Project Gutenberg's The Western United States, by Harold Wellman Fairbanks
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Title: The Western United States
A Geographical Reader
Author: Harold Wellman Fairbanks
Release Date: August 13, 2007 [EBook #22302]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WESTERN UNITED STATES ***
Produced by Robert J. Hall
[Illustration: THE TWINS, BLUFF CITY, UTAH
The distance from the bottom of the cliff to the top of the erosion
columns is 275 feet.
_Frontispiece_]
THE WESTERN
UNITED STATES
_A GEOGRAPHICAL READER_
BY
HAROLD WELLMAN FAIRBANKS, PH.D.
AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF OUR MOTHER EARTH," "HOME GEOGRAPHY," "STORIES
OF ROCKS AND MINERALS," "PHYSIOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA," ETC.
BOSTON, U.S.A.
D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS
1904
PREFACE
In the preparation of this book the author has had in mind the
needs of the upper grammar grades. The subject matter has not been
selected with the object of covering the field of Western geography
in a systematic manner, but instead the attempt has been made to
picture as graphically as may be some of its more striking and
interesting physical features, and the influence which these features
have exerted upon its discovery and settlement.
Those subjects have been presented which have more than local interest
and are illustrative of world-wide principles. Clear conceptions
of the earth and man's relation to it are not gained by general
statements as readily as by the comprehensive study of concrete
examples.
Nowhere outside of the Cordilleran region are to be found so remarkable
illustrations of the growth and destruction of physical features, or
so clear examples of the control which physical features exercise
over the paths of exploration, settlement, and industrial development.
The fact that the West furnishes a wealth of material for geography
teaching has long been recognized in a general way, although there
has been but little attempt to present this material in a form
suitable for the use of schools.
The illustrations are, with few exceptions, from the author's own
photographs, and the descriptions are made up from his personal
observations. Since the illustrations are numerous and have been
selected with much care, it is hoped that they will add greatly
to the value of the text. They should be _used_, and a proper
understanding of the pictures made a part of every lesson.
CONTENTS
THE WORK OF THE COLORADO RIVER
A TRIP INTO THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO
HOW THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU WAS MADE
THE CAÑONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
AN OREGON GLACIER
SOMETHING ABOUT EARTHQUAKES AND MOUNTAIN BUILDING
THE LAST VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
THE MUD VOLCANOES OF THE COLORADO DESERT
THE HISTORY OF A COAST LINE
THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER
THE GREAT BASIN AND ITS PECULIAR LAKES
FRÉMONT'S ADVENTURES IN THE GREAT BASIN
THE STORY OF GREAT SALT LAKE
THE SKAGIT RIVER
THE STORY OF LAKE CHELAN
THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK
THE RUSSIANS IN CALIFORNIA
DEATH VALLEY
THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
THE LIFE OF THE DESERT
THE PONY EXPRESS
HOW CLIMATE AND PHYSICAL FEATURES INFLUENCED THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
WEST
THE LIFE OF THE PROSPECTOR
GOLD AND GOLD-MINING
COPPER-MINING
COAL AND PETROLEUM
THE CLIMATE OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
SOMETHING ABOUT IRRIGATION
THE LOCATION OF THE CITIES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
THE FOREST BELT OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
THE NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES
THE WESTERN UNITED STATES
THE WORK OF THE COLORADO RIVER
The Colorado River is not old, as we estimate the age of rivers.
It was born when the Rocky Mountains were first uplifted to the
sky, when their lofty peaks, collecting the moisture of the storms,
sent streams dashing down to the plains below. Upon the western
slope of the mountains a number of these streams united in one
great river, which wound here and there, seeking the easiest route
across the plateau to the Gulf of California.
At first the banks of the river were low, and its course was easily
turned one way or another. From the base of the mountains to the
level of the ocean there is a fall of more than a mile, so that the
river ran swiftly and was not long in making for itself a definite
channel.
Many thousands of years passed. America was discovered. The Spaniards
conquered Mexico and sent expeditions northward in search of the cities
of Cibola, where it was said that gold and silver were abundant.
One of these parties is reported to have reached a mighty cañon,
into which it was impossible to descend. The cañon was so deep
that rocks standing in the bottom, which were in reality higher
than the Seville cathedral, appeared no taller than a man.
Another party discovered the mouth of the river and called it,
because of their safe arrival, The River of Our Lady of Safe Conduct.
They went as far up the river as its shallow waters would permit,
but failed to find the seven cities of which they were in search,
and turned about and went back to Mexico. For years afterward the
river remained undisturbed, so far as white men were concerned.
A great part of the stream was unknown even to the Indians, for
the barren plateaus upon either side offered no inducements to
approach.
Trappers and explorers in the Rocky Mountains reached the head
waters of the river nearly one hundred years ago, and followed
the converging branches down as far as they dared toward the dark
and forbidding cañons. It was believed that no boat could pass
through the cañons, and that once launched upon those turbid waters,
the adventurer would never be able to return.
The Colorado remained a river of mystery for nearly three centuries
after its discovery. When California and New Mexico had become a
part of the Union, about the middle of the last century, the cañon
of the Colorado was approached at various points by government
exploring parties, which brought back more definite reports concerning
the rugged gorge through which the river flows.
In 1869 Major Powell, at the head of a small party, undertook the
dangerous trip through the cañon by boat. After enduring great
hardships for a number of weeks, the party succeeded in reaching
the lower end of the cañon. Major Powell's exploit has been repeated
by only one other company, and some members of this party perished
before the dangerous feat was accomplished.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO
The work of a river]
The Colorado is a wonderful stream. It is fed by the perpetual snows
of the Rocky Mountains. For some distance the tributary streams
flow through fertile valleys, many of them now richly and widely
cultivated. But soon the branches unite in one mighty river which,
seeming to shun life and sunlight, buries itself so deeply in the
great plateau that the traveller through this region may perish
in sight of its waters without being able to descend far enough
to reach them. After passing through one hundred miles of cañon,
the river emerges upon a desert region, where the rainfall is so
slight that curious and unusual forms of plants and animals have
been developed, forms which are adapted to withstand the almost
perpetual sunshine and scorching heat of summer.
Below the Grand Cañon the river traverses an open valley, where
the bottom lands support a few Indians who raise corn, squashes,
and other vegetables. At the Needles the river is hidden for a
short time within cañon walls, but beyond Yuma the valley widens,
and the stream enters upon vast plains over which it flows to its
mouth in the Gulf of California.
No portion of the river is well adapted to navigation. Below the
cañon the channels are shallow and ever changing. At the mouth,
enormous tides sweep with swift currents over the shallows and
produce foam-decked waves known as the "bore."
Visit the Colorado River whenever you will, at flood time in early
summer, or in the fall and winter when the waters are lowest, you
will always find it deeply discolored. The name "Colorado" signifies
red, and was given to the river by the Spaniards. Watch the current
and note how it boils and seethes. It seems to be thick with mud. The
bars are almost of the same color as the water and are continually
changing. Here a low alluvial bank is being washed away, there a
broad flat is forming. With the exception of the Rio Grande in
New Mexico, and the Gila, which joins the Colorado at Yuma, no
other river is known to be so laden with silt. No other river is
so rapidly removing the highlands through which it flows.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--LOOKING DOWN THE COLORADO RIVER FROM ABOVE
THE NEEDLES]
Over a large portion of the watershed of the Colorado the rainfall
is light. This fact might lead one to think that upon its slopes
the work of erosion would go on more slowly than where the rainfall
is heavy. This would, however, be a wrong conclusion, for in places
where there is a great deal of rain the ground becomes covered
with a thick growth of vegetation which holds the soil and broken
rock fragments and keeps them from being carried away.
The surface of the plateaus and lower mountain slopes in the basin
of the Colorado are but little protected by vegetation. When the rain
does fall in this arid region, it often comes with great violence.
The barren mountain sides are quickly covered with trickling streams,
which unite in muddy torrents in the gulches, carrying along mud,
sand, and even boulders in their rapid course; the torrents in
turn deliver a large part of their loads to the river. As the rain
passes, the gulches become dry and remain so until another storm
visits the region. It is storming somewhere within the basin of
the Colorado much of the time, for the river drains two hundred
and twenty-three thousand square miles. So it comes about that
whether one visits the river in winter or summer one always finds
it loaded with mud.
But what becomes of all this mud? The river cannot drop it in the
narrow cañons. It is not until the river has carried its load of
mud down to the region about its mouth, where the current becomes
sluggish, that the heavy brown burden can be discharged. Dip up
a glassful of the water near the mouth of the river, and let it
settle, then carefully remove the clear water and allow the sediment
in the bottom to dry. If the water in the glass was six inches
deep, there will finally remain in the bottom a mass of hardened
mud, which will vary in amount with the time of the year in which
the experiment is performed, but will average about one-fiftieth
of an inch in thickness. Each cubic foot of the water, then, must
contain nearly six cubic inches of solid sediment or silt.
It has been estimated that the average flow of the Colorado River
at Yuma throughout the year is eighteen thousand cubic feet of
water per second. From this fact we can calculate that there would
be deposited at the mouth of the river every year, enough sediment
to lie one foot deep over sixty-six square miles of territory.
Nearly one three-hundredth part of the Colorado River water is
silt, while in the case of the Mississippi the silt forms only one
part in twenty-nine hundred.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--LOOKING TOWARD THE DELTA OF THE COLORADO
FROM YUMA]
Now we are prepared to understand the origin of the vast lowlands
about the head of the Gulf of California. Long ago this gulf extended
one hundred and fifty miles farther north than it does at present,
so that it reached nearly to the place where the little town of
Indio now stands in the northern end of the Colorado desert.
When the Colorado River first began to flow, it emptied its waters
into the gulf not far from the spot where Yuma is situated. The
water was probably loaded with silt then as it is now. Part of
this sediment was dropped at the mouth of the stream, while part
was spread by the currents over the bottom of the adjoining portions
of the gulf. The rapidly growing delta crept southward and westward
into the gulf. As fast as the sediment was built up above the reach
of the tide, vegetation appeared, which, retarding the flow of
the water at times of flood, aided the deposition of silt and the
building up of the delta.
As the centuries went by, these lowland plains became more and
more extensive, until the gulf was actually divided into two parts
by the spreading of the delta across to the western shore. The
portion of the gulf thus cut off from the ocean formed a salt lake
fully one hundred miles in length.
We may suppose that for a long time before the barrier was high
and strong, the tidal currents occasionally broke over the delta
and supplied the lake with water. As the river meandered here and
there over the flat delta, its channels must have undergone many
changes at every time of flood. A part of the water without doubt
flowed into the salt lake, and another portion into the open gulf.
In fact, the basin in which the lake lay, now known as the Colorado
desert, continued to receive water from the river, at intervals,
until very recently. In 1891 an overflow occurred, through the
channel known as New River, which flooded the lower portion of the
basin and threatened to cover the railroad.
When the ocean had been permanently shut off from the head of the
gulf, and the river itself had been largely diverted toward the south,
the lake began to dry up. At last, most of the water disappeared
and there remained a vast desert basin, at its greatest depth two
hundred and fifty feet below the level of the ocean. In the bottom
of the basin a bed of salt appeared, for this substance could not
be carried away, as the water had been, by the thirsty air.
Remarkably perfect beaches still exist around the shores of this
old lake, and on them are found the pearly shells of multitudes
of fresh-water mollusks. The presence of these shells leads us to
believe that after the salt lake dried up, the river again broke
in and formed a new lake of comparatively fresh water which also,
after a time, dried up.
The wonderful fertility of the Colorado delta is just beginning
to be appreciated. Canals have been dug to take the water from the
river and distribute it over the land. Year by year the cultivated
lands are being extended. The change which irrigation is making
upon the surface of one of the worst deserts in the country is
indeed remarkable.
The Colorado River is working on quietly and steadily. We may think,
and truly, that it has already done a great at work in excavating the
mighty cañons along its course, but, in reality, the work already
accomplished is small in comparison with that which remains to be
done.
In time, if the land is not disturbed by the forces which build
mountains, the plateaus through which the river now flows in such
deep cañons will be carried away in the form of sand and mud. Broad
valleys will replace the cañons, and the Gulf of California will
become a fertile plain. As the highlands wear away the process
will go on more and more slowly, for there will be less rainfall.
The river will become smaller and its basin more arid. All these
changes will be brought about through the crumbling of the rocks,
and the removal of the waste matter by the running water.
A TRIP INTO THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO
We may read of the Colorado plateau, and of the Grand Cañon with
its precipitous walls of variously colored rock, but unless we
actually visit this wonderland, it is hard to realize the height
and extent of the plateau and the depth of the gashes made in its
surface by running water, gashes so deep that they seem to expose
the very heart of the earth.
Nature has chosen a remote and half-desert region for the location
of this, the most picturesque cañon in the world, as if she wished
to keep it as long as possible from the eyes of men. Once a traveller
could not view the cañon without making a long and weary journey
across hundreds of miles of desert; now it is quite different, for
one can almost look into its depths from the windows of a palace
car. But to appreciate and understand fully the stupendous work
that nature has done throughout this region we must leave the cars
at a somewhat distant point, and before reaching the cañon become
acquainted with the country in which it lies through the old-fashioned
ways of travelling on horseback or wagon.
Flagstaff was formerly the starting-point for travellers to the
cañon, and we will choose it now, for the old stage road offers an
interesting ride. The road first winds around that lofty snow-clad
peak, the San Francisco Mountain, which can be seen from all northern
Arizona. Leaving the mountain behind, we strike out directly across
the high plateau. The country is nearly level, and the open park-like
forest extends in every direction as far as one can see.
It is difficult for us to believe that we are seven thousand feet
above the sea, a height greater than that of the highest mountains
in the United States east of the Mississippi Valley. It is this
elevation, however, which brings the summer showers and makes the
air cool and pleasant, for the lowlands of this portion of the
United States are barren deserts, upon which the sun beats with
almost savage heat.
After the rainy season green grass and an abundance of flowers
appear in the open meadows scattered through the forest. But, as a
rule, the entire absence of water strikes one as being very strange.
Where are the springs and running streams which usually abound
in mountainous regions? Throughout the whole distance of seventy
miles from Flagstaff to the cañon, there are but one or two spots
where water is to be found. These places are known as "water-holes";
they are simply hollows in the surface of the ground where the
water collects after the showers.
There is another strange feature about the plateau over which the
road leads; instead of sloping down toward the Colorado River and
the Grand Cañon, the surface slowly rises, so that the little streams
which are formed after the heavy rains flow away from the river.
Our journey draws to an end, but there is nothing to indicate the
presence of the cañon until we get glimpses through the trees of
an apparently bottomless gulf. The gulf widens upon a closer view,
we reach the edge, and all its wonderful proportions burst upon
us. Does the Grand Cañon look as you thought it would? Probably
not, for it is unlike any other in the world. The cañon is very
deep. The river has worn its way for more than a mile down into
the plateau, which once stretched unbroken from the cliffs upon
which we stand, across to those upon the opposite side, nearly
ten miles away.
The clear air makes objects upon the opposite side and in the bottom
of the cañon seem much nearer than they really are. You may think
that it is an easy task to go to the bottom of the cañon and climb
back again in a day, but in reality it is so difficult an undertaking
that only those who are accustomed to mountain climbing can accomplish
it.
It is not merely the great width and depth of the cañon that impress
us, but also the bright, variegated colors which the different
rock layers display as they stretch in horizontal bands along the
faces of the cliffs, or sweep around the towers and pinnacles until
their detailed outlines are lost in the distant blue haze.
Our eyes wander far down, toward the bottom of the cañon, following
the alternate lines of precipitous cliffs and slopes covered with
rock fragments. The cliffs and slopes succeed each other like the
steps in a giant stairway, until at the very bottom the opposite
walls meet in a gorge so narrow that in only a few places does
the river come into view, glistening like a silver thread.
A hotel stands among the trees a short distance from the brink of
the cañon. Living here is expensive, for every article of food has
to be brought upon the cars and wagons for a distance of hundreds
of miles. Even the water has to be brought in wagons from a distant
spring.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--A SCENE ON THE TRAIL]
In visiting the cañon we have the choice of going on horseback
or on foot. While the latter method is much harder, yet one feels
safer upon his own feet while moving along the steep and narrow
trail. Our start is made in the cool air of the early morning.
Leaving the top of the plateau, where among the pines the summer
air is seldom sultry, and the winters are cold and snowy, we descend,
until, by luncheon time, we are far below the heights and in the
midst of an almost tropical climate. This difference in climatic
features between the top and bottom of the cañon is equal to the
change which the traveller experiences in a trip from the pine
forests of the northern United States to the cactus-covered plains
of Arizona.
As we look down from the top of the trail it does not seem possible
to pass the great cliffs below, and yet there must be a way, since
others have gone before us. All that we have to do is simply to
follow the beaten path. Nature has conveniently left narrow shelves,
crevices, and less precipitous slopes here and there, which need
only the application of the pick and shovel to be made passable
even for pack animals. Where the trail winds into shady recesses,
we find stunted fir and pine trees clinging to the crevices and
stretching their roots down into the waste rock collected upon
projecting ledges.
Down, down we go. The belt of the yellow pine and fir is left behind,
and we come to the habitat of the piñon pine and juniper. These two
will flourish where there is less moisture than is needed by the
trees which grow nearer the top. Soon the trees have all disappeared
and such plants as the greasewood, cactus, and agave take their
place. Here, if it were not for the walls of rock rising on every
hand, we might imagine ourselves upon one of the desert plains
of Arizona.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--CLIFFS ON THE TRAIL INTO THE GRAND CAÑON]
New views open at every turn in the trail, as it winds along the
narrow shelves of rock with precipitous walls above and below.
Now it zigzags back and forth down a gentle slope, but is soon
stopped by another precipice. In one place, to escape a rocky point,
the trail has been carried around the face of a cliff on a sort
of shelf made of logs. It then passes through a crevice formed by
the splitting away of a huge piece of the wall. In many places the
grade is so steep that the trail is made practically a stairway,
for the steps are necessary to keep animals from slipping.
Step by step we descend until the slope becomes more gentle and
a sort of terrace is reached, where men are at work developing a
copper mine. Everything needed for the mine is carried down packed
upon the backs of sure-footed burros. Even the water has to be
brought in kegs from a little spring still deeper in the cañon.
The trail leaves the mine and winds down past another cliff, until,
when more than three thousand feet from the top of the plateau,
we find water for the first time. The little springs issue from
the sandstone, and their limited supply of water is soon drunk
up by the thirsty sands.
As far as the water flows it forms a little oasis upon the barren
slope. Along the course of the streams are little patches of green
grass, flowers, and bushes. Birds flit about, and there are tracks
of small animals in the mud. Evidently the water is as great an
attraction to them as it is to us. If a well were dug in the plateau
above, we can understand now how deep it would have to be in order
to reach water. A well three-fourths of a mile deep would be a
difficult one to pump.
We are now in the bottom of the main cañon, but deeper still is
the last and inner gorge, through which the Colorado is flowing.
For thousands of centuries the river has been sawing its way down
into the earth. The precipitous cliffs which we have passed are
formed of hard sandstone or limestone. The more gentle slopes consist
of softer shales. Now the river has cut through them all and has
reached the very heart of the earth, the solid granite.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--THE INNER GORGE OF THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE
COLORADO]
This inner gorge has almost vertical walls twelve hundred to fifteen
hundred feet high. We can sit upon the brink under a ledge of rock
which protects us from the hot sun, and watch the river as we eat
our luncheon. Far below, almost directly under us, it rushes along.
The roar of the current rises but faintly to our ears. The water
is very muddy and not at all like the clear mountain streams, far
away upon the continental divide, which unite to form the river.
It seems as if the water, ashamed of its soiled appearance, wanted
to hide from the sight of men. If so, it has succeeded well, for
it can be seen only at rare intervals from the top of the cañon
walls, and even at the bottom of the main cañon the river itself
is not visible unless one stands upon the very brink of the granite
gorge.
The work of the river is not yet done. It will go on until the
great cliffs have crumbled and have been replaced by gentle slopes.
It will not stop until, at some far distant time, a broad valley
has been worn out of the rocky strata.
The cañon appears much wider when viewed from the bottom than from
the top, and the great cliffs far back along the trail seem less
precipitous, but only because they are so far away. A weary climb
of several miles awaits us. We must rest and take breath frequently
or we shall not reach the top.
As night approaches and the shadows begin to fall, every turret
and pinnacle stands out in bold relief. The bands of yellow and
red shade into purple, and everything, save the long winding trail,
begins to have a weird and mystical look.
HOW THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU WAS MADE
Years ago people disputed as to the way in which the earth was made.
Those who lived where all the rocks had, like lava, the appearance
of having once been melted, believed that fire had done all the
work. Those who lived where the rocks appeared to be formed of
hardened mud, sand, and lime, substances such as we find accumulating
under water, said that water alone had been the means. But in later
years the earth's surface has been more widely explored, and now
it is known that both opinions were partly right. Water and fire
have both been concerned in the making of the earth.
In the great valleys fire-formed rocks are rare, but they are more
or less abundant in all mountainous regions, for where mountains
are, there the crust of the earth is weakest. There are many reasons
for believing that the interior of the earth is very hot. We know
that the surface is settling in some places and rising in others,
and that where the strain of the upheaval is too great the rocks are
broken. These convulsions sometimes cause earthquakes and sometimes
volcanic eruptions, when enormous quantities of molten rock are
poured out over the surface. In all the long history of our earth
probably no greater flood of lava than that which made the Columbia
plateau was ever spread over the surface of any region. Travel where
you will over the plains of southern Idaho, central Washington,
or Oregon, and examine the rocks which here and there rise above
the soil or are exposed in the cañons, and you will find that they
all appear to have been formed by fire.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--SNAKE RIVER AT IDAHO FALLS
Just beginning to cut a cañon in the volcanic plateau]
These rocks are dark in color and very hard. They are not arranged
in regular layers like sandstone and shale; many of them show numerous
little cavities which once contained steam. These cavities give
to the rock a slag-like appearance. In this kind of rock, which
we shall call lava, there are, of course, no remains of shells
or bones of animals such as are often found in rocks formed from
sand or clay.
