The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1908-05-22
THE DYING
EARTH
according to This ThBofy The
Deserts Are Spreading.
IssEsslf

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 con-
ceiye is in truth greater than We COM
monty suppose. For the cosmic cir
c1mstance about them which is most
TERRIBLE is not that deserts are but
that deserts have begun to be. Not
as local evitable evils are they only
to be pictured but as the general UNI
eseapable 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 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 pic
ture is forbidding; but the fact seems
one to which we are constructively
pledged and into which we are in
some sort already adventured.
Gdrdling the earth with what it
takes but little personiication 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 in the north
ern band, as are the Sahara, Arabia
and the deserts of Central Asia.
Now, these desert belts are grow
ing. In the great desert OF northern
Arizona the traveller threading his
way across a sage-brush and cacti
plain shut in by abrupt sided shelves
of land rising here and there some
hundreds of feet higher, suddenly
comes upon a petrified 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
wood chopper has been by and left
the scattered products of his art in
Uttered confusion upon the scene OF
his exploit. Only their beautiful color
conveys sense of strangeness to the
eye, and leaning down and touching
them he finds that they are-stone.
Chalcedony, not carbon! Form has
outlived substance and kept the re-
semblance, while the particles of the
original matter have all been spirit
ed away. Yet SO perfect is the pre-
sentiment ONE can hardly believe the
fact, and where one fallen giant spans
q 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 it
prone. with limbs outstretched in fu-
tile grasp upon the other side. A
conifer it was, cousin only to such
as grow today, and fiourished prob
ably 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 bank OF
the Little Colorado, grows anything
today. The land which cnce sup
ported these forests is incompetent
to do SO now Yet nothing has chang
ed there since except the decreasing
water supply. 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 plateau Of which
these petrified forests form part
and IS kernelled by the San Francisco
peaks. The height above sea level or
the spot where the chalcedony trunks
are strewn is about 1880 feet; the
lower present limit of the pine in its
null development is $500 feet. Two
Thousand feet upward the verdure line
has retreated since the former for
ests were. And this is no local alter
alton, Tor upon the other side OF the
plateau petrified remains OF trees
are similarly found.
The line of perpetual green has ris-
en- because in desert regions the mois-
ture is found most plentiful nearest.
to the clouds, from which it falls upon
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
now The brooks descending from the
Anti-Lebanon, in Syria, water the gsr-
dens Of Damascus, and, thence issu-
ing upon the plain, lose themselves
Just beyond the threshold of its gates.
So in the Arizona desert, though in
a less degree. and those who live
there know 1t but too well.-Century
coNNEcTIcuT's NEW STONE
RRlnEE