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Show Arizona's Painted Desert Nature's Mosaic Pavement Rich Silver Mines The Warring Apaches ConqueredTunneling Con-queredTunneling to Find the Greatest Meteor !ts Ravages Desert Laboratory Labora-tory and Volcanic Mountains Strange Flora Innumerable Varieties Odorless for Want of Moisture Medicinal Plants Arizona Desert Supplies Food and: Drink Carnegie Institute Investigating; the Western Desert Deserts of the Earth Larger Than All North America U. S. Reclaiming Arizona Desert Tremendous Tre-mendous Work Building Stone Wall 270 Feet High. x (Special Correspondence of the Intcrmountain 1 Catholic.) ; (Copyrighted.) ' It will be fresh in the memory of . those of " your i readers interested in the archaeological and descriptive de-scriptive articles now appearing from week to week in the Iuterinountain Catholic that I finished j my last correspondence with a brief description of j that strange formation of nature, the Mogolk'ii! mountain. Last week I dwelt upon the wonders of i Arizona. Allow me this morning, even at the risk of tiring your readers. ' to continue and enlarge upon, what I will term, the natural miracles of this extraordinary region. North of Yuma on the Colorado Colo-rado there are hundreds of acres of mosaic pavement pave-ment fashioned from minute cubes of jasper, came-lian came-lian and agate, a flooring of tiny pebbles so hard and nolished that, when swept by the wind, is as visibly compact and regular as if each cube was set in place by an artisan and forced down by a roller. At "times ,this floor of precious stones is entirely hi7Hlen iy tlie sand.'-cbm tf -fierce desert wind enters en-ters and sweeps it clean. Xowhere, unless it be the Giant's Causway, Ireland, have I seen stones laid with such mathematical accuracy. -' In this land of contradictions -is the Painted Desert, with its fantastic surface of ochreous earth, and varieties of marls rivalling the tints and colors of a large palette.. Here, in this weird and singular territory, was opened by the Spaniards the now exhausted and abandoned mines of the Silver King and the Plancha de la Plata, where lumps of virgin silver weighing 2.01)0 pounds were discovered, and the Salero. where in Spanish times the padre, who had charge of the little mission, wishing to entertain with proper respect his bishop who was paying his first visit to the camp, discovered discov-ered when the table was set that there were no saltcellars. salt-cellars. Calling two of his Indian neophytes, he-ordered he-ordered them to dig ore from the mine and hammer ham-mer it into a solid silver basin, which he placed on the table garnished with roses and ferns and presented pre-sented to the bishop when he was leaving for Du-; 'ranfo, his episcopal see. , In 1870 the last herd of wild horses was round-j ed up in Arizona, and here, too. corraled like-the j horses and about the same time are the remnants of the Apaches who, with no weapons save bowsi and arrows, lance, knife and war club, defied forj 2."0 years the fighting men of Spain and the United! States. i The Standard Iron company is now tunneling ' earth near the Diabolo canyon in search of thj greatest meteor ever heard of by meteorologists. ; When this composite visitor struck the earth it cut, a channel J00 feet deep and nearly a mile in length, j The land for miles around wr.s, and is yet, covered' with fragments of this star rock. Some of the?, pieces weighed many tons and when broken up and' reduced ran high in valuable minerals. The size;; of this meteor is said to be enormous and judging: from the value of the ore scattered around tluv great depression the minerals embosomed in theJ meteor will' amount to many millions of dollars.' Distinguished mineralogists of Europe. and Amer-' ica have expressed a wih to be present when the' meteoric wonder is uncovered. Here. also, solidly i perched on the breast of a small'volcanic hill is th. only desert laboratory in the world. This hill pro-: jects from the base of a rugged mountain rassie known as the Tucson and was selected by the Spaniards Span-iards as a site on which to build a blockhouse and; observatory in the days when the Apaches terrified southern Arizona. From