Do not picture to yourself the Columbia plateau as one continuous
stretch of level land, for it is broken by many mountain ranges.
Some of these are old mountains which were too tall to be buried
by the lava, but most of them have been formed out of the plateau
itself. The eruptions which made the plateau extended through a
very long time, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, and the
older lava is deeply decayed and covered with soil. Some of the
later flows show extremely rough and rugged surfaces and are probably
only a few hundred years old.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU]
Long ago, before the eruptions began, the geography of the Northwest
was very different from what it is now. Instead of a vast plateau
there were mountains and valleys. Lowlands occupied most of the
region where the Cascade Range now rises with its lofty volcanic
peaks. Portions of the basin of the present Columbia River were
occupied by lakes which extended southwest into California.
Movements of the earth began to affect the region of the present
plateau, and at many points the solid rocks were fissured and broken.
Then from that mysterious region far beneath the surface came steam
and gases, escaping through the fissures with explosive force.
In some places cinder cones were built about the openings by the
fragments of lava which were hurled out. In other places, during
periods of less explosive eruption, molten lava flowed out in vast
quantities. The lava was very hot and almost as liquid as water,
so that it spread in thin sheets over hundreds of square miles
of lowland.
One important series of fissures through which eruptions took place
marked the line where the Cascade Range was to be built. Other
volcanoes appeared over the surface of southern Idaho, central
Washington, Oregon, and northeastern California.
The eruptions were not continuous over the whole field; now in
this place, now in that, there came long periods of quiet. During
such periods the earthquakes ceased, the lava became cold, and
the clouds of volcanic ashes cleared from the air. Frequently the
lava intercepted streams and blocked the valleys so that large
lakes were formed. Whenever the periods of quiet were very long,
plants spread over the surface and animals of many kinds made their
homes about the lakes.
In eastern Oregon the John Day River and its branches have eroded
cañons through the later lava and have exposed the sands, clays,
and gravels which collected at the bottom of one of those ancient
lakes. In these beds the skeletons of many strange and interesting
animals have been found. Evidently they had once lived about the
borders of the lake, and the streams had washed their bones into
the water and mingled them with the sediment.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--BLUE LAKES, IDAHO
Formed by springs issuing from underneath the lava of the plateau]
One of these animals appears to have been an ancestor of the present
horse. It was about the size of a sheep, and had three toes instead
of one. Another, probably a very dangerous animal, was related to
our present hog, but stood nearly seven feet high. Others resembled
the rhinoceros, camel, tapir, or peccary. All but the peccary are
now extinct upon this continent. Of the carnivorous animals there
were wolves and cats of large size.
The eruptions continued, filling the valleys little by little,
until in places the lava reached a thickness of nearly four thousand
feet. The lower mountains were hidden from sight. We know of the
existence of these buried mountains because the wearing away of
the lava in some places has exposed their summits to view.
The lava flood reached farther and farther. In southern Idaho it
formed the Snake River plains, which must have been, when first
formed, hundreds of miles long, seventy-five miles wide, and almost
as even as a floor. If we could have looked on while these things
were taking place it would have appeared as if the whole land was
about to sink under the fiery mass which flowed out of the earth.
The streams and valleys were completely buried. The region of the
John Day Lake, with all its animal remains, was covered. The lava,
like a sea, crept up against the mountains surrounding the plateau
region. Bays of lava extended into the valleys among the mountains,
while mountain ridges rose like islands and capes from the surface
of the flood.
We never tire of looking at the lofty snow-capped peaks of the
Cascade Range. A dozen of them rise over ten thousand feet, and
two, Mounts Shasta and Ranier, are more than fourteen thousand
feet high. All these mountains were formed of material thrown out
of the interior of the earth during the building of the Columbia
plateau. The process was very similar for each. About some one
exceptionally active crater immense quantities of scoriæ[1] and
lapilli[2] accumulated. Then came streams of fiery lava, some of
which, hardening upon the outer slopes of the crater, added still
more to the growth of the mountain. The process was very slow,
however. A time of eruption, marked by tremblings of the earth,
explosive noises, and a sky filled with dust and clouds, might last
for many years. Then came a long period of rest when the falling
rains, gathering in dashing torrents, cut deep gullies down the
sides of the mountain.
[Footnote 1: _scorioe_, cellular, slaggy lava.]
[Footnote 2: _lapilli_, volcanic ashes, consisting of small, angular,
stony fragments.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--PITT RIVER CAÑON, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
The plateau is built of layers of lava]
The volcanoes at last ceased to grow any higher, for the lava,
if the eruptions continued, formed new craters at their bases.
It is probable that all these great peaks have been extinct for
several thousand years, although some are much older and more worn
away than others. One of these volcanoes has completely disappeared,
and in its place lies that wonderful sheet of water known as Crater
Lake. It is thought that the interior of this mountain was melted
away during a period of activity, and that the outer portion fell
in, leaving a crater five miles across and nearly a mile deep.
The streams of lava, as they flowed here and there building up
the plateau, frequently broke up the rivers and turned them into
new channels. As time went on the eruptions were less violent, and
the rivers became established in the channels which they occupy
to-day. The Columbia River, winding about over the plateau, sought
the easiest path to the sea. It soon began to dig a channel, and
now has hidden itself between dark walls of lava.
But other forces besides the streams were now at work in this volcanic
region. The lava plateau began slowly to bend upward along the
line of the great volcanoes, lifting them upward with it. In this
manner the Cascade Range was formed. The Columbia River, instead
of seeking another way to the sea, continued cutting its channel
deeper and deeper into the growing mountain range, and so has given
us that picturesque cañon which forms a most convenient highway
from the interior of Washington and Oregon to the coast.
Take a sheet of writing paper, lay it upon an even surface, then
slowly push the opposite edges toward each other. This simple experiment
will aid one in understanding one of the ways in which mountain
ranges are made. Besides the upward fold of the plateau which made
the Cascade Range, another was formed between the Blue Mountains
in eastern Oregon and a spur of the Rocky Mountains in northern
Idaho. This fold lay across the path of the Snake River, but its
movement was so slow that the river kept its former channel and
in this rising land excavated a cañon which to-day is more than
a mile deep. The upper twenty-five hundred feet of the cañon are
cut into the lava of the plateau, and the lower three thousand
into the underlying granite. The cañon is not so picturesque as
the Colorado, for it has no rocks with variegated coloring or
castellated walls. Its sides are, however, exceedingly precipitous
and it is difficult to enter.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--SHOSHONE FALLS, SNAKE RIVER, IDAHO]
Along portions of the lower Columbia and Snake rivers, navigation
is obstructed by rapids and waterfalls. The presence of these falls
teaches us that these streams are still at work cutting their channels
deeper. The Snake River in its upper course has as yet cut only a
very shallow channel in the hard lava, and the beautiful Shoshone
Falls marks a point where its work is slow. These falls, which
are the finest in the northwest, owe their existence to the fact
that at this particular spot layers of strong resistant lava cover
the softer rocks.
There are other cañons in the plateau region which are fully as
remarkable as those which have been mentioned. That of the Des
Chutes River in central Oregon is in places a thousand feet deep,
with almost vertical walls of lava.
We have already seen how mountains have been formed upon the Columbia
plateau, by a bending of the earth upward. Other mountains of the
plateau are due to fractures in the solid rocks, often many miles
long. Upon one side of these fractures the surface has been depressed,
while upon the other it has been raised. The amount of the uplift
varies from a few hundred to thousands of feet. The mountains thus
formed have a long, gentle slope upon one side and a very steep
incline upon the other. They are known as "block mountains," and
those upon the Columbia plateau are the most interesting of their
kind in the world.
With the exception of a few large rivers, the greater portion of the
Columbia plateau is remarkable for its lack of surface streams. The
water which reaches the borders of the plateau from the surrounding
mountains often sinks into the gravel between the layers of lava and
forms underground rivers. The deep cañons which have been mentioned
intercept some of these underground rivers, so that their waters
pour out and down over the sides of the cañons in foaming cascades.
The greatest of these cascades is that known as the Thousand Springs
in the Snake River cañon. The waters of the Blue Lakes in the cañon
of the same river below Shoshone Falls also come from underneath
the lava. They are utilized in irrigating the most picturesque
fruit ranch in southern Idaho.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--CAÑON OF CROOKED RIVER NEAR THE DES CHUTES
RIVER
Eroded in the Columbia plateau]
The climate of the plateau is dry, and its eastern portion is
practically a desert. Toward the west, however, the rainfall is
greater, and in central Washington and northern Oregon the plateau
becomes one vast grain-field. It is difficult to irrigate the plateau
because the streams flow in such deep cañons, but above the point
where the cañon of the Snake River begins there is an extensive
system of canals and cultivated fields. With a sufficient water
supply, the lava makes one of the richest and most productive of
soils. Along the Snake and Columbia rivers, wherever there is a
bit of bottom land, orchards have been planted. Little steamers
ply along these rivers between the rapids, gathering the fruit
and delivering it at the nearest railroad point.
Mining is carried on only in the mountains which rise above the
lava flood, for the mineral veins are for the most part older than
the lava of the plateau. We are certain that many very valuable
deposits of the precious metals lie buried beneath the lava fields.
It is thought that the volcanic history of the Columbia plateau
has been completed. Now the streams are at work carrying away the
materials of which it is composed and may in time uncover the old
buried land surface.
THE CAÑONS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
The western half of our country contains the deepest and most
picturesque cañons in the world. Those of the Colorado and Snake
rivers form trenches in a comparatively level but lofty plateau
region. The cañons of the Sierra Nevada Range, on the contrary,
take their rise and extend for much of their length among rugged
snowcapped peaks which include some of the highest mountains in
the United States. All these cañons are the work of erosion. The
rivers did not find depressions formed ready for them to occupy,
but had to excavate their channels by the slow process of grinding
away the solid rock.
The streams of the Sierra Nevada mountains begin their course in
steep-walled alcoves under the shadows of the high peaks, where
they are fed by perpetual snow-banks. Soon they bury themselves
between granite walls, which at last tower three thousand feet
above their roaring waters. After many miles the cañons widen,
the walls decrease in height, and the streams come out upon the
fertile stretches of the Great Valley of California.
Nature works in many ways. Her tools are of different kinds, but
the most important one is running water. The forms which she produces
are dependent upon the kind of rock upon which she works. Where
the surface of the earth is soft the results of her labor are not
very interesting, but if the crust is hard the forms which she
produces are often so remarkable that they arouse our wonder and
admiration.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--SAN JOAQUIN RIVER EMERGING UPON THE PLAIN
OF THE GREAT VALLEY]
In shaping the Sierra Nevada mountains Nature had a grand opportunity.
Here she produced the Yosemite Valley, which has a setting of cliffs
and waterfalls that attract people from all over the world. Hetch-Hetchy
Valley at the north of the Yosemite, and Tehipite and King's River
cañons at the south, are interesting places, but not so majestic
and inspiring as the Yosemite.
Nature never seems satisfied with her work. After she has created
a piece of wonderful scenery she proceeds to destroy it. The great
cliffs of the Yosemite will sometime lose their grandeur and be
replaced by gentle slopes down which the streams will flow quietly.
The mountains of the Laurentian highlands in the northeastern portion
of the continent undoubtedly were once lofty and picturesque, but
there were no people upon the earth at that time to enjoy this
scenery. Now these mountains have become old and are nearly worn
down.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--WHERE THE CAÑONS BEGIN UNDER PRECIPITOUS
PEAKS
The head of the King's River]
In one portion of the earth after another, Nature raises great
mountain ranges and immediately proceeds to remove them. This continent
was discovered and California was settled at the right time for
the Sierra Nevadas to be seen in all their grandeur.
When the pioneers came in sight of the Sierra Nevada (snowy range),
they little dreamed of the cañons hidden among these mountains.
Gold, and not scenery, was the object of their search. The great
cañons were outside of the gold regions, and so inaccessibly situated
that no one except the Indians looked upon them until 1851. In
that year a party of soldiers following the trail of some thieving
Indians discovered and entered the Yosemite Valley, but it was not
explored until 1855. For many years the valley could be reached
only by the roughest trails, but as its advantages became more
widely known roads were built, and there are now three different
wagon routes by which it may be entered.
The history of the Yosemite Valley is like that of all the other
cañons of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Long ago there were no high
mountains in eastern California. If there had been explorers crossing
the plains in those days, they would have found no rugged wall
shutting them off from the Pacific. There came a time, however,
when the surface of the western portion of America was broken by
violent earthquake movements, and hundreds of fissures were formed.
Some of the earth blocks produced by these fissures were shoved
upward, while others were dropped. One enormous block, which was
to form the Sierra Nevada, was raised along its eastern edge until
it stood several thousand feet above the adjoining country. The
movement was like that of a trap-door opened slightly, so that
upon one side--in this case the western one--the slope was long
and gentle, while upon the east it was very abrupt.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--THE YOSEMITE VALLEY]
Nature, the sculptor, took this mountain block in hand, and with
the aid of running water began to carve its surface into a most
intricate system of cañons and ridges. The streams first flowed
over the easiest slopes to the Great Valley of California, but
soon they began to cut their way down into the granite, while along
the crests of the ridges the more resistant rocks began to stand
out as jagged peaks.
Thus Nature worked until the mountains promised before long to be
well worn down. The cañons had widened to valleys and the rugged
slopes had given place to gentle ones. Toward the northern end of
the range the work was even farther advanced, for the streams,
now choked with gravel and sand, flowed over broad flood plains.
In this gravel was buried a part of the wealth of California. The
rocks over which the streams flowed contained veins of quartz with
little particles of gold scattered through it, and as the surface
rock crumbled and was worn away, the gold, being much heavier,
slowly accumulated in the gravel at the bottom of the streams.
This gold amounted in value to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The forces within the earth became active again. Apparently Nature
did not intend that the gold should be forever buried, or that the
country should always appear so uninteresting. Internal forces
raised the mountain block for a second time, tilting it still more
to the westward. Volcanoes broke forth along the summit of the
range near the line of fracture, and floods of lava and volcanic
mud ran down the slopes, completely filling the broad valleys of
the northern Sierras and burying a great part of the gold-bearing
gravel.
The eruptions turned the streams from their channels, but on the
steeper slope of the mountains the rivers went energetically to
work making new beds. They cut down through the lava and the buried
gravel until they finally reached the solid rock underneath. Into
this rock, which we call "bed-rock," they have now worn cañons
two thousand feet deep. The beds of gravel that lay under the old
streams frequently form the tops of the hills between these deep
cañons. Here they are easily accessible to the miners, who by tunnels
or surface workings have taken out many millions of dollars' worth
of gold.
The important cañons of the northern Sierras, where the gold is
found, have been made by the American and Feather rivers. Farther
south are the deeper and more rugged cañons of the Tuolumne, Merced,
King's, and Kern rivers, which open to us inviting pathways into
the mountains.
It might be supposed that the mantle of snow and ice which at that
time covered most of the surface of the earth would have protected
it from further erosion, but this was not the case. In the basin
at the head of each stream the snow accumulated year after year
until it was more than a thousand feet deep. Under the influence
of the warm days and cold nights the snow slowly turned to ice,
and moved by its own weight, crept down into the cañons. The solid
rock walls were ground and polished, and even now, so long a time
after the glaciers have melted, some of these polished surfaces
still glisten in the sunlight. The glaciers deepened and enlarged
the cañons, but running water was the most important agent in their
making.
Upon the disappearance of the glaciers, the streams went to work
again deepening their cañons. From their starting-points, under
the lofty crags, they first ran through broad upland valleys, then
tumbled into the cañons; but until they had reached the lower mountain
slopes, to which the glaciers had not extended, they passed through
a dreary and desolate region devoid of almost every sign of life.
The glaciers had swept away all the loose rock and soil, and it was
many long years before the surface again crumbled so that forest
trees could spread over it once more.
The grandeur and attractiveness of the Yosemite is partly due to
the precipitous cliffs enclosing the valley, some of which are
nearly four thousand feet in height, partly to the high waterfalls,
and partly to the green meadows and forest groves through which
the Merced River winds.
Although the glaciers had little to do with the making of the Yosemite
Valley, yet they added to its attractiveness. The valley is situated
where a number of smaller streams join the Merced River. Erosion was
more rapid here because the granite was soft, while the vertical
seams in the rock gave the growing valley precipitous walls. When
the glacier came it pushed out the loose rocks and boulders, and
dropping a portion of them at the lower end, made a dam across
the Merced River. At first a shallow lake filled the valley, but
after a time the silt and gravel which the streams were continually
bringing in filled the lake, and formed marshy flats. Finally,
grasses and trees spread over these flats and gave the valley the
appearance which it has to-day.
Besides the meadows, the glaciers gave us two of the waterfalls.
Yosemite Creek, which comes down over the walls twenty-seven hundred
feet in three successive falls, was turned into its present channel
by a dam which a glacier had left across its old course. A glacier
also turned the Merced River at its entrance to the main valley
so as to form the Nevada Fall.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--THE CAÑON OF BUBB'S CREEK, A BRANCH OF
THE KING'S RIVER CAÑON]
After the valley had been made and clothed in vegetation, it was
discovered by a small tribe of Indians who came here to make their
home, secure from all their enemies. There were fish in the streams
and animals in the woods. The oaks supplied acorns, and in early
summer the meadows were covered with strawberries. Legends were
associated with many of the cliffs and waterfalls, for the Indians,
like ourselves, are impressed by the wonders of Nature.
Hetch-Hetchy Valley, twenty-five miles north of the Yosemite, has
been formed upon much the same plan, but a portion of its floor
is marshy and there are few waterfalls. King's River Cañon has
no green meadows and no high waterfalls, while its great granite
walls are not so precipitous as those of the Yosemite. Next to
the Yosemite, in the wildness of its scenery, is Tehipite Cañon.
This cañon is situated upon the middle fork of King's River, about
a hundred miles south. For many miles its walls and domes present
ever changing views.
A continual struggle is going on between the forces within the
earth and the sculptor working upon its surface. First one, then
the other, gains the advantage. Where the mountains are steep and
high, often the forces within have recently been active. Where
they are low and the slopes are gentle, the sculptor has long held
sway. She begins by making the surface as rough and picturesque
as possible, but after a time she destroys her own handiwork.
AN OREGON GLACIER
There are records all about us of events which took place upon the
earth long before there were any human inhabitants. These records
have been preserved in the rocks, in the geographic features of
the land and water, and in the distribution of the animals and
plants. On every hand appear evidences of changes in the surface
of the earth and in the climate.
Through all the central and northern United States, if we except
some of the mountains of the West, the winter snows entirely disappear
long before the coming of summer. But the climate of this region
has not always been so pleasant and mild. Lands now densely peopled
were once buried under a thick mantle of ice which lasted through
many thousands of years.
Scattered over the surface of the northern United States are vast
numbers of boulders and rock fragments which are not at all like
the solid rocks beneath the soil. The history of these materials
takes us back to the Glacial period, which can be best understood
from a study of some one of the glaciers now existing upon the
mountains of the northwestern part of our country.
Among the lofty mountain ranges of the Cordilleran region there
are many peaks upon which perpetual snow-banks nestle, defying
the long summer days. Where the winters are long and cold and the
storms are severe, immense drifts of snow collect in the hollows
and cañons of the mountain slopes. Each summer all or a part of
this snow melts. Upon the northern slopes the melting process is
slower, and if there happens to be a large basin upon that side,
an extensive field of snow remains until the winter storms come
again. Each winter new snow is added to the surface, while the
older snow, becoming hard and firm through repeated freezing and
thawing, at last turns to ice.
This mass of snow and ice does not remain stationary, as might
be expected from its apparent solidity. Under the influence of
its own weight and of alternations of heat and cold, it flows down
the incline like a very thick liquid. During the winter the ice
melts but little, and the movement is slow, but in the summer,
under the influence of the warm days and cool nights, both the
melting and the rate of flow of the ice are increased. A moving
body of snow and ice of this sort is called a "glacier." It creeps
down the mountain slope and into some cañon, until, in the warmer
air of the lower mountains, the rate of advance is exactly balanced
by the rate of melting at the lower end of the mass. The glaciers
in the United States are at present comparatively small, but once
these icy masses stretched over the mountains and lowlands of a
large portion of the continent.
In the southern Sierra Nevada mountains no permanent snow exists
below an elevation of about eleven thousand feet, but as we go
north snow-fields are found lower and lower, until in the fiords
of Alaska enormous glaciers reach down to the sea.
A glacier worthy of our study may be found upon the Three Sisters,
a group of lofty and picturesque volcanic mountains rising from
the summit of the Cascade Range in central Oregon. There is a deep
depression between two of the peaks, which slopes down to the north
and is thus particularly well adapted to catch and retain the drifting
snows. Consequently the glacier to which it gives rise is of exceptional
size, being nearly three miles long and half a mile wide.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--THE THREE SISTERS, FROM THE NORTH
Showing snow-fields and glacier. Fields of recent lava appear in
the foreground]
The easiest path to the Three Sisters is by way of the McKenzie
River from Eugene, Oregon. The McKenzie is a noted stream and one
of the most beautiful in the state. The river courses through dense
forests, and its clear, cold water is filled with trout. So tempestuous
is the weather about the Cascade range that July is almost the only
month in which one can visit the Three Sisters without danger of
being caught in severe storms.
The traveller leaves the river a few miles above McKenzie Bridge,
where a small tributary known as Lost Creek joins it. Lost Creek
flows under the lava from a lake near the Three Sisters, while
another stream, coming from the glacier of which we are in search,
flows down the same valley upon the surface of the lava and almost
directly over the hidden stream.
Upon the summit of the Cascade Range the dense forests of the river
valley give place to more open woods interspersed with park-like
meadows. A few miles away to the south rise the volcanic peaks of
the Three Sisters, clear and cold in the mountain air, wrapt about
with a mantle of white except where the slopes are too precipitous
to hold the snow.
