Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1908-04-25
HORROR OF THE DESERT.
Deserts Mean General Unacceptable
Death Grip on the World.

Death Grip on the World.
From Percival Lowells Mars and the Frs
ture OF the Earth" in the Century.
Deserts already exist on the earth.
and the nameless horror that at
taches to the word in the thoughts
of all who have had experience OF
them, or are gifted with Imagination
to conceive, is in truth greater than
we commonly suppose. For the cos
mic circumstances about them which
is most terrible is not that deserts
are, but that deserts have begun to
be. Not as local, eyitable evils ara
they only to be pictured, but as ths
general unacceptable death grip on
our world. For It is the beginning
OF the end What depauperates the
forests to grass lands, and thence to
wastes. must in turn attack the sea
kS rEEhen they shall have parted
IA 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 sim drain into
them, eventually they must share
the fortune of their predecessors, and
the planet roll parched orb through
space The picture Is forbidding;
but the fact seems one to which we
are eonstruetively pledged and into
which we are In some sort already ad-
yentuFed.
Girdling the earth with what Il
takes but little peFsonifeatiOn to
liken to the life-extinguishing ser.
pent's coils, run two desert belts OF
country. The one follows, roughly
speaking, the Tropic Of Cancer. exl
tending northward from it; the other.
the Tropic of Capricorn. Arizona Is
in the northern band, as are the Sa.
hara, Arabia and the deserts of Cen
trail Asia.
Now these desert belts are grow
ing. In the great desert OF Northern
Arizona the traveller, threading his
way across a sagebrush and oacd
plain shut in by abrupt-sided shelves
of land rising here and there some
hundreds of feet higher, suddenly
comes upon a petrifed forest.
Trunks of trees in all stages OF
fracture strew the ground over a
space some miles in extent. So per-
feet are their forms, he is almost
minded to think the usual wasteful
woodchopper has been by and left
the scattered products of his art ia
Uttered confusion upon the scene Of
his exploit. Only their beautiful
color conveys a sense of strangeness
to the eye, and leaning down and
touching them, he finds that they ara
stone. Chalcedony. not carbon!
Form has outIived substance and kept
the emblance, 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 be-
fell, and the torrent, uprooting it, left
prone, with limbs outstretched in fu-
tile grasp upon the other side. A
confer it was, cousin only to such as
grow to-day, and tiourished probably
in the Cretaceous era; for the land
has not been under water here since
the advent of Tertiary times.
| Nowhere near it, except for the
rare cottonwoods along the banks of
the Little Colorado, grows anything
to-day. The land which once sup
ported these forests is incompetent
to do so now. Yet nothing has
changed there since except the de-
creasing water supply. During Ter
| tiary and Quarternary time the rain
fall has been growing less and less.
| Proof of this is offered by the great
| pine oasis that caps the plateau Of
which these petrifed forests form
part, and Is kerneled by the San
Francisco peaks. The height above
sea level of the spot where the ohal-
cedony trunks are strewn is about
$500 feet; the lower present limit
of the pine in its full development is
| $500 feet. Two thousand feet up
ward the verdure line has retreated
since the former forests were, And
this is no local alteration, for upon
the other side of the plateau petri-
fed remains of trees are similarly
found.
The line of perpetual green has
risen because in desert regions the
moisture is found most plentiful near
est to the clouds from which it falls
upon parching earth. Streams, in-
stead of gathering volume as they
go, are the largest near their source,
and grow less and less with each
fresh mile of flow. The brooks de.
scending from the Anti-Lebanon, in
Syria, water the gardens Of Damas,
Gus, 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
1t but too well.