Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-04-14
THE. DYING EARTH.

THE. DYING EARTH.
According to This Theory the Desert:
Are Spreading.
Deserts already exist on the earth
and the nameless horror that attaches
to the word in the thoughts Of all whC
have had experience Of them are gift.
ed with imagination to conceive Is In
truth greater than we commonly sup.
pose. For the cosmic circumstance
about them which Is most terrible Is
not that deserts are but that deserts
have begun to be. Not as local, cvi.
table evils are they only to be pictured
but as the general unacceptable death
grip on our world. For it is the be-
ginning Of the end. What depauper-
ates the forests to grass lands and
thence to wastes must in turn attack
the sea bottoms when they shall have
parted with their seas Last of the
fertile spots upon the planet because
Of the salts the streams have for ages
washed down and of the remnant OF
moisture that would still drain into
them, eventually they must share the
fortune Of their predecessors and The
planet roll a parched orb through
space. The picture Is forbidding: but
the fact seems one to which we are in
some sort already adventured.
Girdling the earth with what il
takes but little personification to liken
to the life extinguishing serpent's
coils run two desert belts Of country
The one follows. roughly speaking
the Tropic Of Cancer, extending north
ward from it; the other. the Tropic OF
Capricorn. Arizona is I'm the northern
band, as are the Sahara, Arabia and
the deserts Of central Asia.
Now. these desert belts are growing
In the great desert Of northern Arizo-
ma the traveller. threading his way
across a sagebrush and cacti plain
shut in by abrupt sided shelves of land
rising here and there some hundreds
Of feet higher, suddenly comes upon
petrllled forest.
Trunks of trees in all stages of
fracture strew the ground over a
space Of some miles in extent. So per-
feet are their forms he is almost
minded to think the usual wasteful
wood chopper has been by and left the
scattered products of his art in litter
cd Of hi
ploit. Only their beautiful color con-
veys a sense Of strangeness to the eye
and leaning down and touching them
he finds that they are-stone. Chalce-
substance and kept the resemblance,
while the particles of the original
matter have all been spirited away
Yet so perfect is the presentment one
can hardly believe the fact, and where
one fallen giant spans a little canon
one almost thinks to hear the sound
Of water rushing down the creek
But it is some millions of years and
more since this catastrophe befell
and the torrent uprooting it left 1t
prone, with limbs outstretched in fu-
tile grasp upon the other side. A con-
ifer it was. cousin only to such as
grow today, and f1ourished probably
in the CretaceOus era, for the land has
not been under water here since the
advent Of tertiary times.
Nowhere near 1t, except for the rare
cottonwoods along the bank Of the
Little Colorado. grows anything to-
day. The land which once supported
these forests Is incompetent to do SO
now. Yet nothing has changed there
since except the decreasing water sup
ply. During tertiary and quarternary
time the rainfall has been growing less
and less Proof of this is offered by
the great pine oasis that caps the pla-
teau of which these petrified forests
form n part and is kernelled by the
San Francisco peaks The height
above sea level Of the spot where the
chalcedony trunks are strewn is
about $500 feet: the lower present
limit of the pine in its full develop
ment is $500 feet. Two thousand feet
upward the verdure line has retreated
since the former forests were. And
the other side of the plateau petrified
remains of trees are similarly found.
this is no local alteration, for upon
The line Of perpetual green has risen
because i'm desert regions the moisture
is found most plentiful nearest to the
clouds. from which it falls upon a
parching earth. Streams instead of
gathering volume as they go are larg-
est near their source, and grow less
and less with each fresh mile of flow.
The brooks descending from the Anti
Lebanon in Syria. water the gardens
Of Damascus, and, thence issuing upon
The plain, lose themselves just beyond
the threshold of its gates. SO in the
Arizona desert, though in less de-
gree. and those who live there know
it but too well.-Century.