An indistinct trail leads through the tamarack forest and over a
field of rugged lava to the base of the peaks. Here we come upon
a swiftly flowing stream of a strange milky color. This appearance
is due to the presence of fine mud, the product of the work of the
glacier at the head of the stream as it slowly and with mighty
power grinds away the surface of the rocks over which it moves.
Wherever one meets a stream of this kind, he will probably be safe
in asserting that it is fed by a glacier upon some distant mountain
peak.
This little stream, the course of which we must follow to reach
the glacier, is choked with sand and pebbles brought to it by the
moving ice. These are not ordinary stream pebbles, for they have
strangely flattened sides which often show scratches, and look as
if they had been ground off against a grindstone. They are the
tools with which the ice does its work. The ice block takes up
the rock fragments which fall upon its surface or which it tears
from beneath, and carries them along, grinding every surface which
it touches. The fragments are dropped at the end of the glacier,
and the smaller pebbles are washed away down the stream that flows
from the melting ice.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--GLACIER ON THE THREE SISTERS]
We follow up the little glacial creek, past icy snow-banks and
through groves of fir trees where the warm sunshine brings out
the resinous odors. Upon one side of the cañon there lies a field
of black lava which not many hundreds of years ago forced this
glacial creek from an earlier channel into its present bed. Now
we come upon what appears at first to be a snow-bank lying across
the course of the stream, and from beneath which its waters issue.
Deep cracks in the outer mass of snow show the clear, pale-green
ice below. This is the lower end of the glacier which we have been
so long a time in reaching.
A short climb up a steep slope brings us to the top of the glacier.
It forms a perfectly even plain, extending back with a gentle slope
to the head of a deep notch between the two northern Sisters, while
above and beyond rise the steeper snow-fields, from which this
ice is continually renewed.
The glacier does not terminate in the usual manner, with a stream
flowing from its centre, for the outlet is at one side, while the
middle abuts against a low mound of rock. This mound we find most
interesting, for upon reaching its top we look down into a volcanic
crater. From this crater flowed the great stream of lava to which
we have already referred. The lava ran downward, bending this way
and that among the hollows, until it spread nearly to the McKenzie
River.
During the Glacial period, before the eruption took place, this
glacier was much larger. The summit of the Cascade Range was then
covered by glaciers. This fact we know from the presence of grooved
and polished rocks wherever the surface has not been worn away
or covered with newer lava. The Glacial period had passed away
and the climate had become much the same as it now is when the
volcanic forces broke out at the spot where the crater is situated.
The eruption undoubtedly melted the ice in the vicinity, but after
it had ceased and the rocks had become cold, the glacier never gained
strength enough to push the loose materials of the volcanic cone out
of its path. The ice banked up snugly against the obstruction, and
as it melted the water found its way out at the side of the lava.
Although the surface of the glacier appears at first to offer an
easy route to the higher mountain slopes, yet there are numerous
hidden crevices into which one may fall. The safest arrangement
is to tie a company of people together with a stout rope, so that
if one falls into a crevice the rope will save him. Toward the
middle of the glacier the ice becomes so badly fissured that it is
necessary to turn toward the right margin. There are two sets of
these fissures, one parallel to the direction in which the glacier
is moving, the other at right angles. They are due to the strain
to which the ice is subjected as it moves along at an uneven rate
and over a surface composed of hollows and ridges.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--MORAINE AT THE END OF THE GLACIER]
Leaving the glacier, we climb upon a long low ridge of gravel and
boulders mixed with fragments of ice. The fragments of rock which
have fallen upon the surface of the ice or been torn from the rock
over which it is moving, have been heaped up along its sides somewhat
as a ridge of snow is raised along each side of the course of a
snow-plough. Such a ridge of débris along the side of a glacier
is known as a marginal moraine. A similar ridge, formed by the
accumulation of rock fragments at the lower end of the glacier,
is a terminal moraine. These ridges and hollows formed by the ice
are found all over the northern portion of the United States. The
hollows once filled with ice are now occupied by the beautiful
lakes of this portion of our country.
As we climb along the moraine at the margin of the glacier, many
openings appear in the clear green ice. There is the sound of gurgling
waters, and occasionally pieces of ice and rock fall into dimly
outlined caverns which are narrow at the top, but far below widen
out to the proportion of chambers.
After the head of the glacier is attained there is still a hard
climb over the snow-fields, which extend upward so far that they
seem to have no end. When at last the gap between the peaks is
gained we are completely tired out. The summit of the middle Sister
rising directly above us is still a thousand feet higher, but there
is not time to-day to reach it.
A magnificent vista is spread out upon every hand. Extending north
and south along the crest of the Cascade Range there is a line
of sharp snowy peaks with summer clouds floating about them. How
these peaks contrast with the dark blue of the surrounding forests!
Opposite us, upon the south, is the third Sister, white with snow
from top to bottom, while in the basin between this peak and the
ridge on which we are standing lie the remnants of a once mighty
glacier.
But it is time to return. The cold, foggy clouds are hiding the
summits and will soon envelop the spot where we stand. We go down
by a different path, but over almost continuous snow-fields, for
more than two miles. The return is much easier than the ascent,
although if one lost his footing upon some steep slope, it would
mean a long slide or tumble. The solid earth is reached without
accident. What a relief to have some firm hold for the feet again!
Climbing over a field of rough lava is easier than toiling through
soft snow.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--A BOULDER LEFT BY A GLACIER]
The region about the Three Sisters is just as nature left it, for
the home of the nearest settler is many miles away. Although now
it has few visitors, this country will become attractive when its
wonderful volcanic and glacial phenomena are better known.
SOMETHING ABOUT EARTHQUAKES AND MOUNTAIN BUILDING
Our everyday experiences lead us to feel that nothing is more permanent
than the features of the earth upon which we live. Great cities
containing costly buildings are built by the water's edge with the
expectation that the ocean will remain where it is. The building
of railroads and canals, and the establishment of industries to make
the earth more fruitful and better adapted to our use, are based
upon the idea that the mountains and valleys with their various,
climates will not change.
The study of history, however, makes plain the fact that at different
times in the past certain portions of the earth have been visited by
destructive changes. Cities have been shaken down by earthquakes, and
the ocean has swept in over the land, drowning thousands of people.
Even the mountains, which stand upon broad and firm foundations,
sometimes bring disaster, by means of avalanches and land-slides,
to the people who live at their bases.
The truth is that the earth's surface is everywhere slowly and
quietly changing; but our lives are so short, and the history of
even the oldest cities is so brief in comparison with the rate at
which most of the changes take place, that we as a rule are aware
of only the uncommon and sudden ones.
The occurrence of earthquakes establishes the unmistakable fact
that there are forces at work from within disturbing the surface,
while land-slides, and even little gullies washed out by the rain,
show that other forces are working from without.
The vibration or trembling of the earth which we call an "earthquake"
always arouses alarm, and frequently occasions great destruction
and loss of life. Only a few of the various causes that may bring
about earthquakes are as yet fully understood. Earthquakes are
very interesting, however, because they are often associated with
the birth and growth of lofty mountain ranges.
Volcanic eruptions, hot springs, and the high temperature which
exists toward the bottom of deep mines show us that the interior
of the earth is very hot. It is thought that at one time the whole
earth glowed with heat, but as ages passed it became cold upon
the outside and a solid crust was formed.
Every one has observed that fruit becomes wrinkled as the pulp
within dries and contracts. The materials of the earth occupy more
space when they are hot than when cold, and as the interior portion
is still cooling, the outer layer or crust continues to shrink down
upon it, forming folds or wrinkles, as in the case of the skin of
an apple.
There is probably no portion of the surface that is fixed in its
present position. The land is either rising or sinking continually.
If the area that is pushed upward is large, it becomes a plateau;
but if long and narrow like a wrinkle, it forms a mountain range.
We should not be aware of these movements in many cases if it were
not for the horizontal shelf cut upon the borders of the land by the
ocean waves. Along some coasts old wave-cut cliffs stand hundreds
of feet above the present ocean level. Other coasts have sunk,
so that the water has flooded the adjoining land and made a new
shore line.
When the movements of the land are sudden, they manifest themselves
to us through earthquakes. The crust of the earth is not so flexible
as the skin of an apple, and when the strain upon it becomes too
great it suddenly breaks. The rock walls usually slide past one
another along such a fracture. If the rising wall becomes high
enough it will form a mountain range.
The great mountain systems border the oceans, for the lines of
weakness occur where the land dips steeply down beneath the water.
It sometimes happens that the fractures in the rocks where mountains
are being made are situated underneath the water, or in some position
where water passes down through them in large quantities.
What do you think would happen if such an underground stream of
water came in contact with hot or molten rocks far below the surface?
Note the effect produced by drops of water falling upon a hot stove.
Each one, as it strikes, is partly changed to steam with a slight
explosive sound. The result is similar when water is turned into
the hot and nearly empty boiler of a steam-engine--an explosion
is sure to follow.
When the pressure of steam suddenly formed within the earth is
too great, a volcanic explosion takes place at some point where
the overlying rocks are weakest, probably on or near one of the
lines of fracture about which we have been speaking. The explosion
is accompanied by thundering noises, tremblings of the earth, and
the hurling of rock and molten lava into the air. That the rocks
of the earth's crust are elastic is shown by the rebounding of a
pebble thrown against a large boulder. If a file be drawn across
the edge of a sheet of tin upon which sand has been sprinkled, the
tin vibrates over its whole extent, as is shown by the jumping
of the sand grains. Because of like elasticity in the materials
which make up the surface of the earth, the vibrations produced
by an explosion are carried through the solid earth for hundreds
of miles.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--EARTHQUAKE FISSURES NEAR MONO LAKE, CALIFORNIA]
The records of earthquakes show that they are much more violent and
occur oftener where the crust of the earth is being disturbed by
folding. We have seen that there are two main causes of earthquakes:
the slipping of portions of the earth past each other along a fissure,
and the contact of water with very hot rocks far below the surface.
It is probable that the earthquakes which occur so often in the
western portion of the United States are due to the first of these
causes. The numerous extinct volcanoes show that at one period
this region was frequently shaken by explosive eruptions.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--THE WASATCH RANGE
From Salt Lake City]
Mono Lake (see Fig. 42, page 99), at the eastern base of the Sierra
Nevada Range, has been a centre for explosive eruptions, which
were extremely violent at one time. The islands which rise in the
lake are shattered, while Black Point, upon the northern shore,
has been uplifted by an explosion from beneath, which split the
rocks apart and formed deep fissures.
It is an interesting fact that in the Cordilleran region the mountains
have been increasing in height in very recent years. We might almost
say that they are growing to-day. In this region, then, we can
actually see how mountains are made; we do not have to depend upon
descriptions of the manner in which they are supposed to have been
made thousands of years ago.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--BLUFF FORMED BY AN EARTHQUAKE
At the foot of the Wasatch Range, Utah]
Any good map will show that the mountains of the Cordilleran region
have in general a north and south direction. Their direction was
determined by fissures formed long ago in the crust of the earth.
Movements have continued to take place along many of these fissures
up to the present time, and probably will continue for some time
to come.
In order to become better acquainted with these remarkable mountains,
let us examine some of them, taking first the Wasatch Range in
eastern Utah. The range has an elevation of nearly eleven thousand
feet, rising gradually upon the eastern side, but presenting a bold
and picturesque front upon the west, toward the plain of Great
Salt Lake. A short drive from Salt Lake City brings us to the foot
of the range, at the mouth of Little Cottonwood Cañon.
A peculiar bluff which extends for a number of miles along the
base of the mountains at once attracts our attention. The steep
face of the bluff, which is from fifty to seventy-five feet high,
appears to have been formed by a rising of the land upon the side
next the mountains, or a dropping upon the valley side. There are
reasons for believing that the formation of the bluff was due to
the occurrence of an earthquake some time within the last century.
The bluff is closely related to the mighty mountains behind it. It
was formed by the last of a series of movements in the earth which
raised the great block known as the Wasatch Range to an elevation
of six thousand feet above the plains at its base. Is it to be
wondered at that disturbances of the earth which result in the
erection of mountains of such height are frequently so severe as
to destroy the strongest buildings?
Now let us go westward across the various parallel ranges of the
Great Basin to Owens Valley at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada
mountains. This is the highest and longest continuous mountain range
in the United States. For a distance of more than one hundred miles
its elevation is from twelve thousand to over fourteen thousand
feet.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--EASTERN FACE OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
Formed by a great fracture in the earth's crust]
Owens Valley was in 1872 the centre of one of the most severe and
extensive earthquakes ever recorded in the United States. The little
village of Lone Pine, situated in the valley below Mount Whitney,
was utterly demolished, twenty people were killed and many injured.
A portion of the valley near the village sank so low that the water
flowed in and formed a lake above it. The land was so shaken up
that the fields of one man were thrust into those of his neighbor.
For a distance of several hundred miles to the north along the base
of the mountains the earth was fractured, and bluffs from ten to
forty feet high were formed as a result either of the dropping of
the surface of the valley upon the eastern side, or of the raising
of the mountains upon the west.
This slipping of the earth which gave rise to the earthquake bluffs
was the most recent of a long series of similar events which have
raised the precipitous eastern wall of the Sierra Nevada mountains
to a height of two miles above Owens Valley. If you will go out
into the centre of the valley and look west toward the mountains,
you will see three bluffs or scarps. The first, which is twenty
feet high, was made at the time of the last earthquake; the second,
known as the Alabama Hills and rising about four hundred feet, was
formed at an earlier time; the third, rising back of the others,
is that of the main Sierra.
Similar cliffs appear at the bases of other ranges of mountains
in the Great Basin. Springs abound along these fractures in the
earth, for the surface waters have an opportunity to collect wherever
the rocks are broken. Numerous fertile valleys mark the line of
earthquake movements, for the broken rocks and abundant springs
favor rapid erosion.
Among the Coast Ranges of California there appears a series of
fractures in the earth which form a line nearly four hundred miles
long. They extend from a point near San Bernardino in a northwesterly
direction to the neighborhood of San Francisco. Severe earthquakes
have taken place along this line since the country was settled.
The pressure and grinding of the earth upon opposite sides of the
fissures has formed long low ridges of earth. Small valleys have
been blocked, and the old stage road from Los Angeles to Bakersfield,
which followed the course of the fissures for a number of miles,
has been almost obliterated.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--ELIZABETH LAKE, CALIFORNIA
Occupying a valley primarily due to earthquake movements]
Hundreds of cliffs and mountain scarps throughout the West have
come into existence as the results of movements such as we have been
describing. Where the disturbances have been recent the mountains
are bold and picturesque. Those produced in earlier times are in many
instances so worn away that it is difficult to tell with certainty
how they were made.
THE LAST VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES
There are more volcanoes in our country than is generally supposed.
Some are very small and some rank among the greatest of mountain
peaks, but all together there are many hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of them. At present they are all silent and apparently dead. We
are accustomed to speak of them as extinct volcanoes, but of this
we must not be too sure.
They stand dark and cold, giving no clue to the nature of the forces
which made them, except perhaps by the presence of an occasional hot
spring and the appearance of the rocks of which they are composed.
The slag-like character of these rocks we have learned to associate
with intense heat. Some of these volcanoes are very old and have
been nearly worn away; others are new and almost as perfect as
when they were first made.
Where shall we go to find these volcanoes? Are there any upon the
Atlantic coast or neighboring highlands? Though you may travel
over all that portion of our country, you will find none, although
you will discover in places, as for instance in the palisades of
the Hudson, lavas which came from very ancient volcanoes, worn
down so long ago that their very sites are lost to view.
If we search the Mississippi basin we find there even fewer traces
of volcanic action than upon the eastern highlands. The greater
portion of the vast area embraced by the Mississippi River and its
tributaries has had a very uneventful history, although at times
earthquakes may have occurred and the sky may have been darkened
by ashes from eruptions in distant parts of the earth.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--FISSURE IN THE LAVA, SHADOW MOUNTAIN
The groovings in the lava show that it was squeezed out in a half-solid
condition]
It is in the country west of the Rockies, the region last to be
explored and settled, that the objects of our search come to light.
Here are volcanoes and lava fields so extensive as almost to bury
from sight the older surface of the earth. Some of them appear
as if but yesterday they had been glowing with heat.
In the Cordilleran region Nature has carried on her work with a
master hand. She has lifted the earth's crust to form a great plateau.
Portions of the plateau she has broken, projecting the fragments
upward to form lofty mountains, while along the fissures thus created
she has squeezed out fiery molten matter from the interior of the
earth. This molten material has spread out in fields of lava or
has piled itself about small openings, forming volcanic cones,
which in some cases have overtopped the loftiest mountain ranges
of the continent. It is believed that a number of these volcanic
eruptions have occurred in the Cordilleran region of the United
States since the discovery of America, and that one took place
within the lifetime of many persons now living.
San Francisco Mountain, in northern Arizona, is the loftiest volcanic
peak of a region dotted with volcanoes and lava flows. This great
volcano, like most of its neighbors, has long been extinct, although
a few miles to the eastward there appears a group of small but
very new cones.
A ride of fifteen miles from the town of Flagstaff, across the
forest-covered plateau, brings us to Shadow Mountain and the fields
of lava and volcanic sand lying at its base. The mountain, throughout
its height of over one thousand feet, is a conical aggregate of
loose lapilli which give way under the feet and make climbing the
peak very tiresome.
The lapilli and scoriæ are slag-like fragments of lava which have
been blown out of the throat of the volcano while in a hot or
semi-molten condition. These fragments, as they fall back to the
earth, collect about the opening and in time build up the volcano,
or cinder cone, as such a mountain is frequently called. The finer
particles, which have the appearance of dark sand, fall farther
away and form a layer over the surface for some miles upon every
side. These products of an explosive volcano are sometimes called
cinders and ashes, because of their resemblance to the slag and
refuse of furnaces.
In the case of the volcano which we are studying, the lapilli are
so black that they give the cone the appearance of being darkened
by the shadow of a cloud, and on this account the peak is named
Shadow Mountain. As the days are usually bright here, the shadow
effect is very striking.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--EDGE OF LAVA FIELD, WITH PUMICE IN THE
FOREGROUND
Near Shadow Mountain]
There are several smaller craters, east of the main one, which
also threw out volcanic sand and lapilli. The surrounding hills are
of volcanic origin, although very much older than Shadow Mountain.
These hills are covered with pine forests; but trees or plants
have gained only slight hold upon the newer surfaces of the cinder
cones, which present a picture of almost complete desolation.
There have been two other eruptions since the making of the cinder
cones, and these were marked by flows of molten lava. Although
the rough and rugged surface of the older flow has not yet begun
to crumble and form soil, as it must do in time, yet a few trees
are found here and there, reaching their roots down for the scanty
nourishment to be drawn from the crevices of the rocks.
The last flow of lava, which was very small, ran into a depression
in the other flow just described. This lava appears so fresh that
we almost expect to find the rocks still warm. What a contrast
between the wooded hillside adjoining, with its carpet of soft
volcanic sand, and the jagged surface of the lava! Care must be
taken in climbing over the lava, for the sharp points and angles
are ever ready to tear one's shoes and hands. It cannot be many
years since these hard, cold rocks formed a glowing mass of molten
matter creeping quietly out of some hidden fissure which reached
far down into the earth. The lava hardened as it became cold, just
as does molten iron when led from the furnace to make a casting.
At one spot in the lava field stand the remains of rude stone houses
built into caverns in the lava. About them are scattered pieces
of broken pottery. These rude dwellings were probably occupied by
some of the prehistoric people whose homes are also found along
many of the streams, and in the caves of the plateau region. We
can see no reason for their coming to this desolate place, so far
from a water supply, unless it was that the rugged lava offered
some protection from their enemies.
Now let us imagine ourselves transported to northern California.
Near Lassen Peak, the southernmost of the great volcanoes of the
Cascade Range, there lies another field of recent volcanic activity
of even greater interest than the first. The centre of attraction is
Cinder Cone, similar to Shadow Mountain in its manner of formation
as well as in materials, but more symmetrical in form. Upon one side
is a field of black lava several miles in extent, while volcanic
sand has been spread over all the adjacent country.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--THE CRATER OF CINDER CONE]
As nearly as can be determined, only a little more than two hundred
years ago the valley now occupied by Cinder Cone and the lava fields
gave no indication of ever becoming a new centre of volcanic action.
It has been thousands of years since the ancient volcanic peaks
and cinder cones of this mountainous region became extinct. The
glaciers had come, and torn and ground away the surface of the
lava, and afterward dense forests had hidden all the rocky slopes,
while lakes had occupied many of the valleys. Far below, however,
the fires had not gone out. In many places there were boiling springs
from which the steam, upon cold mornings, rose in dense white clouds.
Then, for some reason which we do not understand, the forces beneath
the surface increased their activity. The force of the steam and
other gases was too great to be restrained, and at a weak spot in
the overlying rocks they broke through. Molten lava accompanied
them, and a new volcano came into life in the valley where Cinder
Cone now raises its dark, symmetrical slopes.
The eruptions were violent. With explosive force the molten lava
was torn into fragments, and sand, lapilli, and bombs were hurled out
into the air. The finer particles were carried by the air currents
far over the surrounding country. The lapilli, scoriæ, and bombs
fell around the throat of the volcano, finally building up the
cone to its present proportions. The great bombs, some of them five
feet in diameter, are among the most remarkable products of this
eruption. They lie scattered about upon the surface of the ground
at the foot of the cone, and, although they are often irregular
in shape, they might almost be mistaken for huge cannon-balls.
The eruption killed and burned the trees in the near-by forests,
burying them under six or seven feet of fine sand or ashes. After
the cone had been built and the explosive eruptions had nearly
stopped, a stream of molten lava burst from the base of the cone
and filled a portion of the valley.
