

| 6OyU6 xuOUSITys
| BY WILLIAM F.. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence Of The Star and the Chicago
| Record Herald.
THE NEEDLES, Cal, August IA, 1905.
| 1t is believed that the Gulf of California
once extended northward into the interior
of Nevada, where the new gold regions are.
| and that ages ago. the slit brought down
| by the Colorado river in carving the grand
| canyon was deposited at the head Of the
present gulf. 1t formed first bar and
| then dam. leaving great inland sea COW
| ering the eastern part of southern Cali
| fornia, the southern part of Nevada and
| the southwestern part of Arizona. The
| water thus confined gradually evaporated.
| with the exception of what is known as the
! SaIton sea- a salt lake on the Southern Pa
| ciflc railroad west of Yuma, 263 feet below
| the level of the Pacific ocean. Other points
! are still lower-lower than any other land
! on the American continent-the lowest be-
| ing $50 feet below the level of the Gulf of
| California. There spots in the great
| Sa hara desert of Africa which are cOnsid-
| erably lower. as Is also the Dead sea; and
| the Caspian sea is considerably lower than
| the Mediterranean.
| The area formerly occupied by the Gulf
| of California is now called the Colorado
| desert the Mohave desert, the Nevada
| desert and Death valley. During the past
| few weeks there has been a great deal of
| trouble around the Salton sea, and at one
| time it feared that this great depres-
| sion in the earths surface would be filled
| with fresh water. The volume of water in
| the Colorado river varies in different sea-
| sons Occasionally there is a flood, similar
| TO that which has occurred recently. This
| flood, flowing through an irrigation canal,
| caused break in it's banks and let the
| water into the desert, that the Salton
sea has risen more than twenty feet. 1t
! now covers more than twice its usual area,
| and has compelled the Southern Pacific
railroad to abandon its tracks and build
| new line at a considerable distance above
! the high water. The irrigation company
| and the railroad company have gained
| control of the break and have stopped the
flood. and they expect that the Salton sea
| will subside to it's usual level before many
| weeks.
Two Previous Floods.
| Twice before within the memory of man
| have similar floods occurred. In June, 1891,
| the laborers a the salt mines of Salton
| were driven from their work by an unex-
| pected flow of water. 1t was discovered
| that the colorado river had broken its
| banks and was cutting channel across the
desert. The Salton sea became thirty miles
| longer, ten miles wider and six feet deeper
| than it had ever been before. but after the
| flood had subsidized the thirsty atmosphere
| drank up the extra water very rapidly and
| within eight or nine months the sea had
been reduced by evaporation to its. normal
| size. There is a tradition also that a sim
| liar nundaton occurred in 1s43.
| Several firms have been digging salt out
| of the desert, where it lies like frozen
| snow from five to twenty inches thick over
| thousand acres or more. 1t is broken
| up by steam gang plows, scraped into heaps,
| loaded into wagons and carted to reduction
works. where it is purified for shipment to
| market and brings from So to $36 a ton.
according to its quality. The Coachella val
| ley, In which the best salt Is found, has fire.
| quent marshes where by some mysterious
| process salt accumulates upon the surface
| of the earth Six or eight months after 1t
| is ploWed up and removed another crop will
| form. This has been going on for nearly
| twenty years. The same phenomenon ap-
| pears in the Pitch lake of the Island of
| Trinidad. AS often as the deposit is re-
| moved 1t forms again, being apparently
pushed up from the earth below by some
| mysterious force.
| Salt harvests, however not agreeable
| labor. The temperature seldom goes be-
| low 10 in the shade, night or day, and
| often reaches 125 and 1870 degrees. White
| men cannot endure the heat. The work Is
| done by Mexicans, Indians Japanese and
| Chinese laborers, and they cannot stand II
| long 1t is equivalent to suicide for man
| to remain in the salt marshes for more than
| three four months
| During the floods labor has been suspend
| ed in all of these mines, and, as l have
| already told you the Southern Pacific rail-
| road has been compelled to rebuild several
| miles of it's tracks on higher ground But
| the damage suffered in those particulars
| has been trifling compared with the losses
| of the irrigation companies and their pa
irons, and at present no one can tell how
| much those are. Something will have to be
| done to protect them against recurrence
! of the floods. particularly because the gov
| eminent is about to expend several mil
| lions of dollars in storage reservoirs which
| will reclaim from the desert nearly TWO mil
| lion acres of land.
The Colorado River.
| The Colorado is a terrible river. 1t is one
! of the largest In the United States. 1t falls
| 1000 feet in pit miles and during that dis
| lance there are twenty-five cataracts and
| 500 rapids Major Powell describes the fe-
| rocity OF its waters in his reports of the two
| voyages he made through the Grand Can
| yon He lost several of his men in the
| rapids, where large number of people have
| been drowned from time to time. There are
| no survivors OF at least two expeditions
| which started out to explore the canyon.
| The spring floods are terrible, and the peo-
| pie at Hotel Ell Eovar say that the rise in
| the gorge below them is often seventy-nve
| and even a hundred feet. For months at
| time it Is impossible to cross the Colorado.
| The geological survey keeps boat built or
| steel plates anchored at the foot of Bright
| Angel trail. to be handy when needed.
| The measurements show that in July 1907,
| the flow of the river averaged only 13,OOo
cubic feet per second while. during the
| same month in 1903 1T averaged 10000 cubic
| feet per second. To catch this water and
| store it for irrigation a dam will be built al
| Yuma; bu the irrigation engineers insist
| that it must be reinforced by other dams
| several hundred miles farther up the
stream and even in some of its tributaries;
for 1t receives the waters of five other great
rivers-the Green the Grand. the Gunnison,
the Virgin and the ella. 1t Is considered
necessary to construct storage reservoirs on
both the Green and the Grand rivers, and
also somewhere In of the canyons of the
Colorado in Utah. to hold back the rush of