The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1905-10-27

thousand feet below us lay the great
sandy desert apparently void of vege..
tation, it's surface broken here n
there by lew volcanic mountains. A
parched region of gray rocks, gray
sand and CHASTITY gray verdureless
mountains. 1t suggested the scenery of
the moon as viewed through a powerful
telescope. In the far eastern distance
was the only refreshing sight, viz: a
lake of fresh water, known as Lake
Salton, and between it and the steep
slope of the Laguna hills, lay the
deathlike desert. Death to many who
tried to cross it without a proper water
supply, or who lost their way and wan
dered vaguely till they lay down to
perish from thirst. A land tenanted by
the scorpion, ~tarantula, centipede, rat
tlesnake, Gila monster, a land whose
soil is salt and where in summer the
torrid heat of day is but little relieved
by the shades of night, where even the
venomous reptiles and other natural
denizens do not issue from under cover
of the hot rocks until after the sun
goes down. A region where the mirage
constantly tempts.. with its elusive
moving pictures, and where wild cleo.
trio storms descending upon the noun
tains blow in w~hirlwinds, like blasts
from an open furnace and cross the
valley without dropping their moisture
which is repulsed from the heated soil.
A region that has lured and slain many
a ~prospector infatuated with the delu-
sion of some ''lost NINE" such as the
"Pegleg' fake. Gold does exist, how
ever, in this region, but. it takes a
borlx- ~ ~ live +hara on6 h,,nt far
it. Other mineral elements, such as
salt, borax and gypsum, abound. Life,
however, by those who have tried it, is
said not to be so unbearable as might
be supposed. Summer is certainly hot,
day and night, but winter is delightful,
and there are even rainy seasons imme-
diately after which the desert is
changed into a flower garden. In proof
of which we have seen a beautiful coli
lection of pressed flowers collected By
a lady, who with her husband, passed.
many seasons in the desert.
Animal life, apart from reptiles, is
fairly represented. There is a very
beautiful little fox and numbers If
coyotes and herds of wild donkeys, also
countless rats with bushy tails, who
make their burrows under the roots of
the desert shrubs, carefully protecting
the entrance to their holes from the in
%trusion of snakes and other reptiles by
cactus spines. F1ocks of California
quail with graceful little top-knots on
their heads like miniature parasols,
abound, and sometimes when one of the
cIud-burst storms characteristic of the
region deluges the area and turns it
for a brief time into a shallow temper
airy lake of ~"playa'' thousands of
these birds are driven before the edge
of the water. Reptiles abound and
venomous insects, such as rattlesnakcs,
ella monsters, Ga species of venomous
lizard), and occasionally genuine SER
penis Of great size. A friend, who
mined for some time in the region, saw
on one occasion at least fourteen feet
of a huge serpent climbing up the al
most perpendicular wall of a canon,
and did not see the rest of the tail.
These serpents are called king snakes
and are said to devour the rattlers.
Scorpions and centipedes are found
under almost every, stone; the bite of
the scorpion is not fatal, but is like
that of a hornet. The tarantulas, or
big spiders, attain in the desert a great
size. When it rains, it rains hard, and
the showers are mostly in the form of
c~loudbursts, tearing down the hills,
cutting out rapidly a ravine before
them, and hurting along in their
course rocks many tons in weight.
Good water can generally be found
at no great depth by digging wells, and
water is generally found at an early
period in the mines. My friend, before
mentioned, for some time in charge of
the mines, related a curious experience.
BY wells and from the mines they were
well supplied with water even suf-
ficient for milling, but when the great
earthquake of 1899, that so severely
shook the Pacific coast, occurred, the
shocks crossed the desert with great
severity. A small low range of hills
is saiu to nave completely disappeared,
and all the springs in the vicinity ran
dry, 50 much so that the mines had to
be shut down and have continued so
ever since. The stations along the
Santa Fe nave no difficulty in obtain
ing water by wells and pumps.
Toward the southern portion Of the
desert area, so-called mud volcanoes or
@ salses' occur, throwing up mud ac-
~companied by gas from miniature era
ters which are painted in brilliant
%colors by the chemical ingredients and
oxidation of material elected.
The desert is not lacking in rich de-
posts of mineral, as shown by the
Johannesburg and Ransburg mines.
The other economics are principally
salt, borax and inter.
One of the most beautiful sights of
the desert is the ''after-glow.' just
after the sun goes down the crests of
the mountains are ablaze with rose,
orange and gold, while the TANKS of the
mountains and the valleys are in deep
violet shadow. Darkness quickly fol-
lows, the criekets begin to tune up,
and the denizens of this weird region
crawl out from under the hot rocks and
hold high carnival in the moonlight.