The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-26

ure at the prisoners taking exercise. We race for miles over a barren dessert of mesquite ad sage brush. Sudden ly the terrain becomes rougher, barren washed buttes and valleys. Again we fly over mountains looking down on colleries and at last drop into valley with high hills on either side. Rock Springs. The mail hangar is on a desert four miles from town.
 Our iinx is still with us. When we attempted to leave Rock Springs for Salt Lake City our motor acts crankily. We must stay overnight. Sunday we will proceed with the regular west bound mail plane.
 Hurdle Sheer Mountains
 We hurdle the Table mountains to the west, rising almost sheer, and soon are racing over a barren desert with hardly a trace of foliage. For miles we follow over dry river beds and sand dunes, not a habitation in sight for al- most 100 miles. Thin blue haze marks the distant mountains except for the higher peaks that tower blond and bright, sharply outlined, above the skyline.
 We hurdle the hump at 7,500 feet altitude to drop into a valley of heavy brown mist, almost impenetrable. Be- low a city appears through the haze, the spires of the Mormon church, the state capitol of Utah, orderly streets and fine buildings, Salt Lake City, The brown haze, we are told, IS from the belching smoke of a score ot smelters.
 We pick up the next relay to Elko, New, and ride with the mail plane out over Great Salt Lake. The haze persists, changing from brown to blue, until it is impossible to define where the lake ends and the haze begins. We are in the midst of basin ot blue mist, with the brown peaks rising above into the sunlight on all sides.
 We drop behind some hills and emerge over a whitened desert, desert of salt. For miles we race above the surface ; mountain is a broom island in the midst of the salty desert.
 That nasty hump is the Ruby noun tain, We glide down it's side and into Elko-with the jinx still with us. We overshoot the landing field and come up in an arroyo with a tear of the wing fabric, necessitating patch.
 Another bleak and barren journey confronts us from Elko to Reno, Nev. For more than fifty miles we climb over one mountain range after another, round rain washed slopes with ugly crags and precipices. Our altitude is constant at $500 feet and the valleys between are inhospitable.
 We shoot over another mountain range and into a salt valley. The val ley broadens into Truckee meadows, fertile farms and grazing fields with two small deep blue lakes to the north. Again a grim mountain barrier blocks our flight. We climb to 7,500 feet and glide down a narrow valley into Reno, New, a pretty and prosperous town surrounded by mountain ranges. To the west of the Sierra Nevadas rear their lofty summits, still blocking the way to the coast.
 11,5OO Feet Over Summit
 San Francisco is less than POO miles away. There is but one more hump to hurdle. We climb and climb intermin- ably. Lesser mountains slide away be meath. The altimeter registers 11,5O0 feet as we glide over the top. This is indeed the top of the world. It would almost be possible to glide the 15O miles into San Francisco.
 We head over San Francisco Bay. The military penal island of Alcatraz is beneath us. The hills and tall buildings of San Francisco loom ahead. We point the nose of our plane north and drop down on to Crissey Field.
 Our actual flying time has been 30 hours and p minutes, exactly four kours less than the mail schedule. Our elapsed time is best forgotten.