Now followed a long period of quiet. Trees began to grow upon the
sand and gradually to encroach upon the barren wastes about Cinder
Cone. It appeared as if there were to be no more eruptions. But
the volcano was only resting. At about the time, perhaps, when
the gold seekers began to pour across the continent to California,
there was another eruption; but this time it took the form of a
lava flow and was so quiet as to create no disturbance in the
surrounding country.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--CINDER CONE
The trees were killed by the last eruption of volcanic ashes]
A stream of thick, viscous lava flowed slowly out of an opening
at the southern base of Cinder Cone. As the lava crept down the
gentle slopes of the valley, it crusted over, forming a black,
slag-like surface. The surface was from time to time broken up
and mixed with the softer portions beneath, so that the movement
of the flow was still further retarded. At the lower end of the
valley the lava occupied a portion of a body of water now known
as Lake Bidwell; its rugged front made a dam across the valley
above, forming Snag Lake. The stumps of the trees which were killed
by the water when the lake was first formed are still standing.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--THE LAST LAVA FLOW IN THE UNITED STATES
At Cinder Cone, California. It formed a dam across a valley, thus
creating Snag Lake]
One's feet sink deep into volcanic sands, and walking is tiresome.
The lava field resulting from the last eruption is free from sand,
but its rough surface, formed of broken blocks, is difficult to
cross.
A few charred stumps rise out of the sand, pathetic remnants of the
forest trees that were growing at the time of the first eruption.
Most of the trees have completely disappeared, leaving shallow
pits where they once stood.
It is exceedingly difficult to climb the cone, which rises over
six hundred feet, for the slopes, composed of loose lapilli, are
so steep that one slips back at every step nearly as far as he
advances. From the summit a remarkable sight meets the eye. Within
the rim of the main crater is a second crater with a rim nearly as
high as the first, while the cavity within has a depth of about
two hundred and fifty feet.
Because of the loose character of the material of which it is built,
no streamlets have yet worn channels down the slopes of Cinder
Cone, and except for the presence of two small bushes which cling
to its side, it is just as bare and perfect in form as when first
completed.
Little by little the forests are encroaching upon the sand-covered
slopes about the cone, and in time these slopes, the black fields
of lava, and the cone itself, will be covered with forests like
the older lava fields and cinder cones which appear upon every
hand.
THE MUD VOLCANOES OF THE COLORADO DESERT
The Colorado Desert is a strange, weird region. Here is a vast
basin at the head of the Gulf of California which was once a part of
the gulf, but is now separated from it by the delta of the Colorado
River. With the drying up of the water, the centre of the basin was
left a salt marsh more than two hundred and fifty feet below the
level of the ocean. In summer the air quivers under the blazing
sun, and it seems as if no form of life could withstand the scorching
heat, but in winter the atmosphere is cool and full of life-giving
energy.
Around this desert rise the mountains, some old and nearly worn
down, their tops barely rising out of the long slopes of sand and
gravel; others rugged and steep, lifting their crests far above
the burning desert into the cold, clear sky.
Curious forms of plants and animals find their homes upon the slopes
about the basin, where they adapt themselves to the heat and dryness.
But toward the centre the soil is bare clay, for when the water dried
up so much alkali and salt were left that nothing could grow.
However we do not now intend to study the plants or the animals,
interesting though they are, but rather a group of mud volcanoes,
which forms almost the only relief in the monotony of the bare
plain. These volcanoes are in no way related to real volcanoes
except in shape, for water and mud, instead of fire and lava, have
been concerned in their building.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--MUD VOLCANOES, COLORADO DESERT]
Once it required a long journey in wagons or upon horseback to reach
the mud volcanoes, but now the railroad takes us within three miles
of the spot. We alight from the train before a section house which
stands in the midst of the great desert. Far, far away stretches the
barren clay floor of the ancient lake. Here and there are scattered
stunted shrubs, the only specimens of plant life which have been
able to withstand the alkali in the clay.
Seen from the station, the volcanoes appear like dark specks almost
upon the horizon, but in reality they are not far away, and an
hour's brisk walk will bring us to them. The mud springs, which
are scattered over an area of several hundred acres, present many
strange and interesting features. There are holes in the earth with
bubbling mud at the bottom, cones from the tops of which streams
of muddy water issue, and ponds of mud, in some cases as thick
as molasses, in others thin and watery. There are little jets of
steam, strange odors, and a vista of many mingled colors. Taken
altogether, it is a place quite different from any other that we
have ever seen.
The ground is soft and marshy, and in some places undermined by
the water, so that we have to take great care in walking about.
Some of the smaller springs occupy round depressions, sometimes
three or four feet across, which look as if they had been made
by pressing a large pan down into the clay. The bubbling mud in
the bottom of the pan, as well as the hot water in many of the
springs, makes it easy to imagine that we are standing upon the
top of a great cooking stove in which a hot fire is burning. As
the gas with which the water is impregnated comes up through the
mud, it forms huge bubbles which finally break and settle down,
only to rise again. In this way concentric mud rings, perfect in
form, are made to cover the entire surface of the pool.
Where there is little water, the surface of the mud hardens and
leaves a small opening, through which the bubbling gas throws small
columns of mud at regular intervals. From the large pools, some
of which are forty to fifty feet in diameter, there comes a low
murmuring sound like the boiling of many kettles. The water is
sputtering and bubbling, and in some places it is hot enough to give
off thin clouds of steam. Occasionally we get whiffs of sulphur,
while about the borders of some of the ponds pretty crystals of
this mineral can be found.
More commonly the pools are crusted about with a white deposit
of salt, for they all contain more or less of this substance in
solution. Around a few of the pools the mud is stained with the
red tinge of iron, and red lines mark the paths of the streams
as they run off from the pools toward the still lower portions of
the desert.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--POT-HOLES]
The built-up cones or volcanoes appear in every stage, from the
little ones a few inches high to the patriarchs, which in some
cases have reached a height of twelve feet. These cones are formed
by the hardening and piling up of mud about the openings; but when
they have reached the height mentioned, the passages up through
their centres, corresponding in each case to the throat of a real
volcano, become clogged and new holes are formed in the mud at
the base.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--AN EXTINCT MUD VOLCANO
With small active one at its side]
Many of these mud volcanoes closely resemble true volcanoes in form
and structure. The mud which pours out at the top forms streams
down the slopes very like those of molten lava. New cones are built
upon the sides or at the bases of the old ones in much the same
way as are those in the volcanic regions.
There are no signs of volcanic action in the vicinity of these mud
springs, and it is likely that the water is forced to the surface
by large quantities of gas produced by chemical changes taking
place deep within the clay beds of the old lake. Similar springs
occur farther south, nearer the mouth of the Colorado River, in
the Yellowstone Park, and near Lassen Peak, but nowhere in America
except in the Colorado desert have they formed such large and
interesting mounds.
THE HISTORY OF A COAST LINE
The story of our Pacific coast reads more like a tale from the
"Arabian Nights" than like a plain statement of events which have
actually happened.
The meeting place of the land and ocean is not really so permanent
a line as it appears. The shore has been continually moving back
and forth throughout the long history of the earth. That which was
dry land at one time was at another time deeply buried beneath the
ocean. The Pacific border seems never to have been at rest. It has
risen and sunk again repeatedly. It has been squeezed, folded, and
broken, shaken by earthquakes, and disturbed by volcanic eruptions.
One might be led to think from this statement that it would not
be safe to live on the Pacific coast, and that both animals and
men would shun the region. The fact is, however, that these changes
usually come to pass so very slowly that we are not aware of them.
Severe earthquakes and volcanic disturbances take place so rarely
in comparison with the length of a man's life, that we may pass our
whole lives without experiencing any of these violent disturbances.
The Pacific coast region, with its forest-covered mountains, fertile
valleys, and beautiful homes, presents so quiet and peaceful an
appearance that it is difficult to believe that parts of its history
have been so tumultuous.
Perhaps you will ask how we can know so much about the past. It is
true that no one was here to witness the events which are supposed
to have taken place. But Nature has left a record of her doings
which we have only to see and understand in order to learn with
certainty many things which happened in the far distant past.
Too many of us go through life seeing and understanding almost
as little of the world about us as if we were blind. Our early
ancestors were obliged to understand many things about Nature and
to cultivate clear and close observation for the sake of
self-preservation. The very life of the savage depends upon the
training of his eyes. He must be able to tell the meaning of a
distant object or an indistinct trail, for his enemies may have
passed that way recently. If we could bring the sharp eyes of the
savage to our aid, the world would mean much more to us.
In order to learn something of the history of the Pacific shore
line, we must see what the waves are doing at the present time.
The projecting points of land are being worn away (Fig. 33). The
waves form the cliffs against which they beat, and sometimes, as
they eat their way slowly into the land, they cut off portions
and leave them standing alone as islands.
The pebbles and boulders (Fig. 34) were once angular fragments
torn from the cliff. They have been washed about and hurled against
the solid rock until they have been worn smooth; and the cliff
in turn has had a cave ground out at its base. Above the lower
cave there is a remnant of a second one, with pebbles upon its
floor. This was made when the land stood ten feet lower than at
present.
As the waves wear away the loose earth and the solid rock below
it, moving the cliffs inland, they leave a comparatively smooth
surface which is partly exposed at low tide. The fact that this
surface is not marked by stream channels, as is the land, helps
us to realize the great difference between the irregular surface
of the latter and the plain-like character of the ocean floor.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--POINT BUCHON, CALIFORNIA
The waves are eating their way into the land]
Along the whole coast of California there are many old sea beaches
and cliffs which the waves abandoned long ago. The highest of these
beaches lies so far up the slopes of the mountains bordering the
ocean that it makes us wonder what the geography of California
could have been like when the region was so deeply submerged.
The lowest and newest terrace is the one shown in Fig. 35, ten
feet above the ocean. Each succeeding terrace is less distinct,
and the highest, fourteen hundred feet in elevation, can now be
distinguished in only a few places. Where the old sea cliffs are
best preserved they form a series of broad, flat steps, rising one
above the other. Each bench, or terrace as it is commonly called,
is a part of an old plain cut out of the land by the waves when the
ocean stood at that level. The steeper slope rising at the back is
the remnant of the cliff against which the waves used to beat. If
we are fortunate, we shall find at its base some water-worn pebbles
and possibly a few fragments of sea-shells. The crumbling of the
rocks and the erosive action of the rills are fast destroying the
old cliffs, so that in many places they have entirely disappeared.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--OCEAN CAVE AT LOW TIDE
Pebbles of a former beach are seen above]
Upon the seaward face of San Pedro Hill, in southern California,
there are eleven terraces, rising to a height of twelve hundred
feet. What an interesting record this shows! Long ago the land
stood twelve hundred feet lower than at present, and the waves beat
about San Pedro Hill, nearly submerging it. Then the land began
to rise, but stopped after a time, and the waves cut a terrace. The
upward movement was continued, with repeated intervals of rest,
until the land stood higher than it does now.
[Illustration: FIG. 35.--WAVE-CUT TERRACES
Point San Pedro, California]
North of San Francisco there stands a terrace fourteen hundred feet
above the ocean. Numerous terraces appear along the Oregon coast,
but those in Washington are not as high as those in California. It is
probable that the land in this region was not so deeply submerged.
The ancient shore lines of British Columbia and Alaska are now
deeply buried beneath the ocean, as those of California once were.
The fiords, so common in these countries, are old river valleys
which have been drowned by the sinking of the land. The islands
were once portions of the coast mountains, but have been cut off
by the same process.
Let us picture in our minds the changes in the geography of the
Pacific coast of the United States which must have been made by a
sinking of the land to a depth of only six hundred feet. We will
begin upon the north, at the Strait of Fuca.
Puget Sound once opened to the south as well as to the north, so
that the Olympic Mountains formed an island. The broad and fertile
Willamette Valley was but an arm of the sea, somewhat like Puget
Sound to-day. The body of water which once filled this valley has
been called Willamette Sound. The ocean overspread the low Oregon
coast, and reached far up the valleys of the Umpqua and Rogue rivers.
But the boundaries of the Klamath Mountains were not greatly changed,
for in many places they rise quite abruptly from the present shore
line.
All the large valleys of California were flooded, including the
San Joaquin-Sacramento valley, which was then a great sound, open
to the ocean in the region of the present Strait of Carquinez.
The Coast range was broken up into islands and peninsulas. The
islands off the coast of southern California are high and therefore
were not entirely submerged. The Gulf of California spread over the
Colorado Desert, while from the west the water penetrated inland
over the plain of Los Angeles to a point beyond San Bernardino, so
that at the San Gorgonio pass only a narrow neck of land connected
the San Jacinto Mountains and the Peninsula Range with the mainland.
If California had been inhabited at this time, the state would
not have been noted for orchards and grain-fields, but rather for
its mineral wealth. There would have been comparatively little
low land fit for cultivation, but the mountains, where almost all
the precious metals are found, would have appeared nearly as they
do to-day.
The surface of the earth may be divided into the ocean basins and
the continental masses which rise above them, but we must not make
the mistake of thinking that the shore line always corresponds
with the border of the continental masses. We have learned that
the land is almost always moving slowly up or down, so that the
shore is continually changing back and forth. At one time the shore
line may be far within the borders of the continent, as we have
seen was once the case upon our Pacific coast; at another time,
if the land should rise, the shore line might coincide with the
real border of the continent. By the real border of the continent
we mean the line along which the earth slopes down steeply to the
abysmal depths of the ocean.
It is an interesting fact that outside the present shore line of
California there is a submerged strip of the continent varying
from ten to one hundred and fifty miles in width. This strip of
land is like a bench upon the side of the continent, and is known as
the continental plateau. The water over the plateau is comparatively
shallow. Upon one side the land rises, while upon the other there is
a rapid descent into the deep Pacific. The surface of the plateau
is in general fairly smooth, but in places mountains lift their
summits above the water and form islands.
There was a time, thousands of years earlier than the period when
California was so nearly covered by the waters of the Pacific, when
this land stood far higher than it does now. The coast line was
then much farther west, near the border of the submarine plateau.
The Santa Barbara Islands at that time formed a mountain range upon
the edge of the continental land. This fact was established by
the discovery upon one of the islands of a large number of bones
of an extinct American elephant. These animals could have reached
the submerged mountains only at a time when there was dry land
between them and the present shore line. We should like to know how
it came about that these bones were left where they are. Perhaps
the land sank so suddenly that the water cut the elephants off from
the mainland and compelled them to spend the remainder of their
lives upon these islands.
While the land stood so high, some of the larger streams wore deep
channels across what is now the submarine plateau. These channels
have been discovered by soundings made from the ships of the United
States Coast Survey. The largest of the submerged valleys extends
through the Bay of Monterey, and runs so close to the shore that
it has offered a favorable location for a wharf.
Before the buried valleys upon the northern coast of California
were all known, the presence of one of them led to the wreck of
a ship. The shore was obscured by fog, but the soundings made by
the sailors showed deep water and led them to believe they were
a long distance from land, when suddenly the ship drifted in upon
the rocks.
The last significant movement of the land of the Pacific border
was a downward one. It flooded the mouths of the streams and formed
all the large harbors which are of so great commercial importance.
San Francisco Bay occupies a great stretch of lowland at the meeting
of several valleys of the Coast Ranges and forms the outlet for
the most important drainage system of California. If this region
had been settled before the subsidence of the land which let in the
ocean through the Golden Gate, how the farmers would have lamented
the flooding of their fertile lands! But we can understand how
small the loss would have been, compared with the advantages to
be gained from the magnificent harbor which now exists here. If
the land had not sunk the history of the Pacific coast would have
been far different.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.--ISLAND ROUNDED BY A GLACIER
Near Anacortes, Puget Sound]
Puget Sound, another very important arm of the ocean, is also a
submerged valley, but it has had an entirely different history
from that of San Francisco Bay. The valley was at one time occupied
by a great glacier which came down from the Cascade Range and moved
northwest through the sound and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca,
scouring and polishing the rocks over which it passed. A little
island near Anacortes (Fig. 36) has been rounded by the action
of the ice into a form like a whale's back.
[Illustration: FIG. 37.--AN ABANDONED OCEAN CLIFF
Southern California]
The sinking of the land flooded the lower Columbia River and the
mouth of the Willamette, so that ocean ships may now go up as far
as Portland. The currents and waves soon threw up bars across the
mouths of the smaller streams, and formed lagoons behind them.
Ships frequently have difficulty in entering many of the harbors
because of the sand bars which have been built up part way to the
surface of the water.
It is thought that along some portions of the coast there has recently
been a slight upward movement of the land. Figure 37 shows a bit
of California coast, near San Juan, where the Santa Fé railroad
has laid its tracks for several miles along a strip of abandoned
beach, at the base of a cliff against which the waves once beat.
[Illustration: FIG. 38.--LIMESTONE CLIFF, QUATSINO SOUND, VANCOUVER
ISLAND]
At the northern end of Vancouver island there is a deep arm of
the ocean called Quatsino Sound. A limestone cliff upon the shore
of this sound (Fig. 38) has been undermined by the dissolving of
the limestone, but now the water lacks three feet of rising to
the notch which it recently formed.
THE DISCOVERY OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER
The influence exerted by the various features of the land and water
upon the settlement of a new region are not always fully appreciated.
If the entrance to San Francisco Bay had been broader and more
easily discerned by the early navigators who sailed past it, and if
the mouth of the Columbia River had not been obscured by lowlands
and a line of breakers upon the bar, the history of western America
would probably have been very different.
In the seventeenth century the prospect seemed to be that Spain
would control the Pacific Ocean. She claimed, by right of discovery,
all the lands bordering upon this ocean and the exclusive right
to navigate its waters. Every vessel found there without license
from the court of Spain was, by royal decree, to be confiscated.
It is interesting, after all these years and with our present knowledge,
to look back and see how unreasonable were the claims of Spain.
In the fifteenth century the extent of the Pacific ocean was not
known. In fact, men's ideas as to the distribution of land and water
over the earth were so indefinite that it was at first supposed
that the islands which Columbus discovered belonged to the East
Indies.
The claims of Spain to the Pacific Ocean were based upon its discovery
by Balboa, but she never made any serious efforts to enforce them,
for the attempt would have involved her in war with all the maritime
nations of Europe. Spain lacked the ability to take advantage of
the great discoveries which her navigators and explorers had made,
and for that reason she merely looked on, though with jealous eyes,
when in the eighteenth century the ships of England, France, Holland,
and Russia entered the Pacific Ocean with a view to exploration
and conquest.
Determined at last to support their claim to the Pacific coast
of North America, the Spaniards began to realize the necessity
of exploring it more fully and of founding settlements. It was
their plan to take possession of the whole region between Mexico
upon the south and the Russian trading posts along the shores of
Alaska. As exploration by land was impossible because of mountain
ranges and deserts, the Spanish adventurers were forced to rely
upon the ocean, with all its uncertainties of storm and contrary
winds.
Between 1774 and 1779 voyages were made as far north as Queen
Charlotte's Island, in latitude 54°. A station was established
and held for many years at Nootka Sound, upon the west coast of
Vancouver Island. The first expedition passed the Strait of Juan
de Fuca apparently without seeing it, although there was a rumor to
the effect that a broad opening into the land had been discovered
by a certain Juan de Fuca in 1592, while he was exploring in the
employ of Spain. The latitude of this opening, as he gave it, nearly
corresponds to that of the strait which now bears his name.
For many years the attempt to discover a passage around the northern
part of America engaged the early navigators upon both the Atlantic
and Pacific oceans. Their desire to find an easy route to India
spurred them to constant effort. For a time it was believed that
such an opening actually existed, and mariners went so far as to give
it a name, calling it the Straits of Anian. The reputed discoveries
of Juan de Fuca materially strengthened the general belief in a
passage to the northward of America.
Vizcaino, in his voyage of 1603, reached latitude 43° north and
thought that he had discovered a great river flowing into the Pacific
Ocean. This opening, although south of the point supposed to have
been reached by Juan de Fuca, was believed for a time to be the
entrance to the long-sought Straits of Anian. During the latter
part of the seventeenth century California was represented upon
the Spanish maps as an island having Cape Blanco, which Vizcaino
discovered and named, as its northern point, and separated from
the mainland by an extension of the Gulf of California northward.
To return now to the Spanish explorations, in the latter part of
the seventeenth century we find that Heceta, following the first
expedition, succeeded in getting as far as Vancouver Island, where,
having been parted from an accompanying ship by a storm, he turned
southward, passing the Strait of Juan de Fuca and keeping close by
the shore. In latitude 46° 17' he found an opening in the coast from
which a strong current issued. He felt sure that he had discovered
the mouth of some large river. Upon the later Spanish maps this
was called Heceta's Inlet, or River of San Roque. A glance at the
map will show how closely the latitude given corresponds to the
mouth of the river which was discovered later by Captain Gray and
named, after his ship, the Columbia.
A short time before Heceta's discovery, Captain Jonathan Carver of
Connecticut set out on an exploring tour, partly for the purpose
of determining the width of the continent and the nature of the
Indian inhabitants. He mentions four great rivers rising within
a few leagues of one another, "The river Bourbon (Red River of
the North) which empties itself into Hudson's Bay, the waters of
the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and the river Oregon, or River
of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of
Anian." Carver's descriptions are fanciful, and it is not likely that
he ever saw the river which is now known as the Columbia, although
there is a possibility that he heard stories from the Indians of
a great river upon the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, and
invented for it the name Oregon.
In 1787 Meares, an English trader, visited the coast, and sailing
southward from the Strait of Juan de Fuca, attempted to find the
river San Roque as it was laid down upon the Spanish charts. Reaching
the proper latitude, Meares rounded a promontory and found behind
it a bay which he was unable to enter because of a continuous line
of breakers extending across it. He became satisfied that there
was no such river as the San Roque, and named the promontory Cape
Disappointment and the bay Deception Bay. If Meares had entered
the bay through the breakers, the English would undoubtedly have
made good their claim to the discovery of the Columbia River.
After the Revolution, American trading ships began to extend their
operations into the North Pacific. In 1787 two such vessels left
Boston, one of them under command of a Captain Gray. After reaching
the Pacific, the ships were parted during a storm, and Captain Gray
finally touched the American coast near the forty-sixth degree of
north latitude. For nine days he tried to enter an opening which
was in all probability the one attempted by Meares. After nearly
losing his ship and suffering an Indian attack, he sailed north
to Nootka Sound.
Captain Gray returned to Boston, but in 1790 started upon another
trading expedition in command of the ship _Columbia_. Arriving
safely in the North Pacific, he spent the winter of 1791-1792 upon
Vancouver Island.
