Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1906-06-23

One hundred and eighty miles out on
1.-THE California desert from Los Angeles
along the line of the Santa Fe's new
cutoff from Parker, on the Colorado
river, to Bengal, on the company q
main line in California, lies the largest
mineral deposit in the world.
Beside it the Anaconda and the Cop
per Queen and the Yellow Aster, and
all the rest of them, f-om the Rand
of Africa, to the Rand of California,
are dwarfed. And yet it produces
neither gold, silver nor copper. Dandy
lake, men of the desert call it, and as
vet its vast extent lies fallow to de-
velopment. When the railroads came
its day will begin.
Imagine if you can, long, low basin,
set amid mile on mile of sterile lava
hills. For twelve miles orth or south
by four or five miles east and west,
| it lies, a shimmering white mass, de-
luNAHk tHt AAaftlCl WIN mas WdnuOItO
far from his course into believeing that
it is water. On it waves seem to rise
and roll and be lost in the interminable
distances. Yet in reality, it is solid
mass-tbe dried out bed of an old
Juro-triassac lake, into which for CEN
turies untold have poured the streams
of surrounding hills. To it each one of
these has brought its quota of mineral
matter leached from the deposits left
by the going down of this great prehis-
toric sea. And then, finally, it, too,
gave up its waters to the sun and the
winds and became what it now is--a
rough crust of salines, deceptive in ap-
pearance, waterless, treeless, lifeless,
the Dead sea of all Southwestern des-
erts
A Wonderful Petriied Lake.
Sixty square miles it lies, washing
with motionless, noiseless waves the
shores of it's bed. Here and there
around the edge the sands of the des-
ert have drifted in and covered up
bit of it but not much. For the most
part it lies in pristine purity, petri-
fed lake of salt and soda, holding in
its death-like silence the wealth of
many men when wate- and refneries
and transportation shall have been
brought to it.
The history of this lake, could man
pick it out of the Oblivion of the CEN
turtles which cumber il, would lay bare
strang tales. Stories of that myster-
ious people who lived and loved and
died along it's shores while yet Galileo
toyed with his experimental globes.
would be woven in with it-peoples
that are passed forever from the ken
of man.
But the lake itself, without its his
tory, tells it's own story-the most in
teresting scheme of its creation. To-
gether with Mono lake, Death Valley, |
Owens Lake, Salton Sea and the great |
Salt Lake of Utah, it joins in the dis
tinction of being one of the lowest !
spots on the North American continent, |
,ne of the places where fingered long |
EST the waters of the Juro.t-iassic sea. ]
To get to the bottom of this lake
and this is no joke, either-one must go |
iown to bedrock. The bedrock of the
lesert is petrifed clay, sort of hard
pan, thick or thin, as the case may be |
"a perfect cement, made by nature in
ier laboratory of the under world.
On this hardpan, worn into the shape |
VI great bowl by centuries beneath !
,he waves of that mighty sea, is laid
/ mass of thin, Shiny mud. In some
places few feet deep, in others going |
lown beyond the power of man to
Numbers of sections of the |
ahe bed have been probed to the depth
If 800 feet, and bottom was then un-
.ouehed.
Crust Continually Forming.
From this lake of mud crystalline
natter is constantly being exudedl
This, rising to the surface, hardens,
nto the white crust over which pros
sectors and desert travellers have been
Walking for yefrs, all unmindful Of the
asst wealth that lay beneath them. In
'laces this crust or she'll is but a few
inches thick, and under these, of course,
here is but little of the mud Out in
he middle Of the lake, however, there
re- places where the crystals have
ormed floor three and four feet