The Mystic Mid-Region: The Deserts of the Southwest
9781465670434
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Between the lofty ranges of mountains which mark the western boundary of the great Mississippi Valley and the chain of peaks known as the Coast Range, whose western sunny slopes look out over the waters of the placid Pacific, lies a vast stretch of country once known as the "Great American Desert." A few years ago, before the railroad had pierced the fastness of the great West, explorers told of a vast waste of country devoid of water and useful vegetation, the depository of fields of alkali, beds of niter, mountains of borax, and plains of poison-impregnated sands. The bitter sage, the thorny cacti, and the gnarled mesquite were the tantalizing species of herbs said to abound in the region, and the centipede, the rattlesnake, tarantula, and Gila monster represented the life of this desolate territory. More recently, as the railroads have spanned the continent at different points, we have knowledge of several deserts. There are the "Nevada Desert," the "Black Rock Desert," the "Smoke Creek Desert," the "Painted Desert," the "Mojave Desert," the "Colorado Desert," etc.; the "Great American Desert" being the name now applied to that alkali waste west of Salt Lake in Utah. As a matter of fact, however, these are but local names for a great section of arid country in the United States from two hundred to five hundred miles wide, and seven hundred to eight hundred miles long, and extending far down into Mexico, unbroken save for an occasional oasis furnished by nature, or small areas made habitable by irrigation. Where the old Union Pacific drew its sinuous line across the northern section of the desert, a trail of green spots was left to mark the various watering-stations for the engines. The Southern Pacific railroad left a similar line of oases down through the Colorado Desert, and the Santa Fé, in like manner, dotted with green spots the Great Mojave Desert. The water at these stations is obtained in some instances by drilling wells, and where it can not be obtained in this manner it is hauled in tank cars from other points.