Vancouver, whose name has been given to the largest island upon
the western coast of North America, and who did so much to make
known the intricate coast line of the Puget Sound region, arrived
upon the scene in 1792. He was authorized to carry on explorations,
and to treat with Spain concerning the abandonment of the Spanish
claim to Nootka Sound.
Vancouver sailed up the coast, keeping a close lookout for the
river San Roque. No opening in the land appeared, although at one
spot he sailed through a muddy-colored sea which he judged was
affected by the water of some river. Upon reaching the Strait of
Fuca, Vancouver expressed the opinion that there was no river between
the fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of north latitude, "only
brooks insufficient for our vessels to navigate."
Shortly after this time, Vancouver met Captain Gray with his ship
_Columbia_. The disheartened explorer placed no confidence in Captain
Gray's report that, upon his former voyage, he had discovered a
large river to the south. Vancouver in his narrative says, "I was
thoroughly convinced that we could not possibly have passed any
safe navigable opening, harbor, or place of security for shipping
on this coast from Cape Mendocino to the promontory of Closset"
(Cape Flattery).
Captain Gray, however, determined to make further investigations.
He sailed southward and entered a port now known as Gray's Harbor,
where he spent several days trading with the Indians. From this
harbor he ran on south for a few miles past Cape Disappointment,
and then sailed through an opening in the breakers into a bay which
he supposed formed the mouth of the river of which he was in search.
He finally anchored, as he says, "in a large river of fresh water."
[Illustration: FIG. 39.--A SCENE ON GRAY'S HARBOR, WASHINGTON
Showing sawmills and log booms]
Later Captain Gray took the vessel twelve or fifteen miles up the
river, and would have gone farther if he had not wandered into the
wrong channel. When he left the river he named it the Columbia
in honor of his vessel. Thus by the right of actual discovery the
United States was at last able to make good its claim to the river.
The English claimed that Gray did not enter the river itself, as
the tide sets up many miles farther than the point which his ship
reached. They insisted that what he saw was simply a bay. But the
truth is that Gray was actually in the mouth of the river. The mere
fact that the tide enters the lower portion of the river makes
no difference. The actual mouth of the Columbia is marked by the
north and south coast line. The entrance of the tide water, and
the backing of the current for many miles up stream, is the result
of a recent sinking of the land. The same features are presented
by the Hudson River.
If the English had discovered and entered the river first it is
probable that this stream would have become the boundary line between
the United States and British Columbia, in which case the whole
northern portion of the Oregon territory would have been lost to
us. As it was, the English laid insistent claim to the northern
bank of the river and established trading posts at various points.
The lowest of these posts stood upon the site of Fort Vancouver,
a little above the mouth of the Willamette River.
The famous exploring expedition under Captains Lewis and Clark
wintered at the mouth of the Columbia in 1804-1805, in a group
of rude log cabins known as Fort Clatsop. The first settlement
in the vicinity was made in 1811, when a fur company organized by
John Jacob Astor attempted to establish a trading post upon the
Columbia. Two parties were sent out from New York. One travelled
by water around Cape Horn, while the other, with great difficulty,
crossed the continent by the way of the Missouri, Snake, and Columbia
rivers. The undertaking proved unsuccessful, for after the War of
1812 began supplies could no longer be sent safely to the post.
The Astor company finally surrendered its establishment to an English
company, and in this way the control of the river was transferred
to England. With the return of peace the post was restored to the
United States, and its location is marked now by the city of Astoria.
[Illustration: FIG. 40.--TILLAMOOK ROCK
Near the mouth of the Columbia River]
What small things sometimes determine the trend of great events!
A little more care and energy on the part of Vancouver or Meares
would have placed the Columbia River in the hands of the English.
The existence of an open river mouth without any breaking bar would
have brought about the same result.
The Spaniards came first to the Pacific slope, claiming the whole
coast as far north as the Russian possessions. Later the United
States, by treaty with Spain and Russia, acquired a right to all
that portion of the Pacific coast of North America which lies between
California and the Russian possessions. But because of the greater
energy of the English, and the failure upon the part of the United
States to realize the value of this vast region, a considerable
section was again lost by the terms of the treaty which made the
forty-ninth parallel the boundary line. The intelligence and energy
of Captain Gray alone preserved to us the rich lands of Washington.
[Illustration: FIG. 41.--ASTORIA, OREGON
At the mouth of the Columbia River]
THE GREAT BASIN AND ITS PECULIAR LAKES
As our country was slowly being explored and settled, one region
was brought to light which Nature seemed to have left unfinished
and in a desolate condition. This barren stretch of country was once
marked upon the maps as the Great American Desert, and included a
large part of the extensive region lying between the Rocky Mountains
upon the east and the Sierra Nevada Mountains upon the west. To the
south lay the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, while upon the north
the boundary was formed by the cañons of the Snake and Columbia
rivers.
After a time it was found that this region, covering about two
hundred and twenty-five thousand square miles, not only was extremely
dry, but had no outlet to the ocean. A rim of higher land all about
made of it so perfect a basin that it became known as the Great
Basin. None of the water that falls upon the surface of this basin
ever reaches the ocean through surface streams. Some of it soaks
into the rocks, but the greater part is evaporated into the dry
air.
We have already learned something about the way in which the ridges
and hollows of the earth's surface are made. We have learned of
the wrinkling of the crust, of the formation of fissures, and of
the erosive work of running water. The interesting features of
the Great Basin are mainly the result of two causes: the sinking
of a portion of the earth's surface, and the lack of rainfall.
Long ago the Wasatch Range of eastern Utah and the Sierra Nevadas
of California formed parts of a vast elevated plateau. Then there
came a time when the forces holding up the plateau were relaxed,
and as the weight of the plateau pressed it down, the solid rocks
broke into huge fragments. Some of the blocks thus made sank and
formed valleys; others were tilted or pushed up and formed mountains.
Thus the north and south mountain ranges and valleys of the Great
Basin were born.
We must understand, then, that the Great Basin is not a simple
depression with higher land all about. The breaking up of the surface
produced many basins, large and small. Some of these basins are six
thousand feet above the level of the sea, others are much lower,
and one has been dropped below the level of the sea, so that if it
were not for barriers the water would flow in. Some of the basins
are rimmed all about by steep mountains, others are so broad and
flat that it is difficult to tell that they really are basins.
Many of the valleys are so connected with one another that if a
heavy rainfall should ever occur drainage systems would be quickly
established.
The Great Basin now appears like the skeleton of a dried-up world; but
if the climate should change and become like that of the Mississippi
Valley, the surface of the desert would undergo a wondrous
transformation. The hundreds of basins, if fed by streams from
the surrounding mountains, would then become lakes. The highest,
overflowing, would empty into a lower, and this in turn into a
still lower basin, until the water had accumulated in vast inland
seas. These seas, overflowing the rim of the Great Basin at its
lowest points, would send rivers hastening away to the ocean.
[Illustration: Map of the Great Basin showing the location and extent
of the ancient lake beds.]
What a region of lakes this would be for a time! Then they would
begin to disappear, for lakes are short-lived as compared with
mountains. Some would be filled with clay and gravel brought by
the streams. Others would be drained by a cutting down of their
outlets.
Great Salt Lake, which is the only body of water in the Basin that
has ever sent a stream to the ocean, was lowered four hundred feet
by the washing away of the rock and earth at its outlet.
We know that the rainfall never has been heavy in this region since
the Great Basin was formed, although at one time it was sufficiently
great to form two inland seas, one in northwestern Nevada, the
other in Utah.
The chief reason for the dryness of the Great Basin is the presence
of that lofty barrier, the Sierra Nevada mountain range, between
the Basin and the Pacific Ocean. The storms, which usually come
from the ocean, are intercepted by this range, and the greater
portion of their moisture is taken away. The little moisture that
remains falls upon the highlands of the Great Basin, and so relieves
its surface from utter barrenness. The adjacent slopes of the Sierra
Nevada and Wasatch ranges furnish numerous perennial streams which
feed the lakes about the borders of the Basin, such as Great Salt
Lake, Pyramid, Walker, Mono, Honey, and Owens lakes. The wet weather
streams, flowing down the desert mountains for a short time each
year, frequently form broad, shallow lakes which disappear with
the coming of the summer sun.
The climate of the Great Basin has changed from time to time. During
one period it was much drier than it is now, and the lakes were
nearly or quite dried up. It must have been a desolate region then,
shunned by animals and forbidden to man.
During the Glacial period, a few thousand years ago, the climate
was moister and cooler than it is now. The mountains were covered
with deep snows, and glaciers crept down the slopes of the higher
peaks. Great Salt Lake covered all northwestern Utah; to this former
body of water the name Bonneville has been given, in honor of a noted
trapper. Pyramid, Winnemucca, Carson, Walker, and Honey lakes, now
separated from one another by sagebrush deserts, were then united
in one great lake, to which the name Lahontan has been given, in
honor of an early French explorer.
[Illustration: FIG. 42.--MONO LAKE, CALIFORNIA]
Lake Lahontan covered a large portion of northwestern Nevada and
penetrated into California. It was broken into long winding arms
and bays by various mountain ranges. The deepest portion of this
ancient lake is now occupied by Pyramid Lake, which is, perhaps,
the most picturesque of all the Basin lakes. Fish can live in the
waters of this lake, although nearly all the others are so salty
or so alkaline that they support none of the ordinary forms of
life.
[Illustration: FIG. 43.--ROUND HOLE, A SPRING IN THE SMOKE CREEK
DESERT
Bed of old Lake Lahontan]
Upon the Black Rock Desert, in northern Nevada, there are large
springs once covered by Lake Lahontan, in which fish are found.
It is thought that the ancestors of these fish must have been left
there at the time of the drying up of the water.
After the Glacial period the present arid climate began to prevail
in the land. Hundreds of the shallow lakes which had been scattered
over this extensive region disappeared. Others contained water for
only a portion of each year. A body of water which is not permanent,
but comes and goes with the seasons, we call a playa lake. Many of
these playa lakes present in summer a hard, yellow-clay floor of
many miles in extent and entirely free from vegetation. The beds
of others are covered with a whitish crust, formed of the various
salts which were in solution in the lake water.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.--ROGERS LAKE, MOHAVE DESERT
A playa lake]
An important feature of the lakes of the Great Basin is the presence
of large quantities of such substances as common salt, soda, borax,
and nitre. The ocean is salt because it has no outlet, while the
rivers of the globe are continually bringing into it various minerals,
dissolved from the rocks over which they flow. Lakes with outlets
are not salty, because with a continuous change of the water there
is no opportunity for the minerals to accumulate, although they
are always present in small quantities. Any lake which does not
receive enough running water to cause it to overflow the borders
of its basin, will in course of time become rich in various kinds
of salt.
No two of the lakes of the Great Basin are alike in the composition
of their waters. This fact may be due to a difference in the rocks
about the lake basin, to the presence of varying mineral springs,
or to the drying up of one or more of the lakes at some time so
that their former salts were buried under sands and clays when
the water again filled the basin.
Great Salt Lake contains little besides common salt. In Mono Lake,
soda and salt are equally important constituents, while Owens Lake
contains an excess of soda. In other basins borax was present in
such quantities that when the waters dried up it formed important
deposits. The value of these deposits is now fully understood, and
many enterprising companies are at work separating and purifying
the borax.
Owens Lake was once fresh, although now it is so strong with soda
that it would destroy the skin if a bather should remain in it very
long. The former outlet of this lake was toward the south, through
a pass separating the Sierra Nevada from the Coso Mountains. For a
distance of thirty miles the old river-bed has been transformed
into a wagon road, and it is interesting to ride all day along the
bed of this dead river, past bold cliffs against which the waters
once surged and foamed. The river emptied far to the south, into a
broad, shallow lake whose former bed is now white with soda and
borax. The old beach lines stand out distinctly upon the slopes of
the enclosing mountains.
The lake bed is now the seat of an important industry--the gathering
of the borax and its refining. There are extensive buildings at
one spot upon its border, and men come and go across the blinding
white surface. A twenty-mule team dragging three huge wagons creeps
slowly along the base of the distant mountains, but all that can
be distinguished is a cloud of dust.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.--FREIGHTING BORAX ACROSS THE DESERT]
The slow crumbling of the rocks, and the setting free of those
constituents which are soluble, the work of the streams in gathering
the rock waste into the lakes, the dry air and the heat of the long
summer days, have all conspired together to give us these valuable
deposits in the dried-up lakes of the Great Basin.
No portion of the earth seems to be without value to man. The great
bodies of water are convenient highways. The rich valleys and timbered
mountains offer useful products. Even the deserts, where living
things of every description find the struggle for existence very
hard, become indispensable. If the climate in the Great Basin had
been moist, the salts would not have been preserved, but would
have been carried away to the ocean, from which only common salt
could have been recovered in commercial quantities.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--MUSHROOM ROCK, PYRAMID LAKE
Formed of calcareous tufa]
The crossing of the Great Basin was dreaded by the early emigrants
on their way to the Pacific coast. In many cases the locations of
the few springs and water-courses were unknown, and the journey
over the vast barren stretches was fraught with danger.
Stand upon a mountain in the desert some clear day in summer and
you will see range after range, with intervening sandy wastes,
stretching away to the horizon. The air below is tremulous with
heat, and every living thing that can move has sought the shade
of some rock or cliff. The plants seem almost dead, for the little
springs, hidden at rare intervals in the deep cañons, are of no
use to them.
What transformations would be wrought upon these desert slopes if
it were possible for the soil to receive and retain large quantities
of water! Forest-covered mountains, green hillsides, rippling streams,
lakes, farms, orchards, and towns would appear as if by magic.
FRÉMONT'S ADVENTURES IN THE GREAT BASIN
Frémont, "the Pathfinder," did greater service than any other man
in making known the geographic features of the Cordilleran region.
In the fifth decade of the last century, while California still
belonged to Mexico and the pioneers were turning their attention to
the Oregon country, Frémont organized and conducted three exploring
expeditions under the direction of the government. When in California
upon the third expedition he took part in the skirmishes which
resulted in the transference of this section to the United States.
A fourth expedition, undertaken by Frémont on his own account,
resulted disastrously. The explorers foolishly tried to cross the
Rocky Mountains in the middle of winter, but had to give up the
attempt after many of the party had died from cold and starvation.
It is hard for us to realize, now, that only sixty years ago the
territory lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast
was practically unknown. Try to imagine the feelings of emigrants,
bound for the gold-fields of California, who have pushed into the
Great Basin without knowing where to look for grass or water. They
are camped by a spring of alkaline water scarcely fit to drink;
their weary animals nibble at the scanty grass about the spring;
far ahead stretches the pathless desert which they must cross;
upon their choice of a route their very lives will depend.
Now it is all changed. The whole region is crossed and recrossed by
wagon roads and railways. Many mining towns are scattered through
the mountains which dot the seemingly boundless expanse of desert,
while in every place where water can be found there are gardens,
green fields of alfalfa, and herds of cattle.
Before the year 1840 some knowledge had been acquired of the borders
of the Great Basin. Trappers and explorers had crossed the Rocky
Mountains and had gone down the Columbia River. There were Spanish
settlements in New Mexico, Arizona, and along the coast of California.
Frémont's first expedition had taken him to the summit of the Rocky
Mountains in northwestern Wyoming. In 1843 he started upon the
second expedition. He was at that time commissioned to cross the
Rockies, descend the Columbia to Fort Vancouver, and return by
a route farther to the south, across the unknown region between
the Columbia and the Colorado rivers.
Let us follow the little band of explorers led by Captain Frémont
as day after day they made their way across what was then a trackless
waste, and see what troubles they encountered because of the inaccuracy
of the maps of that period.
Leaving Fort Vancouver, upon the lower Columbia, for the return
trip, the party ascended the river to The Dalles and then turned
southward along the eastern side of the Cascade Range. They soon
entered upon a region never before traversed by white men. At the
time when autumn was giving place to winter, without reliable guides
or maps, they were to cross the deserts lying between them and
the Rocky Mountains.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--MAP OF A PORTION OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA,
MADE IN 1826
Showing the Buenaventura River]
They met with no great difficulties until they had gone as far
south as Klamath Lake. "From this point," Frémont says, "our course
was intended to be about southeast to a reported lake called Mary's,
at some days' journey in the Great Basin, and thence, still on
southeast to the reputed Buenaventura (good chance) River, which
has had a place on so many maps, and countenanced the belief in
the existence of a great river flowing from the Rocky Mountains
to the Bay of San Francisco."
Figure 47 shows one of the maps to which Frémont refers. How interesting
it is! Compare it with a good map in your geography and you will
readily see that it is very misleading. The Sierra Nevada, one of
the greatest mountain ranges in the United States, hardly appears,
while traced directly across the map is the great Buenaventura
River which Frémont expected to find and follow eastward toward
its source near the Rocky Mountains.
If this river had really been where it was mapped, it is likely
that Frémont would have had no trouble, for if hard pressed he
could have followed the stream down to the ocean. But a wall of
snow-covered mountains lying in the way made matters very different.
Winter was coming on when the party entered what is now northwestern
Nevada, looking for the Buenaventura River. For several weeks they
toiled on, often through the snow. Concerning this part of the
journey Frémont says: "We had reached and run over the position
where, according to the best maps in my possession, we should have
found Mary's lake or river. We were evidently on the verge of the
desert, and the country was so forbidding that we were afraid to
enter it."
The party then turned south, still hoping that the river might be
discovered. After a time they came upon a large lake and travelled
for many miles along its eastern shore. One camp was made opposite
a tall, pyramid-shaped island, the white surface of which made it
conspicuous for a long distance. Frémont was much impressed by
the resemblance of the island to the pyramids of Egypt and so named
the body of water Pyramid Lake. At the southern end of the lake the
travellers found a large stream flowing into it (now known as the
Truckee River), and followed along its banks for some distance;
but as the river turned toward the west, they left it and struck
out across the country.
Frémont says again, "With every stream I now expected to see the
great Buenaventura, and Carson (Kit Carson, the famous scout) hurried
eagerly to search on every one we reached for beaver cuttings,
which he always maintained we should find only on waters which ran
to the Pacific."
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--PYRAMID ISLAND, PYRAMID LAKE, NEVADA]
But all the streams flowed in the wrong direction, until at last the
explorers grew weary of hunting for the river which had no existence.
Although it was the middle of the winter, Frémont determined to
cross the lofty Sierras which rose like a white wall to the west.
Once over the mountains, he hoped to gain the American settlements
in the Sacramento Valley, where already Sutter's Fort had been
established.
The party ascended Walker River, dragging, with great difficulty,
a howitzer which they had brought with them. The snows grew deeper
as storm succeeded storm. Feeling that they were really lost, the
disheartened men at length abandoned the gun, at a spot which has
since been named Lost Cañon.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--LOST CAÑON, EASTERN SLOPE OF THE SIERRA
NEVADA MOUNTAINS]
When their own provisions were nearly gone, the party obtained
some pine nuts and also several rabbits from the Indians. A dog
which had been brought along made one good meal for the wayfarers.
An Indian who had been persuaded to act as guide pointed out the spot
where two white men, one of whom was Walker, a noted frontiersman,
had once crossed the mountains; but the guide made them understand
that it was impossible to cross at that time of the year, saying,
in his own language, "Rock upon rock, snow upon snow."
Although they could advance only by breaking paths through the
snow, and were reduced to eating mule and horse flesh, yet the
Frémont party pushed on. Finally they reached the summit of the
mountains and turned down by the head of a stream flowing westward,
which proved to be the American River. After three weeks more of
terrible suffering they came out of the mountains at Sutter's Fort,
where they obtained supplies and had an opportunity to rest and
recruit.
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--FRÉMONT PEAK, MOHAVE DESERT]
Frémont now recognized the incorrectness of the maps which had
so nearly caused the destruction of the party. As he says in his
notes: "No river from the interior does, or can, cross the Sierra
Nevada, itself more lofty than the Rocky Mountains... There is no
opening from the Bay of San Francisco into the interior of the
continent."
When the return journey was begun the party did not recross the
high Sierras, but turned southward through the San Joaquin Valley
and gained the Mohave Desert by the way of Tehachapai pass. The
route now led eastward across the deserts and low mountain ranges
of California and southern Nevada, until at last Great Salt Lake
was reached.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--SAGE-BRUSH IN THE GREAT BASIN]
Among the many geographical discoveries of the expedition was the
demonstration of the existence of the Great Basin. In his report,
Frémont, while speaking of its vast sterile valleys and of the
Indians which inhabit them, says: "That it is peopled we know,
but miserably and sparsely ... dispersed in single families ...
eating seeds and insects, digging roots (hence their name) [Digger
Indians], such is the condition of the greater part. Others are
a degree higher and live in communities upon some lake or river
from which they repulse the miserable Diggers.
"The rabbit is the largest animal known in this desert, its flesh
affords a little meat.... The wild sage is their only wood, and
here it is of extraordinary size--sometimes a foot in diameter and
six or eight feet high. It serves for fuel, for building material,
for shelter for the rabbits, and for some sort of covering for the
feet and legs in cold weather. But I flatter myself that what is
discovered, though not enough to satisfy curiosity, is sufficient
to excite it, and that subsequent explorations will complete what
has been commenced."
THE STORY OF GREAT SALT LAKE
The most interesting geographical feature of Utah is the Great
Salt Lake. Few tourists now cross the continent without visiting
the lake and taking a bath in its briny waters. This strange body
of water has, however, been slowly growing smaller for some years,
and probably will in time disappear. A study of the history of the
lake may throw some light upon the important question of its possible
disappearance, and it will certainly bring out many interesting
facts.
We do not know with certainty who was the first white man to look
upon this inland sea, although it is supposed to have been James
Bridger, a noted trapper, who in 1825 followed Bear River down to
its mouth. He tasted the water and found it salt, a fact which
encouraged him in the belief that he had found an arm of the Pacific
Ocean.
More than two hundred years ago there were vague ideas about a
salt lake situated somewhere beyond the Rocky Mountains. In 1689
Baron Lahontan published an account of his travels from Mackinac
to the Mississippi River and the region beyond. He states that he
ascended a westerly branch of the river for six weeks, until the
season became too late for farther progress. He reports meeting
savages who said that one hundred and fifty leagues beyond there
was a salt lake, "three hundred leagues in circumference--its mouth
stretching a great way to the southward."