the crest of this volcanic mount one may sweep a circular horizon within which repose in awful majesty fifteen ranges of mountains stretching southward into Mexico, northward into Central Arizona and extending toward to-ward the west far into California. Within this circle the Spaniards were making American history his-tory when the states of the east were a wilderness and Xew York had as yet no place on the map of America. The mountains and the deserts remain as they were when the Spanish priest Marco ot Xizza. in 1538. crossed them on his way to the ilouui towns of Qui vera. The vegetation even has undergone no change, for here all around and be- j fore -rou are the giant Suaharos or Candelabrum I castus. the. ocotillo. the Spanish dagger plant with j bavoncts all a-bristle. the palo vcrde. the me-quite. p'icklv pear, saeebrush and all the wonderful van- eties of desert flora for which the Arizona desert j are notorious. f The professor of botany in the I niver-ity o, Arizona tells me there arc in Arizona 3.W0 variu- j (Continued on Page ".) ' ."'' j i 5 ' r I ' ' N. V " ARIZONA'S PAINTED DESERT?-:, ; . . .(Continued, from "Page 1.) ties of flower carrying plants aud : f00 different kinds Of grasses. With the exception of the vdt- . bena and a few" others all the indigenous flowers are odorless owing, it is-said, to the ft&eric6 of moisture mois-ture in the air. All desert plants' are -protected against the greed or hunger 6t, let" lis pay, wauton destruction of man and animal by tnluen or thorns, Miore than 650 varietfe f cactus alano havo been discovered, catalogued and clarified. AH. desert have a botany of thfcir owf: and a flora or infinite poRpibilitieg off value, arid in the deserts of Arb. zona have bcfcVi found plant -of great inedleina.1 value, many of them with 'unique and interesting characteristic. It is a very curious fact that the only variety, of thc .eaetus without thorns known to exist in this region Js found crowing in rock pro-" jections and kdgce : beyond -the; reach of animal?, This was' explained to me on'th .hor,. ;(t some time in the past, this kind of eactii' was coiii-mon coiii-mon enough in ' the mountains but that gophers, rabbits and other desert animals had long ago con- sumed all that could be reached. Ju 'SvilI west" books and even in professedly hisK.i ivul novels oi;c reads occasionally of thi aiid.that family or clii of Indians perishing of hunger or thirst. It is impossible for a normally healthy savage to die of hunger or .perish from thirst on the Arizona deserts. des-erts. The white man? Yes and often, the Indian, never. It is a case of God tempering the V--;U( t(, the shorn lamb or fitting the. back to the burden. Under the thorns of every variety cf cactus there is refreshing, nourishing and indeed palntablc food.'j The desert arid 'mountain tribes knew this from immemorial im-memorial times and until they werv confined t. tin reservations cactus ; food formed a liirye part of their ordinary diet. They had -a wiiy of their ovn of , stripping the -needlea from 'the pbini, reachimr I the pulp and eating if cooked or .'uncooked. There are many ffuit and berry bearing cacti, i and these fruits and berries-were gathered in sen- ' son, eaten raw or boiled and from which u ilriieiou i avrup of juice was . extracted and. an intojiicathig drink called "chaca" distilletl. The pitayha and ' suaharo cacti grow to the height of twenty msd j thirty feet and yield-when properly lapped from! ten to twenty-live gallons of 'p'.'re drinking waler. ; I All desert plants contain a large au;c-ir,jt of mois- : J ture and the professors of the. Carnea'ie desert lab- j orauiry'are now Irving to find out lun-.- these desert j ' plants, especially the cactus, extract water from j parched and sandy soil aud mois tu it froiii hot air. ' j There is a cactus, christx-iicd by t!;e early Spa'.!-j Spa'.!-j iards the "barrel." which 75 per cent water and. j j strange io say, thrive nrki in lit.veles.sly Iuutci! lands in which no water i-f found within hundred-j I of miles and on which no ruin ever i'ulis. ' j i THE DKSEliT LAWOllATORY. The desert laboratory for the study .of the fiora ! of barren lauds is. t lie .property of the Carnegie ', institute at Washington and was founded by .Mr. ! V, V, Coville of the Tinted Slates derisirime nt of j agriculture, and Dr. D. Trembly MacDougal. who ; I was f-r yars a.