This imaginative story aroused interest in the West. In a book
published in 1772, devoted to a description of the province La
Louisiane, the possibility of water communication with the South
Sea is discussed as follows: "It will be of great convenience to
this country, if ever it becomes settled, that there is an easy
communication therewith, and the South Sea, which lies between
America and China, and that two ways: by the north branch of the
great Yellow River, by the natives called the river of the 'Massorites'
(Missouri), which hath a course of five hundred miles, navigable
to its head, or springs, and which proceeds from a ridge of hills
somewhat north of New Mexico, passable by horse, foot, or wagon,
in less than half a day. On the other side are rivers which run
into a great lake that empties itself by another navigable river
into the South Sea. The same may be said of the Meschaouay, up
which our people have been, but not so far as the Baron Lahontan,
who passed on it above three hundred miles almost due west, and
declares it comes from the same ridge of hills above mentioned,
and that divers rivers from the other side soon make a large river,
which enters into a vast lake, on which inhabit two or three great
nations, much more populous and civilized than other Indians; and
out of that lake a great river disembogues into the South Sea."
In 1776 Father Escalante travelled from Santa Fé far to the north
and west. He met Indians who told him of a lake the waters of which
produced a burning sensation when placed upon the skin. This was
probably Great Salt Lake, but it is not thought that he himself
ever saw it. The Escalante Desert, in southern Utah, once covered
by the waters of the lake, is named after this explorer.
Nothing more seems to have been learned of the lake after its discovery
by Bridger until in 1833 Bonneville, a daring leader among the
trappers, organized a party for its exploration. Washington Irving,
in his history of Captain Bonneville, says of the party, "A desert
surrounded them and stretched to the southwest as far as the eye
could reach, rivalling the deserts of Asia and Africa in sterility.
There was neither tree, nor herbage, nor spring, nor pool, nor
running stream, nothing but parched wastes of sand, where horse
and rider were in danger of perishing."
[Illustration: FIG. 52.--SCENE ON GREAT SALT LAKE]
Although decreasing in area so rapidly, Great Salt Lake is still
the largest body of water in the western part of the United States,
and the largest salt lake within its boundaries. It has a length
of seventy miles and a maximum width of nearly fifty miles.
Desolate, indeed, must have appeared the surroundings of the lake,
with its salt-incrusted borders, as the Mormon emigrants gained the
summit of the Wasatch Range and looked out over the vast expanse
to the west. But as the slopes at the foot of the mountains seemed
capable of producing food for their support, they stopped and made
their homes there. Now in this same region, after half a century, one
can ride for many miles through as beautiful and highly cultivated
a country as the sun ever looked down upon. In the early days the
barren plains were broken only by mountains almost as barren, which
rose from them like the islands from the surface of the Great Salt
Lake. The only pleasing prospect was toward the east, where stood
the steep and rugged Wasatch Range, with its snow-capped peaks.
From its deep cañons issued large streams of pure, cold water,
which flowed undisturbed across the brush-covered slopes, then
unbroken by irrigating ditches, and at last were lost in the salt
lake.
One might think that streams of water apparently so pure would
at last freshen the lake, but in reality they are carrying along
invisible particles of mineral matter which add to its saltness
day by day. The dry air steals away the water from the lake as
fast as it runs in, but cannot take the minerals which it holds
in solution.
Great Salt Lake is still considered very large, but at one time
it was ten times its present size, while still longer ago there
was no lake at all. Without a basin there can be no lake, and at
that far-away time, as we have already learned, the Great Basin
did not exist, and the streams, if there were any, ran away to
the ocean without hindrance.
When the Great Basin was formed by a breaking and bending of the
crust of the earth, many a stream lost its connection with the
ocean and went to work filling up the smaller basins, thus giving
rise to the lakes which have already been described. The largest of
these bodies of water, and in some respects the most interesting,
is Great Salt Lake.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.--OLD SHORE LINE OF LAKE BONNEVILLE
Foot of the Wasatch Range]
This lake, lying close to the lofty Wasatch Range, received so
much water from numerous streams during the Glacial period that
it slowly spread over thousands of square miles, overrunning the
desert valleys and making islands of the scattered mountain ranges.
It extended from north to south across Utah, into southern Idaho
and almost to the Arizona line, until this body of water, which
arose from so small beginnings, had become a veritable inland sea,
three hundred miles long, one hundred miles wide, and one thousand
feet deep.
By the time the lake had covered an area of twenty thousand square
miles the lowest point in the rim of the basin was reached and the
overflow began. No map will tell you where the outlet was, for
no river exists there now. If you could explore the shore lines
of this ancient lake, which has been called Bonneville after the
noted trapper, you would find two low spots in the mountains which
hem the waters in, one upon the south, facing the Colorado River,
the other on the north toward the Snake River. The one on the north
happened to be a little lower, so that the break occurred there.
First as a little, trickling stream, then as a mighty, surging
river, the water poured northward down the valley of a small stream,
widening and deepening it until, passing the spot where now the
town of Pocatello stands, it joined the Snake River.
This old outlet is now known as Red Rock Pass, and it forms an
easy route for the Oregon Short Line from Salt Lake City to the
plains of southern Idaho. The old river-bed is marked by marshes
and fertile farms.
With an outlet established, Lake Bonneville could rise no higher,
and its waves began the formation of a well-defined terrace or
beach, just as waves are sure to do along every shore. The level
of the water could not remain permanently at the same height, for
the rocks at the outlet were being worn away by the large volume
of water which flowed over them. In the course of years the level
of the lake was lowered four hundred feet. The sinking was not
uniform, but took place by stages, while at each period of rest
the waves made a new beach line. The lake during all this time
must have been a beautiful sheet of fresh water filled with fish.
Its shores, also, must have been much richer in vegetation than
they are now.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.--RED ROCK PASS, SOUTHERN IDAHO
Outlet of Lake Bonneville]
The water remained for a long time at the level of four hundred
feet below its highest stage. This fact is evident from the width
of the wave-cut terrace, which is the most prominent of all those
that mark the old levels along the sides of the mountains. Finally,
for some reason the climate began to change, the streams supplied
less water to the lake, and the evaporation from its surface became
greater because the air was drier. As a result the lake was lowered
to such an extent that it lost its outlet. The mighty river flowing
down through Red Rock Cañon grew smaller and at last dried up
altogether.
In this manner the lake was again cut off from the ocean, as it
had been during its earlier history. The waters still continued
to recede, but not at a uniform rate. During periods of greater
rain its level remained stationary, so that the waves added new
terraces to those already formed.
As the lake had no outlet and was decreasing in volume, the water
became salty, for the minerals brought by the streams could no
longer be carried away. The fish either died or passed up into the
purer waters of the inflowing streams.
The water of the present lake is so salt that in every four quarts
there is one quart of salt, and the preparation of this commodity by
a process of evaporating the water in ponds has become an important
industry. The water is the strongest kind of brine and it is impossible
for a bather to sink in it. One floats about upon it almost as lightly
as wood does upon ordinary water. After bathing it is necessary to
wash in fresh water to remove the salt from the body.
The dry bed of the former Lake Bonneville stretches far to the
south and west of the present lake, and forms one of the most barren
and arid regions in the United States. It is sometimes called the
Great American Desert.
Why is the lake receding now? Some people think that the climate is
growing still more arid, and that the lake will eventually disappear.
Others think that its shrinkage is the result of irrigation, for a
large part of the water from the streams which supply it is now
taken out and turned upon the land. There is still another reason
which may account for the low water. The lake is known to rise
and fall during a series of wet and dry years. When first mapped,
in the middle of the last century, it was about as low as it is
now. Then it gradually rose for a number of years and lately has
again been falling.
The story of Great Salt Lake has been much more complicated than
the statement given above, but this is sufficient for our purpose.
Irrigation has made a garden spot of a large part of the old bed
of Lake Bonneville, but much of the beauty and attractiveness of
this region would be lost if the present lake should give place
to a bed of glistening salt. Let us hope that it will remain as
it is.
THE SKAGIT RIVER
The Skagit is not one of the great rivers of the world, for very
little of its course lies outside the boundaries of a single state.
It is, however, none the less interesting. Few rivers with a length
of only one hundred and fifty miles present so great a variety of
instructive features. We shall certainly learn more from a study
of the Skagit than from many a better known and more pretentious
river.
Innumerable torrents, fed by the glaciers of the Cascade Range,
pour down the rocky slopes and lose themselves in the wooded cañons
below. The cañon streams, of much greater size, flow less impetuously
over gentler slopes, and are frequently blocked by boulders and
logs. These streams unite in one broad, deep river, which moves
on quietly to its resting-place in Puget Sound. Its name, Skagit,
is of Indian origin and means _wild cat_.
By following the Skagit River and a tributary stream, one can go
from the bare and snowy summit of the Cascade Range down through
dense forests, and come out at last upon a magnificent delta, where
a fertile plain is slowly but steadily encroaching upon the waters
of the sound. What contrasting scenes are presented along the few
short miles of the course of the river! A trip from its source
to its mouth will be worth all the trouble it involves, although
the trail is often disagreeably wet and sometimes dangerous.
There is no grander scenery in the United States than that of the
Cascade Range; nor are there more dense forests than those found
upon its western slope. The range is hidden in almost perpetual
clouds and storms, and they are fortunate who can reach its summit
upon a pleasant day.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.--SUMMIT OF THE CASCADE RANGE, NEAR THE HEAD
OF THE SKAGIT RIVER]
The forests of fir and hemlock have gained a foothold nearly to the
summit of the range. Upon the little benches and in the protected
nooks the trees grow thriftily, and dense groves are found up to an
elevation of nearly five thousand feet; but upon the more exposed
and rocky slopes stunted trunks show the effect of a constant struggle
with the rocks and winds. Upon other slopes, too high for the trees
to grow, there are low shrubs and arctic mosses; but above all rise
precipitous crags and peaks, utterly bare except for the glaciers
nestling among them.
Under the shade of the upland forests the moss is damp and the
wood wet, so that it is difficult to make a comfortable camp or to
build a fire. But these discomforts are not worthy of consideration
in view of the inspiration which one gains by the outlook from some
commanding point upon the summit of the mountain range.
All about are jagged, splintered peaks. Upon every gentle slope
there rests, within some alcove, a glistening mass of snow and
ice. A score of these glaciers are in sight. They are supplied
in winter by the drifting snows, and yield in summer, from their
lower extremities, streams of ice-cold water. A multitude of streams
raise a gentle murmur, broken occasionally by a dull roar as some
glacier, in its slow descent, breaks upon the edge of a precipice
and its fragments fall into the cañon below.
From a position upon the summit above the point where the Skagit
trail crosses the mountains may be seen a little lake, on the surface
of which remains some of last winter's ice not yet melted by the
August sun. If the climate were a little colder, the basin would
be occupied by a glacier instead of a lake. All about the lake
there are steep, rocky slopes, more or less completely covered
with low arctic plants and stunted, storm-beaten hemlocks. From
among the trees at the foot of the lake rises the roof of a miner's
log cabin, and a few hundred feet beyond a small, dark opening in
the face of a cliff shows where the miner is running a tunnel in
his search for gold.
Far below, and heading close under the sharp crest of the range,
are densely wooded cañons. The fair weather is passing, and it
is necessary to find the trail and descend. Clouds are sweeping
across the ridges and peaks, and soon the whole summit will be
covered by them.
From a point a little east of the summit the clouds present a grand
sight at the gathering of a storm. Higher and higher they pile
upon the ocean face of the mountains. At the bottom they are dark
and threatening, but the thunder-heads above can be seen bathed in
the bright sunlight. For a time the clouds hang upon the summit
as if stopped by some invisible barrier; perhaps they are loath
to pass into the drier air of the eastern slope. But finally they
move on, and rain or snow soon envelops the whole landscape.
The trail descends rapidly for four thousand feet to Cascade River,
a tributary of the Skagit. It is a steep and slippery way, and
in many places it is not safe to ride the horses. The sub-arctic
climate of the summit is left behind, and one is soon surrounded
by dense and luxuriant vegetation. Such a change as this, in a
short distance, shows how greatly elevation affects climate and
plant growth.
Upon every hand there is the sound of rushing water. From the cliffs
ribbon-like cascades are falling. The rivulets unite in one stream,
which roars and tumbles down the cañon over logs and boulders. The
trail crosses and recrosses the torrent until the water becomes
too deep for fording, and then it leads one to a rude bridge made
of two logs with split planks laid across them.
As the cañon widens, the trail leads farther from the river and
through dense forests. The woods are so silent that they become
oppressive, and the air is damp, for the sunlight is almost excluded.
The tall trees, fir, hemlock, and spruce, with now and then a cedar,
stand close together. Shrubs of many kinds are crowded among them,
while mosses and ferns cover the ground. The fallen trunks are
wrapped in moss, and young trees are growing upon them, drawing
their nourishment from the decaying tissues. In the more open spots
grow the salal bushes with their purple berries, the yellow salmon
berries, and the blue-black huckleberries.
It is difficult to get an idea of the density of a Washington forest,
or of the character of the streams, unless one has actually taken
a trip through the region. If one wishes to escape the forest by
following the streams, he will find the path blocked by fallen trees.
It is necessary continually to climb over or under obstructions,
and the traveller is fortunate if he does not fall into the cold
water. Upon the banks it is even worse; one must struggle through
dense prickly bushes and ferns, and be tripped every few rods.
Though the forest may appear at first to offer an easier way, it
will soon be found that creeping and crawling through the undergrowth
of bushes and young trees is exceedingly tiresome, and one will
gladly return to the muddy trail, thankful for its guidance.
The mountains become less precipitous and the cañon widens to a
valley, until at last the trail comes out at a clearing where the
Cascade River joins the Skagit. At this point, known as Marble
Mountain, there is a ferry, also a store and several other buildings.
The cleared fields seem a relief after many miles of dense forest,
but such openings are infrequent, for few settlers have yet pushed
far into the forests of the Skagit valley. To make a clearing of
any size, tear out the stumps, and prepare the land for cultivation,
requires many years of hard labor.
How silently and yet with what momentum the river sweeps on! The
water is clear in summer, but in winter it must be very muddy,
for the Skagit is building one of the largest deltas upon Puget
Sound.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.--SKAGIT RIVER IN ITS MIDDLE COURSE]
At Marble Mountain the traveller may, if he wishes, leave his horses,
hire an Indian canoe, and float down the river to the nearest railroad
station. The ride in the cedar canoe, with an Indian at the stern
carefully guiding it past snags and boulders, is one of the pleasantest
portions of the trip. The winding river is followed for nearly fifty
miles. There is mile after mile of silent forest, the solitude
broken only here and there by camps of Indians who are spending
the summer by the river, fishing and picking huckleberries. Now
and then a call comes from one of these camps, and in spite of the
danger of being swamped by the swift current, the canoe is turned
toward the shore, but the stop is only for a moment.
At last a new railroad grade comes in sight, with gangs of men at
work. The valley of the Skagit contains one of the finest bodies
of timber in Washington, and the railroad is being built for the
purpose of reaching this timber. There is little other inducement
for the building of a railroad; for beside a few summer visitors,
the only inhabitants are the scattered prospectors and miners.
We enter the train at a little town in the woods and are soon speeding
down the valley toward the mouth of the river. Clearings appear in
the forest, and at last the view opens out over extensive meadows
which stretch away, almost as level as a floor, to the waters of
the sound. Here and there the meadows are broken by forest trees
or irregular groups of farm buildings. Rich lands form the delta
of the Skagit River. The value of these natural meadows was quickly
recognized by the early settlers, for not only was the land exceedingly
fertile, but it did not have to be cleared in order to be transformed
into productive grain-fields.
For centuries, ever since the melting of the great glaciers which
once descended the Cascade Range and crept down the sound, the
river has been building this delta. It grew rapidly, for immense
accumulations of gravels and clays were left by the retreating
glaciers. The delta has already spread westward into the sound,
until it has enveloped some of the smaller islands. The forests
growing upon these islands, which rise from the surface of the
delta plain, are in picturesque contrast to the fields dotted with
stacks of grain.
The delta is now practically joined to the eastern side of the
San Juan Islands. The railroad reaches the islands by means of a
trestle across the intervening tidal flats, delivering its load
of logs at the mills and leaving the passengers at the town of
Anacortes, where they may take one of the many steamers passing
up and down the sound.
[Illustration: FIG. 57.--THE DELTA OF THE SKAGIT RIVER
Enveloping former islands in Puget Sound]
Of all the deltas now forming about Puget Sound that of the Skagit
is the largest and most interesting. One might think that the forests
would so protect the slopes that erosion would not be rapid, but
the valleys of all the tributary streams appear deeply filled with
rock fragments, which have, for the most part, accumulated from the
higher portions of the range, where frost and ice are slowly tearing
down the cliffs. At each period of flood some of this material is
passed on to the river, which in turn drops it upon the borders
of its delta.
The Skagit River, from its source to its mouth, takes the traveller
through varying climates and life zones, from the barren crest
where the miner is the only inhabitant, down through forests where
the lumberman is busy, until it leaves him upon the rich meadows
of its delta.
THE STORY OF LAKE CHELAN
Chelan is the largest and most beautiful of our mountain lakes.
The lake itself is most attractive, and the basin in which it lies
has had an interesting history, so that it is well worth study.
Notwithstanding the beauties of this lake, it is not widely known,
for it is situated far away from the main lines of travel, in a
remote cañon of the Cascade Range. Fortunately the lake and the
rugged mountains about it have been included in a forest reserve,
so that they will be kept in all their wild natural beauty.
The Columbia River, in its crooked course across the state of
Washington, follows for some distance the junction of the vast
treeless plateau of the central portion and the rugged, forest-clad
slopes of the Cascade Range. We have already learned how the plateau
grew to its present extent through the outpouring of successive
floods of lava which swept around the higher mountains like an
ocean.
Many cañons furrow the eastern slope of the Cascade Range, and
terminate in the greater cañon of the Columbia at the edge of the
lava. One of these cañons, deeper and longer than the rest, has been
blocked by a dam at its lower end. Beautiful Lake Chelan lies in
the basin thus formed. It begins only three miles from the Columbia
River, but winds for sixty miles among the rugged and steep-walled
mountains, terminating almost in the heart of the range.
The lake can be reached either by crossing the mountains from Puget
Sound, over a wet and difficult trail, or by ascending the Columbia
River from Wenache, the nearest railroad station. The trip can be
made from the latter point either upon the stage or river steamer.
The wagon road is very picturesque, winding now under lofty cliffs
with the river surging below, now along the occasional patches of
bottom land where in July the orchards are loaded with fruit.
The first sight of Lake Chelan is disappointing, for at the lower
end, where the wagon road stops, there is little to suggest the
remarkable scenery farther back in the mountains. Rolling hills,
covered with grass and scattered pine trees, slope down to the
lake, while here and there farmhouses appear.
One cannot help asking at the first view what there is about Lake
Chelan which has made it, next to Crater Lake, the most noted body
of water upon the Pacific slope of the continent. But wait a little.
Either hire a rowboat and prepare with blankets and provisions
for a camping trip about the shores; or if the time is too short
for carrying out that plan, take the little steamer which makes
tri-weekly trips to the hotel at the head of the lake. Long before
you reach the upper end you will begin to appreciate the grandeur
of the lake scenery in its setting of steep-walled mountains.
Little of Lake Chelan can be seen at one time, for its course among
the mountains to the west is a very crooked one. The noisy steamer
leaves the town at the foot of the lake and in the course of ten
miles steeper slopes begin to close in upon us. Many little homes
are scattered along this portion of the lake, wherever there is
a bit of land level enough to raise fruit and vegetables.
Now the mountains become more rugged and rise more steeply from
the water's edge. The steamer is very slow; it takes all day to
make the sixty miles, but no one is sorry. Occasionally the whistle
is sounded and the boat heads in toward the land, where some camping
party is on the lookout for mail or a supply of provisions.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.--LOOKING DOWN ON LAKE CHELAN]
The lake averages less than two miles in width, and seems all the
narrower for being shut in between gigantic mountains. For some
miles we pass under the precipitous cliffs of Goat Mountain, where
formerly numerous herds of mountain goats found pasturage.
At every bend in the lake the views become more grand and inspiring.
Here is a dashing stream, roaring in a mad tumble over the boulders
into the quiet lake--a stream which has its source perhaps a mile
above, in some snow-bank hidden from sight by the steep, rocky
walls. Next a waterfall comes into view, pouring over a vertical
cliff into the lake. Occasionally snow-clad peaks appear, but only
to disappear again behind the near mountains. What pleasant spots
we notice for camping by the ice-cold streams! They are full of
brook trout, while larger fish are to be found in the lake.
At the head of this body of water there is a little hotel for the
accommodation of visitors, and the Stehekin River, which is steadily
at work filling up the lake, hurries past its doors. Since the
melting of the glacier which once filled the cañon, the river has
built a delta fully half a mile out into the water.
The lake has the appearance of filling an old river valley or cañon.
Perhaps the latter is the better name because the bed is so narrow
and deep. This cañon winds among the mountains just like other
cañons in which rivers are flowing, but it has no outlet at the
present time. In some way a dam has been formed, and the cañon,
filling with water to the top of the dam, has become a lake.
Soundings have shown that the water is fourteen hundred feet deep;
that is, a little more than a quarter of a mile. With the exception
of Crater Lake, in Oregon, this is the deepest body of water in
the United States. It is also interesting to note that the bottom
of the lake is fully three hundred feet below the level of the
ocean.
How could a river cut a channel for itself so far below the ocean
level? Rivers cannot do work of this kind unless they have a swift
current; moreover, as they empty into the ocean, their beds must be
above sea level. Some people think that the great glacier, which
certainly at some time occupied the depression in which the lake
lies, dug out the cañon. This glacier was over three thousand feet
in thickness, for the rocks are grooved and polished to a height
of nearly two thousand feet above the surface of the water. It
is, nevertheless, improbable that the glacier did anything more
than deepen and widen the cañon somewhat. It was certainly made,
as we at first supposed, by a river which flowed through it at
some remote period. At that time the land of our Pacific coast must
have stood many hundred feet higher than it does now.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--GOAT MOUNTAIN, NORTH SHORE OF LAKE CHELAN]
The surface of Lake Chelan is a little more than three hundred
feet above the bed of the Columbia River, which flows through a
deep cañon only three miles distant. If we could remove the dam
of glacial boulders and gravel at the lower end of the lake, the
water would be lowered only three hundred feet. The lake would
not be drained, for it is very much deeper. Now here is another
puzzle for us: the bottom of the lake is more than one thousand
feet below the level of the Columbia. We shall have to go still
farther back into the past to get a satisfactory explanation this
time.
Hundreds of thousands of years ago there was no plateau filling
central Washington, and no Columbia River crossing it. The Cascade
Range stood where we see it to-day, and the region of the plateau
was a broad valley, toward which flowed the streams that had already
cut cañons upon the eastern side of the range. These streams probably
united in a river emptying westward into the Pacific by a course
now unknown. The shores of the ocean were farther west than at
present, for the land stood higher.
The cañon of Lake Chelan was made by a river of this period, which
through many long years gradually deepened and enlarged its channel.
The river worked just as we see rivers working at the present time,
for throughout all the history of the earth rivers have not changed
their habits. Then came the long period of volcanic eruptions. Our
Northwest was flooded by fiery lava, which built up the Columbia
plateau and buried under thousands of feet of rock the old river
valley into which the cañon of Chelan emptied.
Then streams of water began to flow over the plateau from the higher
mountains above the reach of the lava. These streams formed the
Columbia River, which sought the easiest way to the sea, and finally
excavated a cañon for hundreds of miles. In a portion of its course
the river came close to the edge of the Cascade Range. The ancient
cañon of Lake Chelan had been dammed up by the lava, and a lake
occupied a portion of the former bed of the river. The Columbia
could not cut its channel deep enough to drain the lake, and there
it remained.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--LOOKING DOWN LAKE CHELAN FROM THE UPPER
END]
Then another change came: the climate grew cold and heavy snows
gathered upon the Cascade Range. The snow did not all melt during
the summers, but went on increasing from year to year. The masses
of snow moved gradually down the mountain slopes, growing more
and more icy until they became true glaciers.
In this manner it came about that a river of ice occupied the cañon
in which the old lake lay, and, displacing its waters, scraped
and ground out the bottom and sides. The moving ice deposited the
waste material at the lower end of the cañon, where it joined the
Columbia River, the cañon of which was also occupied by a glacier
coming from farther north. When the glacier began to retreat up the
Chelan cañon, it left a great mass of rock débris, forming a dam
between its basin and the Columbia. After the ice had disappeared,
water collected in the cañon above the dam, and the narrow, deep
lake was formed, enclosed within granite walls.
As the snows melted, forests spread over the mountains, the bear,
deer, and mountain goats came back again, while the streams, bringing
down earth and rocks, began their work of filling up the lake. This
task they will succeed in accomplishing some day unless something
unforeseen happens to prevent. A valley, composed partly of meadow
and partly of boulder-covered slopes, will then have taken the
place of the lake.
THE NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
The explorers and early settlers found a native race occupying nearly
every portion of our continent. These people had many characteristics
in common and were all called Indians. It is believed that they came
originally from Asia, but their migration and scattering occurred
so long ago that they have become divided into many groups, each
having its own language and customs.
In the western portion of the country, where the surface is broken
by numerous barriers, such as mountains and deserts, almost every
valley was found to be occupied by a distinct group of Indians
called a "tribe." The language of each tribe differed so much from
the languages of adjoining tribes that they could with difficulty
understand one another. These tribes were almost continually at
war.
The Indians upon the Pacific slope were generally found to be inferior
in most respects to those living in the central and eastern portions
of the continent. One might suppose that the tribes possessing the
fair and fertile valleys of California would be the most advanced
in civilization, but such was not the case. Many of them were among
the most degraded upon the continent. They seemed unable to adapt
themselves to the white man and his ways, and in the older settled
districts they have now nearly disappeared. In the newer portions
of the Northwest and along the coast toward Alaska the Indians
have not yet come into so direct contact with the white men, and
remain more nearly in their primitive condition.
When the Indians of central California were first seen, they wore
but little clothing, and knew how to construct only the simplest
dwellings for protection from the weather. They did not cultivate
the soil, nor did they hunt a great deal, although the country
abounded with game. Along the larger streams fish was an important
article of food, but in other places, acorns, pine nuts, and roots
constituted the main supplies. The acorns were ground in stone
mortars and made into soup or into a kind of bread. These Indians
have often been called Diggers because they depended so largely
for their living upon the roots which they dug.
It would seem natural that about San Francisco Bay the natives
should have used canoes, but, according to early travellers, they
had none. When they wished to go out upon the water they built
rafts of bundles of rushes or tules tied together.
At favorable points along the shore the Indians collected for their
feasts, and these spots are now indicated by heaps of shells, in
some places forming mounds of considerable size. Many interesting
implements have been dug from these mounds, or kitchen middens
as they are sometimes called. In the mountains the sites of the
villages are marked by chips of obsidian (a volcanic glass used in
making arrow-tips) and by holes in the flat surfaces of granitic
rocks near some spring or stream. These holes were made for the
purpose of grinding acorns or nuts.
Many of the Indian tribes developed great skill in the weaving of
baskets, which they used for many different purposes. The baskets
are still made in some places, and are much sought after because
of their beauty.
The Indians of northern California in building their homes dug
round, shallow holes, over which poles were bent in the form of
a half-circle, and then tied together at the top. Bark was laid
upon the outside, and earth was thrown over the whole structure.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--HOLES IN ROCK, MADE FOR GRINDING FOOD]
"Sweat houses" were built in much the same manner, and were used
chiefly during the winter. When an Indian wished to take a sweat,
hot stones were placed in one of these houses, and after he had
entered and all openings were closed, he poured water upon the
stones until the room was filled with steam. After enduring this
process as long as he desired, the Indian came out and plunged
into the cold water of a near-by stream. As may be imagined, such
a bath often resulted disastrously to the weak or sick.
The fact that the California Indians could support themselves without
any great exertion undoubtedly had the effect of making them indolent,
while in the desert regions of the Great Basin the struggle for
something to eat was so severe that it kept the natives in a degraded
condition.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.--CALIFORNIA INDIAN BASKET]
The Indians of the Columbia basin built better houses than those
farther south. Where wood was abundant their homes were similar
in some respects to those of the coast Indians north of the mouth
of the Columbia. Fish was their main article of diet. At certain
seasons of the year, when salmon were plentiful, each tribe or
group of Indians established its camp near one of the many rapids
and waterfalls along the Columbia River. Large numbers of the salmon
were caught by the use of traps. After being partly dried they
were packed in bales for winter use. The fish thus prepared were
considered very valuable and formed an article of trade with the
tribes living farther from the river.
The Indians inhabiting the coast northward from the mouth of the
Columbia were different in many respects from those farther south
or inland. They built better homes, took more pains with their
clothing, were skilled in the making of canoes, and showed marked
ability in navigating the stormy waters of the channels and sounds.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.--HESQUIAT INDIAN VILLAGE
Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island]
The Vancouver Island Indians are called Nootkas, from the name of
an important tribe upon the west coast. Those of Queen Charlotte
Islands, still farther north, are known as Haidas. These two groups
are very similar. They live upon the shores of densely wooded,
mountainous lands and travel little except by water. Some of the
canoes which these tribes construct are over fifty feet long and
will easily carry from fifty to one hundred persons. Such a canoe
is hewn out of a single cedar log, and presents a very graceful
appearance with its upward-curving bow. In these boats the Indians
take trips of hundreds of miles.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--FLATHEAD INDIAN WOMAN, VANCOUVER ISLAND]
A ride in one of the large canoes is an interesting experience.
When a party starts out to visit the neighboring villages, carrying
invitations to a festival, the men are gayly dressed, and shout and
sing in unison as they ply their paddles. The great canoe jumps
up and onward like a living thing at every stroke of the paddles,
which are dipped into the water all at once as the rowers keep
time to their songs. But this enthusiasm quickly disappears if
a head wind comes up, and the party goes ashore to wait for the
breeze to turn in a more favorable direction.
These Indians, as might be supposed, live largely upon fish. Berries
are abundant during the summer and are also much used for food.
The clothing of the Indians was originally a sort of blanket made
of the woven fibres of cedar bark, or more rarely, of the skins of
animals, although among the northern tribes skins were used almost
exclusively. Matting made of the cedar bark is still in common use
in their houses.
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--INDIAN HOUSES, FORT RUPERT, VANCOUVER ISLAND]
Among the Vancouver Island Indians, a few have peculiarly flattened
foreheads (Fig. 64). This deformity is produced by binding a piece
of board upon the forehead in babyhood and leaving it there while
the head is growing.
The villages are located in some protected spot where the canoes
can lie in safety. The buildings are strung along the shore close
under the edge of the thick forest and just above the reach of
the waves at high tide. They are very solidly constructed, for
these Indians do not move about as much as those farther south
where the forests are less dense. Figure 65 shows the framework of
a partially built house, while another stands at one side completed.
Large posts are set in the ground at the corners and ends of the
building; cross logs are then placed upon the middle posts, and
upon these a huge log is placed for a ridge-pole. This is sometimes
two feet in diameter and from sixty to eighty feet long. It must
require the united strength of many men to roll such a log into
position. Upon the framework thus constructed split cedar boards
are fastened, and the building is practically finished. Such a house
is usually occupied by a number of families. Upon Queen Charlotte
Islands there is a dwelling of this kind large enough to hold seven
hundred Indians.
The fronts of the houses are ornamented with figures hewn out of
wood. These represent men, birds and animals and have a religious
significance. Sometimes these figures are mounted upon the tops
of tall poles.
The "totem pole" is a most interesting affair. Figure 66 represents
the pole at Alert Bay, east of Vancouver Island. It is one of the
finest upon the north coast. The figures of animals and birds carved
upon it represent the mythological ancestors of the family or clan
in front of whose abode the pole stands. The Indians often hunt
similar animals to-day, but believe that their ancestors had
supernatural power which raised them above the ordinary creatures.
The Chinook Indians live upon the lower Columbia. The name "chinook"
has been given to a warm, dry wind which blows down the eastern
slope of the Rocky Mountains and out upon the Great Plains. This
wind is so named because it blows from the direction of the Chinook
Indians' country. The "Chinook" jargon is a strange sort of mixed
language with which nearly all the tribes of the Northwest are
familiar. It is formed of words from the Chinook language, together
with others from different Indian languages, French-Canadian, and
English. Through the influence of the trappers and traders the
"Chinook" has come into wide use, so that by means of it conversation
can be carried on with tribes speaking different languages.
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--TOTEM POLE
Alert Bay, British Columbia]
Although there are so many different tribes, with great diversities
of language, throughout the West, they were probably all derived
from the same source. As we go north the similarity between the
coast Indians and the inhabitants of eastern Asia becomes more
noticeable. It seems almost certain that these American Indians
originally came across the narrow strip of water separating Asia
from America.
We do not know how long the Indians have occupied our country,
but it has probably been several thousand years. Some of the main
groups have undoubtedly been here longer than others.
Unless we protect the Indians and permit them so far as possible
to lead their own natural lives, most of them will soon disappear.
THE STORY OF LEWIS AND CLARK
In the seventeenth century it appeared likely that France would
before long control the northern and interior portion of North
America. La Salle discovered the Ohio River, traversed the Great
Lakes, and descended the Mississippi River to its mouth. In 1742
other French explorers pushed west from the Great Lakes and sighted
the Rocky Mountains. But when the English triumphed at Quebec, France
gave up to them all of her possessions east of the Mississippi
River, and ceded the province of Louisiana to the Spanish. This
province was very much larger than the state which now bears the
name. Bounded by the Mississippi River upon the east, and the Spanish
possessions upon the southwest, it stretched north and west with
very indefinite boundaries, although in the latter direction it
was supposed to be limited by the Rocky Mountains.
At one time Napoleon dreamed of founding a great colony in America,
and induced Spain to cede Louisiana back to the French; but being
unable to carry out his plans, he made a proposition to the United
States to take this territory. His offer was accepted, and in 1803,
during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, the vast province was
taken into the Union.
It was immediately evident that more definite knowledge should
be acquired concerning the great region beyond the Mississippi,
particularly the portion about the head of the Missouri River.
The unknown region lying between the source of this river and the
Pacific should also be explored, for Captain Gray's discovery of
the Columbia River gave to the United States a claim upon this
part of the continent which must be maintained. If something were
not done soon, the territory would be occupied by the English fur
companies.
Two young men, Captains Lewis and Clark, were chosen to lead an
expedition into the Northwest, which proved to be one of the most
remarkable in the history of our country. They were the first white
men to cross the Rocky Mountains and to traverse the continent
from the Atlantic to the Pacific within the present boundaries of
the United States.
How interesting it must have been to push into the Rocky Mountains,
beyond the farthest point previously reached by white men; to see
Nature in her wild state, to note the new plants and animals, and
to study the Indians before their contact with Europeans had changed
their customs!
Lewis and Clark were particularly instructed to investigate the
sources of the Missouri, to learn how the continental divide could
be crossed, and to ascertain the nature of the streams which flowed
westward to the Pacific. They were also to study the resources
of the country, and to examine into the character and customs of
all the Indian tribes that they should meet.
The start was made from St. Louis in May, 1804, with two large
rowboats and one sail-boat. The latter was to return with news of
the party when the farthest outpost upon the Missouri was reached.
Through the summer months and late into the fall the boats toiled
up the river against the swift current, finally reaching a village
of the Mandan Indians in the present state of North Dakota, where
the explorers spent the winter. Thus far they were in a region
frequently visited by the traders and trappers from St. Louis.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--THE GREAT FALLS OF THE MISSOURI]
In the spring they pushed on again in canoes, at length entering
an unknown region. The Missouri forked so frequently that it was
often difficult to determine which was the main stream. To the
surprise of the travellers, the country appeared to be uninhabited,
so that they could get no assistance from the Indians. Only a small
stock of provisions remained, and as the party numbered about thirty,
it was necessary to keep hunters out in advance all the time.
As we are carried swiftly through this region to-day in the cars,
no signs of wild creatures are to be seen, and it is difficult for
us to believe that game was once abundant. The narrative of the
expedition abounds with descriptions of various large animals which
the explorers met in herds, such as deer, antelope, buffalo, bears,
and wolves. The bears, both white and brown, were very numerous
and bold. The white bears in particular were so ferocious that the
hunters had many serious encounters with them. They would sometimes
enter the camp at night, and at one time a herd of buffalo stampeded
through it.
When undecided at one point which branch of the river to follow,
Captain Lewis went some distance in advance and discovered the
Great Falls of the Missouri. He was greatly impressed and awed
by the magnitude and height of the successive falls, which were
twenty-four, forty-seven, and eighty feet high respectively, and
were connected by a series of cascades.
Many days were spent there in a long and laborious portage, for
everything had to be carried a distance of twelve miles before
the quiet water above the falls was reached.
How the coming of the white man has changed the region about the
falls! The game has disappeared; an important city, supported by
the enormous water-power, is growing up; while the smoke rising
from extensive plants for reducing the gold, silver, and copper
ores mined in the Rocky Mountains floats out over the country.
Proceeding up the river, the party reached the Gate of the Mountains--a
picturesque spot where the stream leaves the mountains through
a narrow defile between high and jagged cliffs and enters upon
its long course across the Great Plains (Fig. 68). Gradually the
river became smaller, and at last the travellers came to the point
where it divided into three branches, to which they gave the names
of Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson forks. The party made their
way up the latter fork, which flowed from a westerly direction.
[Footnote: FIG. 68.--THE GATE OF THE MOUNTAINS
The Missouri River at the entrance to the Rocky Mountains]
Now they began to look anxiously for the Indians, from whom it
would be necessary to get horses to transport their baggage when
the river should become too small for the canoes. This region was
inhabited by the Shoshones. It may well be asked how it happened that
these Indians had horses, since no white people had ever visited them
before. Their purchase of horses came about through the processes
of trade with the tribes to the south, who in turn came in contact
with the Spanish of New Mexico.
One or the other of the leaders kept in advance, on the lookout for
the Indians. At last Captain Lewis, while crossing the divide at
the head of the stream which they had been following, came suddenly
upon several Indians. After overcoming their fear by presents, he
accompanied them to their camp and induced them to return with
horses to assist the party.
Upon reaching the Pacific side of the continental divide the explorers
were in doubt as to which way to proceed. No man had been before them,
and the Indians told stories of fearful deserts to the southwest
(probably the Snake River plains), and said that the mountains were
too steep for the horses, and the rivers too rapid for canoes.
If you will examine a map of the country about the head of the
Jefferson fork of the Missouri, you will not wonder that Captains
Lewis and Clark were in doubt as to which way they should go in
order to reach the Columbia. They first attempted to go down the
Salmon River, but soon gave up this project. They turned about
and crossed the mountains to the Bitter Root River, which flows
north and empties into Lake Pend d'Oreille through Clark's Fork
of the Columbia.
After going down the Bitter Root for a short distance they turned
west again across the Bitter Root Mountains and came out upon the
head waters of the Kooskooskie River. Unable to follow its cañons,
they wandered to the north among the mountains. At this time their
sufferings were intense. Food became so scarce that they were obliged
to eat their horses. After many weary days they again reached the
stream, but this time at a point where it was navigable. They floated
down to its junction with the Lewis or Snake River, where the growing
city of Lewiston now stands. At this point they met the Nez Percés
Indians, who assisted them in every possible way.
[Illustration: FIG. 69.--CELILO FALLS, COLUMBIA RIVER]
The party continued down the Snake River in canoes until they finally
reached the Columbia. The difficulties of navigation were great,
for at intervals of every few miles the river was broken by rapids
through which it was dangerous to take the canoes. By treating
the Indians kindly, the party succeeded in trading with them for
such articles of food as horses and dogs. They also obtained some
salmon. The presence of this fish in the streams gave them the
first assurance that the Pacific slope had been reached. Along
the Columbia River salmon was one of the chief articles of food
for the Indians.
At Celilo Falls, a short distance above the present city of The
Dalles, the travellers found great difficulty in proceeding, as
the canoes and loads had to be carried, or "portaged," around the
falls. Lewis and Clark called these the Great Falls of the Columbia
(Fig. 69).
As the canoes floated down through the magnificent cañon by which
the Columbia passes the Cascade Range, they encountered another
rapid, now known as the Cascades of the Columbia. This rapid is
due to a great landslide which has formed a dam across the river.
Captain Lewis speaks of the broken trunks of trees rising from
the water above the dam, a fact which would lead one to suppose
that it had not been very long since the slide occurred.
Below the Cascades the party soon began to notice the influence
of the tides in the rise and fall of the river, and knew then that
the Pacific could not be very far away. Early in November they
came in sight of the ocean, and in a few days had the pleasure
of standing upon its shores. The long and dangerous trip of four
thousand miles had been completed without any serious accident.
Continual rains poured upon them, and before winter quarters could
be prepared they were in a very uncomfortable position. A permanent
camp was selected upon the Oregon side of the Columbia, and log
buildings were erected. The camp was called Fort Clatsop. While
in their winter quarters the party cultivated friendly relations
with the Indians, and made extensive notes upon their habits and
characteristics.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--THE CASCADES OF THE COLUMBIA
A steamer going up to the locks]
In the spring, since no ship had appeared which would carry them
back by water, Lewis and Clark determined to return overland. First,
however, they left some records with the Indians, with directions
that these should be given to the captain of any ship which might
happen to visit the mouth of the Columbia. The leaders wished to
make sure that if anything happened to the party the knowledge
gained by their explorations should not be lost.
One can imagine with what pleasure the men turned homeward. Although
they had started with flour, rice, corn, and other articles of food,
these had given out long before they reached the lower Columbia, and
for some months their only diet had been fish and the animals that
the hunters had killed. Their stock for trading with the Indians
was also nearly gone; all the articles that were left could be put
into two pocket handkerchiefs.
After ascending the Columbia River to a point above The Dalles, the
party left the stream, as they found that it would be impossible to
make much headway with the canoes. Obtaining horses from the Indians,
they followed the outward route back as far as the Kooskooskie River.
Then they turned north and crossed the mountains to the Missoula
River. Near the present city of Missoula the party divided, Captain
Lewis going up Hell Gate River and crossing the continental divide
to examine the country lying north of the Missouri.
Captain Clark, with another portion of the company, went up the
Bitter Root River and over the mountains to the Jefferson Fork,
which the whole party had ascended the year before. He followed
this river down to its junction with the Gallatin, and travelled
for a distance up the latter stream, then crossed by land to the
Yellowstone River.
Canoes were constructed upon the Yellowstone, and the party floated
down to the junction of this river with the Missouri. There the two
bands were fortunately reunited, and together they passed rapidly
down the Missouri until they reached the "village" of St. Louis,
where the whole population came out to welcome them. As the party
had been gone more than two years, it was feared that they would
never be heard from again.
There can be no doubt that the expedition of Lewis and Clark added
greatly to the public interest in the vast region which they traversed,
and helped to bring about the final retention of the Oregon country.
The Hudson Bay Fur Company soon after established trading posts at
various points along the Columbia, and kept up their contention
that all the country lying north of the river rightfully belonged
to England.
It was very remarkable that the Lewis and Clark expedition had
made the long journey to the Pacific and back without meeting with
serious accident. There were perils to be met on account of the
ruggedness of the country, the rapids in the streams, the lack of
food, and the danger of attack from the Indians. The successful
accomplishment of the plan was without a doubt largely due to the
ability of the two brave leaders.
THE RUSSIANS IN CALIFORNIA
How many of us know that the Russians once established a post upon
the coast of California and held it for nearly a third of a century?
If the geographic conditions about this post had been different, it
is possible that the Russian colonists would hold their position
now.