-jsistant director of the New York i j botanical garden. Dr. MacDougal i now litre in charge of the department of borirnieal research. I In its specialty of purpose there is only one oth-.M' j institution in existence. even collaterally related t;- thh -desert laboratory and that is iho college of science esi.iidished lately in Greenland by the gov ernimjnt- of Denmark for researches in arctic re !! gloits and the study of the flora and fauna of tin far north. This desert laboratory under export bo? ariisis will include in its seojie the physiographi-coi.ditions physiographi-coi.ditions of notable Interest in the two great des : ert areas of western America . dcliminated by th geoioglsi, the' botanist and the geogra)h-r and do-, i ignated as the Sonova Nevada deseri und the Sin ji aloa Chihuahua region of sand. These two iv I gions embrace large SdCtlon' of Idaho, Utah. Ore ; gon, Colorado, Wasulngf on, Nevada. Californi, ! 'Arizona, liaja California. Sonora and Siualoa, ii: , this, clarisificat ion the beds of many ancient la';;?.- . arc included and with them your own yet extstiir i Great Salt, lake. Dr, MacDougal informs mc that j notable features in this vast, body are the Snak j river desert of Idaho, the Kalstoh .and huicls o; i Nevada, the sage fields of Washinctm. the lavf beds of Oregoi:. Death valley, the Mojave desert. ! the Colorado desert, the Painted desert in Arizom1. and New Mexico, the Salton bed and the great So J nora desert of Mexico. In the Califtmiias South- em -and Lower in? dcerL vegetation ami that ol the coast lands -neet bui, e::cepi in rare instances ; nevev assimilate. I was surprised to hear from th- ; disL'r.guiahed proeisor. without doubt you vri!'. be Lo read., that if tlu- deter. a of the earth could br bnejgiit ;i.lo cvi?. area they would form's continc'.:-kvger continc'.:-kvger than ail 'North America. The-wonderful am' peculiar vegetation -of the desert. has time ar.-l again invi.ed and received the sileullon of- IsarnPt; boiEhla-tS, bat not: until the four ding of this Carnegie Car-negie laboratory was any systematic and covriinv.-ous covriinv.-ous study made of desert plant life. The assistani-i in charge of the botanical department correspond r with the famous botanist.:; of the world and . ' daily, snailics: to ?.rd receiving -specimens of decv. i. fioe-?3 aci plants from ail parts of,. Asia, Africi ! a;:d Auiiraiie. " KKDEMPTION OF ARID ' LANDS.' Vc n:s.y Jiitertsii-'.ii?. ysadt-r.-i m the Iiitcrmor.u- . if. in' Caihfjil" A a&7f llu;. ir.. ihe vaiiey of S?.ir. River in Aririous. the . Ciiitcd ' Statei govcrnir.tn.. i'e.'.iamaLio;i service has well under way one of rise mo6.'..- remarirbie cngiirtering - enterprises for tiu irrigation of desert lauds o7e? undertaker., IJeforp a hole was drilled for the , feiuf I work in tin 1-mtisi 1-mtisi inaccesiibibe quarter ov the S&li lliver eaii yor. a vrtigor. road" twsni.V-Cve :n;ic' .io::g had to'-bo blaicd from Tiie -oidc. oC . the fearful gorge, I'lff teen miles of i his' road;-presented .almost ir.au mouhtablo.riilficui'iie.ifor it. had to be run through the wibki-i. ,snd most precipitous portions of the awegoiKC 'canyons. Thwf Wgar. . the hfi'cuit.'Tn task nf preparation for controlling the turbulent waters-of the river .which in the iait aprir.f become a rushinjT iorr&nt, in a narrow part of this canyon the man, nude:; expert hydrrgraphic. and civil engineer.-:, pre now building a . wall of solid maaorry. wiiich. -.vhen pcmpleted. ?iil rs i-o-a height of 270 feci. 1 ; -."lii inclose a lake of atoraged 'vulIbv twenty-ua nliu-d ioir and 300 feft deep. Siuicee-aud' esnsls- !ili carry from this sriiiicid iakn water io tim pf.i'eh.cu 'iandt-, This- govfcrr.r.:?.-;U; 'oniraci. wili - ceit f;,0ti0,00) and will reclaim 200,00 acre-j of arid lar.d. At the southern lev-el of the lake stands the.town nf Hoosevelt, cot very oid ?.s you iuay" judge by the T.?.:r.e, but substantially buiU, , Well, when ihc huge rcievvoir i.4 finished and the waters wa-ters are about .to be -let in, ''Koosevel, -'must go.". .Tnag, Mfrt-it.3,- . . . . " |