The discoveries made upon the North American coast by the Russian
navigator, Bering, in 1741, led to fur trading with the Indians; and
in 1798 the Russian American company was organized and established
its headquarters at Sitka.
The Spaniards still claimed the whole Pacific coast of North America
as far north as the Strait of Fuca, though they had given up their
station at Nootka Sound, Vancouver Island. They had, however, made
no settlements north of the port of San Francisco.
It was nearly one hundred years ago that Rezanof, a leading Russian
official, arrived at Sitka and began to investigate the condition
of the settlements of the Russian American Fur Company. He found
them in a sorry state; the people were nearly starved and most
of them were sick with the scurvy. No grain or vegetables were
grown along that northern coast, nor could they be supplied from
Asia. Rezanof conceived the idea of establishing trade relations
with the people of California. By this means furs might be exchanged
for the fresh provisions which were so sorely needed in the north.
Rezanof sailed south in 1806 and tried to enter the Columbia River,
where the company had planned to establish a settlement, for upon
the Russian maps of this time all of the coast as far south as the
Columbia was included under Russian jurisdiction. Rezanof was,
however, unable to enter the river, probably for the same reason that
Meares, the English navigator, had failed to enter. He then proceeded
down the coast and finally ran into the port of San Francisco, where
he was treated in a fairly polite manner by the Spanish.
After the return of the expedition to the north, definite plans
were made for the establishment of an agricultural and trading
station on the California coast, as a permanent supply depot for
the northern settlements. Rezanof hoped in time to secure a portion
of this fair southern land from Spain.
Several hunting expeditions, chiefly made up of Aleut Indians with
Russian officers, were sent south and told to keep a sharp lookout
for a suitable place to begin operations. In 1809 one expedition
entered Bodega Bay, an inlet of some size about sixty miles northwest
of San Francisco. This bay, which had been previously discovered and
named by the Spaniards, was thoroughly explored two years later.
No good spot for a settlement was found upon this inlet, but in
1812 a location was determined upon, ten miles north of the mouth
of the stream we now know as Russian River. There was no good harbor
here, simply a little cove, but back of this cove a broad grassy
tract formed a gently sloping terrace at the foot of a line of
hills. The soil was good and timber was near at hand.
The Russians first made friends with the Indians, who ceded to
them the territory in the neighborhood for three blankets, three
pair of breeches, three hoes, two axes, and some trinkets.
In order to protect themselves from possible Indian attacks as
well as to be able to hold their position against the Spanish,
the Russians constructed a strong stockade. It was made of upright
posts set in the ground and pierced with loopholes. At the corners,
and a little distance within, were erected two hexagonal blockhouses
with openings for cannon. As it happened, however, no occasion
ever arose for the use of the ten cannon with which the fort was
supplied. The post was given the name Ross, a word which forms
the root of the word Russia.
The Spanish, of course, claimed the territory by right of discovery,
and watched the work of the Russians with jealous eyes. They were
not strong enough to drive the Russians away by force, although
they protested more than once against the unlawful occupation of
the land. Some trading was carried on between the Russians and
the Spanish, and occasionally loads of grain and cattle were sent
north.
The number of people at Fort Ross varied from one hundred and fifty
to five hundred. The population consisted of Russians, Aleuts,
and other Indians. The Aleuts were the hunters and sealers. They
spent their time upon the ocean, sometimes entering San Francisco
Bay, but usually hunting in the region of the Farralone Islands,
which were originally inhabited by great herds of fur seal. There
were also otters, sea-lions, and an infinite number of seabirds. A
station was maintained upon the Farralones, where a few men stayed
to gather birds' eggs and kill seagulls. Many thousands of gulls
were taken each year, and every part of their bodies was utilized
for some purpose.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--FORT ROSS FROM THE SEA
Schooner loading wood]
Kotzebue, a Russian navigator, whose name has been given to a sound
upon northern Alaska, visited Fort Ross and also San Francisco Bay.
He considered it a great pity that the Russians had not gained
possession of this territory before the Spaniards, for the magnificent
bay of San Francisco, in the midst of a fertile country, would have
been a prize worth working for.
Year after year the Russian Fur Company sent expeditions to California
to trade and bring back provisions. They tried to extend the area
under their jurisdiction, but the geographical conditions of the
country were unfavorable. The narrow strip of land next the coast
was cut off from the interior valleys by mountain ridges and cañons.
If the Sonoma Valley had opened westward instead of toward San
Francisco Bay, it would have been easy to extend their territory
gradually. As it was, the Spanish, who were in control of the bay,
had easy access to all of the fertile valleys of central California.
As the sealing industry decreased in importance, and as the maintenance
of Fort Ross was expensive, the Russians in 1839 began to consider
the question of giving up their post. They finally sold everything
at Ross and Bodega, except the land, to Sutter, an American who
had acquired a large ranch and established a post or fort at the
mouth of the American River. In 1841 the Russians sailed away,
never to return. The Spaniards were greatly relieved when this
happened, for they had not known how to get rid of their unwelcome
neighbors peaceably, and were reluctant to stir up trouble with
Russia.
The stockade at Fort Ross has entirely disappeared, but two blockhouses,
the little chapel, and the officers' quarters remain as the Russians
left them.
Fort Ross is now-a pleasant, quiet hamlet. A store and a farm-house
have been added to the old buildings. Behind the sloping meadows
rise the partly wooded hills, while in front lies the little bay
where once the boats of the Russian and Aleut seal hunters moved
to and fro. Occasionally a small schooner visits the cove for the
purpose of loading wood or tan-bark for the San Francisco market.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--RUSSIAN BLOCKHOUSE, FORT ROSS]
Fort Ross was never marked by serious strife and seems destined to
go on in its quiet way. The blockhouses are rotting and beginning
to lean with age, and in time all evidences of the once formidable
Russian post will have disappeared.
DEATH VALLEY
To most of us Death Valley is thought of only as a mysterious region
somewhere in the Southwest, a place which we are accustomed to
picture to ourselves as being the embodiment of everything that
is desolate and lifeless,--a region where there is no water, where
there are no living things, simply bare rocks and sand upon which
the sun beats pitilessly and over which the scorching winds blow
in clouds of dust. The reality is hardly so bad as this, for there
are living things in the valley, and water may occasionally be
found. Nevertheless it is a fearful spot in summer, and has become
the final resting place of many wanderers in these desert regions,
who having drunk all their water failed to find more.
We have already learned something about the Great Basin: we know
that it is made up of vast desert plains or valleys, separated by
a few partly isolated mountain ranges. The valleys are peculiar
in that they are basins without outlets, and for this reason are
known as sinks. Many of the lakes once occupying the valleys are
now quite or nearly dry, and the lower portions of their beds are
either whitened with deposits of borax and soda, or have been
transformed into barren expanses of hardened yellow clay.
The long, gentle slopes about the sinks, which have been built up
by the waste rock from the mountains, as a result of the occasional
cloudbursts are dotted with sage-brush, greasewood, or other low
plants, and furnish a home for numerous animals.
Back of the gravel slopes rise the mountains, browned under the
fierce rays of the summer sun. In some of their deeper cañons little
springs and streams are found, but the water usually dries up before
leaving the protecting shadows of the cliffs. Toward the mountain
tops the desert juniper appears; and if the peaks rise high enough
to get more of the moisture of the cooler air, they support groves
of the piñon and possibly yellow pine.
The valleys are all much alike. In summer the days are unbearably
hot, while in winter the air is cool and invigorating. The skies
are overcast for only a few days in the year, but in the autumn
and spring fierce winds, laden with dust and sand, sweep across
the valleys and through the mountain passes.
Strange rock forms, of many contrasting colors, worn out by wind
and water, mark the desert mountains. The granite wears a brown,
sunburned coat, while the masses of black lava show here and there
patches of pink, yellow, and red. The air is often so wondrously
clear that distant mountains seem much nearer than they really
are. During the hot summer days the mirage forms apparent lakes and
shady groves, illusions which have lured many a thirsty traveller
to his death.
Death Valley is the lowest and hottest of the desert basins. Its
surface, over four hundred feet below the level of the sea, is
the lowest dry land in the United States. The valley is long and
narrow and enclosed by mountains. Those upon the east are known
as the Funeral Mountains, while upon the west the peaks of the
Panamint Range rise to a height of about ten thousand feet.
If the rainfall were greater, Death Valley would be occupied by a
salt or alkaline lake, but in this dry region lakes cannot exist,
and the bottom of the sink, sometimes marshy after exceptional
winter rains, is in many places almost snowy white from deposits
of salt, soda, or borax.
Death Valley, then, differs from scores of other valleys in the
Great Basin by being a little lower, a little hotter, and a little
more arid. Strange as it may seem, old prospectors say that Death
Valley is the best watered of all the desert valleys. Since it is
the lowest spot in all the surrounding country, the scanty water
supply all flows toward it. But the water runs under the gravels
of the old river beds instead of on the top, where it might be
utilized. Occasionally, however, the water comes to the surface in
the form of springs, which are marked by a few willows or mesquite
trees and little patches of salt grass.
Long ago, when the rainfall was greater, Death Valley was a saline
lake and received a number of streams, two of which were large enough
to be called rivers. The Amargoza River, starting from Nevada and
pursuing a roundabout way, entered the southern end of the valley.
The Mohave River, which rises in the San Bernardino Range, also
emptied into the valley at one time, but now its waters, absorbed
by the thirsty air and by the sands, disappear in the sink of the
Mohave fifty miles to the south.
The summer is the dreaded season in Death Valley. A temperature
of one hundred and thirty-seven degrees has been reported by the
Pacific Coast Borax Company at the mouth of Furnace Creek. This
temperature was recorded in the shade, and is the hottest ever
experienced in the United States. In the sun it is of course much
hotter. Many a person has lost his life in trying to cross the
heated valley in the middle of a summer day instead of making the
journey at night.
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--ENTERING DEATH VALLEY]
Dangerous as this region is, even now when we know so much about
it, it was of course much more dangerous for the first white men
who entered it. Only those who have had some experience upon the
desert can realize the difficulties and dangers which beset the
first emigrants who attempted to cross the deserts lying between
Salt Lake City and the Sierra Nevada mountains. The story of the
sufferings and final escape of that party which, by taking the
wrong course, was lost in the great sink, is extremely interesting
although sad. The valley received its name from the experiences
of the members of this party.
In the latter part of 1849 many emigrants, who had reached Salt
Lake City too late in the season to take the usual route through
northern Nevada and over the Sierra Nevada mountains, decided that
rather than remain in the town all winter, they would follow the
south trail across southern Nevada to San Bernardino and Los Angeles.
A party of people finally collected with one hundred and seven
wagons and about five hundred horses and cattle. The course led
in a southwesterly direction past Sevier Lake and Mountain Meadows
in southwestern Utah. In the latter locality the party divided,
the larger number leaving the old trail and taking a more westerly
direction. They thought in this way to shorten the distance, and
hoped, by skirting the southern end of the Sierra Nevada mountains,
to-gain the San Joaquin Valley in California.
Now trouble began. No one had ever been over the new route, and
the location of the springs and the passes through which the wagons
could be taken had to be sought out in advance. Soon many of the
party turned back to the known trail, but the others continued,
though with no knowledge of the nature of the country which they
must cross.
Day after day and week after week the slow ox-teams crawled across
the broad deserts and over the low mountain ranges. From the top
of each successive mountain ridge the men looked with longing eyes
toward the west, hoping to get a sight of the snowy Sierras. Finally
want of water and food began to weaken the cattle and the wagons
were lightened as much as possible.
As the party approached the eastern boundary of California the
mountains grew higher and the deserts more arid. In the clear air
the snow-covered peaks of the Panamint Range began to be visible,
although one hundred miles away. The weary emigrants believed that
these peaks belonged to the Sierra Nevadas, and that beyond them
lay the green valleys of California. How great was their mistake!
The Panamint Range looks down upon Death Valley with a bold and
almost impassable front, while still other broad deserts lie between
this range and the real Sierras.
Upon reaching the head of the Amargosa River the party began to
separate, for by this time many thought only of saving their lives
at any cost. Some followed Furnace Creek to its sink in Death Valley;
others went over the Funeral range and came down upon the lower
portion of the Amargosa River. In many cases the wagons were abandoned
and the oxen were killed for food.
When they came into the sink we now know as Death Valley, the members
of the different parties began to feel that they were really lost.
From the records that have come down to us we can see that they had
not the slightest idea of the direction which they should take or
of their distance from the settlements in California. Fortunately it
was the winter season and the heat did not trouble them; moreover,
the rains and snows furnished some water.
None of the wagons were taken beyond the camp at the western edge
of the valley, under the towering peaks of the Panamint Range.
This place is now known as Bennett's Wells. Here the wagons were
broken up and burned, and the loads, which were now very light,
were either taken by the men themselves or placed upon the backs
of the few remaining oxen. It was thought that the fair fields
of California would be seen from the top of the Panamint Range;
but when the travellers reached the summit other desert valleys
appeared in the west, and beyond these, in the dim distance, another
snowy range was visible.
The emigrants now divided into parties. One party reached Owens
Lake, and turning south, finally passed over the Sierras by the
way of Walkers Pass and went down the valley of the Kern River.
Another, the Bennett party, including some women and children,
remained at the springs in Death Valley, while two of the men started
out alone, in the hope of reaching the settlements and returning
with food. These men crossed the Panamint Range and struggled on
for days in a southwesterly direction, over desert valleys and
mountains. They were frequently on the point of giving up in despair
for want of food and water.
At last, far to the south, the snowy crest of the San Gabriel Range
came into sight. Continuing in a southwesterly direction through
the Mohave Desert, the men reached a low pass in the mountains and
followed a stream until they came upon a Mexican ranch, where the
sight of green meadows, upon which horses and cattle were feeding,
delighted their weary eyes.
Several animals were secured and loaded with food. Then the men
turned back into the desert. They at last reached the desolate
valley again, after an absence of about a month, and found most of
the party alive, although nearly driven to despair. With the aid
of a mule and several oxen, the party came safely to the fertile
valleys near the coast.
Another party, known as the Jayhawkers, struggled on behind the
two men who went for relief, and the most of its members also came
safely out of the desert, though not without extreme suffering.
In all, fourteen people of this expedition perished.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--SOUTHERN END OF DEATH VALLEY
Showing the white deposits of soda]
If you ever have an opportunity to travel over this region, you
will wonder that any of the people escaped. The seemingly endless
succession of deserts and mountains, the lack of food, and the
scanty supply of water, often unfit to drink, would lead one to
think that strangers to these wilds would be far more likely to
perish than to find their way out.
THE CLIFF DWELLERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
The region of the high plateaus of the southwestern United States
presents many strange and interesting aspects. Equipped with pack
animals for the trails, and conducted by a guide who knows the
position of the springs, one might wander for months over this
rugged and semi-arid region without becoming weary of the wonderful
sights which Nature has prepared.
In travelling over the plateau one has to consider that often for
long distances the precipitous walls of the cañons cannot be scaled,
and that the springs are few and inaccessible. To one not acquainted
with the plateau it appears incapable of supporting human life.
There is little wild game and scarcely any water to irrigate the
dry soil.
However, if the country is examined closely, the discovery will be
made that it was once inhabited, though by a people very different
from the savage Indians who wandered over it when the white men
first came. These early people had permanent homes and were much
more civilized than the Indians. They lived chiefly by agriculture,
cultivating little patches of land wherever water could be obtained.
Go in whatever way you will from the meeting point of the four
states and territories, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico,
and you will find the ruins of houses and forts. Upon the tops of
precipitous cliffs, in the caves with which the cañon walls abound,
by the streams and springs, there are crumbling stone buildings, many
of them of great extent, and once capable of sheltering hundreds
of people. Scattered over the surface of the ground and buried in
the soil about the ruins are fragments of pottery, stone implements,
corn-cobs, and in protected spots the remains of corn and squash
stems.
The people who once inhabited these ruins have been called Cliff
Dwellers, because their homes are so frequently found clinging to
the cliffs, like the nests of birds, in the caverns and recesses
of the precipitous cañon walls. The Cliff Dwellers have left no
written records, but from a study of their buildings and of the
materials found in them, and from the traces of irrigating ditches,
we are sure that they were a peaceful, agricultural people.
The oldest ruins are probably those in the open and less protected
valleys. It is evident that after these dwellings had been occupied
for an indefinite time the more fierce and warlike Indians began
to overrun the plateau region and make attacks upon the primitive
inhabitants. These people, peacefully inclined and probably not
strong in numbers, could find no protection in the valleys where
they irrigated little patches of land and raised corn and squashes;
so, retreating to the more inaccessible cañons, they became cliff
dwellers. Seeking out the caverns so abundant in these cañons,
they went to work with tireless energy to build for themselves
impregnable homes and fortresses to which they could retreat when
the savage Indians appeared.
The cañon of Beaver Creek in central Arizona contains one of the
most interesting of these fortresses, known as Montezuma's Castle.
Many small buildings nestle along the sides of the cañon upon the
ledges and under over-hanging rocks, but Montezuma's Castle is
the most magnificent of them all, and must have given protection
to a number of families.
Halfway up the face of a cliff two hundred feet in height, there is
a large cavern with an upward sloping floor and jagged overhanging
top. Here with infinite toil the Cliff Dwellers constructed a fortress,
the front of which rose forty feet from the foundation and contained
five stories. This front was not made straight, but concave, to
correspond to the curve of the cliff.
What an effort it must have been for these people, who had nothing
but their hands to work with, to quarry the stone. To carry their
materials from the bottom of the cañon, by means of rude ladders,
up the steep and rugged wall to the foot of the cavern, and then
to lay the foundation securely upon the sloping floor, must have
been a still harder task.
The stones were laid in mud, and in most cases were also plastered
with it. Here and there little holes were left to let in light,
but the rooms, with their low ceilings, would have seemed very
dismal and dark to us. Beams were set in the walls to support the
different floors. Smaller sticks were laid upon the beams, and
then a layer of earth was placed over the top.
To pass through the openings between the different rooms the inhabitants
had to crawl upon their hands and knees. The places where they built
their fires are indicated by the dark stains which the smoke has
left upon the walls. Broken pottery and corn-cobs are scattered
profusely about the building. How safe these ancient people must
have felt in this retreat, where they were protected, both from
the storms and from their enemies!
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--MONTEZUMA'S CASTLE, BEAVER CREEK CAÑON,
ARIZONA]
Near some of the ruined dwellings in this region there are remains
of buildings which are supposed to have been watch-towers. We can
picture to ourselves the sentinels' alarm given to the workers in
the fields at the approach of the savage Apaches, and the hasty
flight of the Cliff Dwellers to the castle far up the cañon wall,--the
pulling up of the ladders and the retreat to the upper rooms from
which they could look down in perfect safety. They must have kept
water and food stored in the cave houses. As long as these supplies
held out no injury need be feared from the attacking party.
But apparently there came a time when the Cliff Dwellers either
abandoned their gardens and fortresses or were killed. It is possible
that the climate of the plateau region became more arid and that
many of the springs dried up, for there is no water now within
long distances of some of the ruins. It is, perhaps, more probable
that the attacks of the savages became so frequent that the Cliff
Dwellers were driven from their little farms and were no longer
able to procure food.
Those who were not killed by enemies or by starvation retreated
southward and gathered in a few large villages, or pueblos, where
they were still resisting the attacks of their enemies at the time
of the coming of the early Spanish explorers.
[Illustration: FIG. 76.--PUEBLO OF TAOS, NEW MEXICO]
A careful study of the early inhabitants of America reveals the
fact that the Pueblo Indians are the descendants of the race of
Cliff Dwellers. Their houses, their pottery, and their religious
ceremonies are, so far as can be determined, very similar to those
of the Cliff Dwellers. If you travel through northwestern New Mexico
and northeastern Arizona, you will find the villages situated upon
commanding rocks which are often surrounded by almost inaccessible
cliffs. To these elevated villages all the food and water has to
be carried from the valleys below. The houses are solidly built
of stone, and rise, terrace-fashion, several stories in height,
each succeeding story standing a little back of the one below.
These houses can be entered only by a ladder from the outside. In
time of danger the ladders are drawn up so that the walls cannot be
easily scaled. There are a number of groups of the Pueblo Indians,
but the Zuni and Moki are perhaps as interesting as any of them.
[Illustration: FIG. 77.--GRINDING GRAIN, LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO]
Wonderful indeed are some of the pueblo villages which were still
occupied at the time of the coming of the Spanish, more than three
centuries and a half ago. As in the pueblos now occupied, there
were no separate family houses. The people of an entire pueblo
lived in one great building of many rooms. Some of the pueblos
were semi-circular, with a vertical wall upon the outside, while
upon the inside the successive stories formed a series of huge
steps similar to the tiers of seats in an ancient amphitheatre.
[Illustration: FIG. 78.--THE ENCHANTED MESA
The summit was once the site of an Indian pueblo]
In the pueblo of Pecos were the largest buildings of this kind ever
discovered. One had three hundred and seventeen rooms, and another
five hundred and eighty-five. Taos is another of the large pueblos,
and is especially interesting because it is still inhabited. This
great building has from three to six stories with several hundred
rooms. In the foreground of the photograph (Fig. 76) appears one of
the ovens in which the baking is done. In some of these pueblos
the women still grind their corn by hand in stone _matates_, just
as their ancestors did for many hundreds and perhaps thousands
of years.
[Illustration: FIG. 79.--POTTERY OF THE ACOMA INDIANS, NEW MEXICO]
In northwestern New Mexico there is a remarkable flat-topped rock
known as the Enchanted Mesa, which rises with precipitous walls to
a height of four hundred feet above the valley in which it stands.
It was long believed that human beings had never been upon this rock,
although there were traditions to the effect that a village once
existed upon its summit. According to the tradition, the breaking
away of a great mass of rock left the summit inaccessible ever
afterward. The cliffs were scaled recently by the aid of ropes,
and evidences were found in the shape of pottery fragments, to
show that the Indians had once inhabited the mesa. Two or three
miles away, across the valley, is the large village of Acoma, where
a great deal of pottery is made for sale.
The pottery of the Pueblo Indians is very attractive, and their
religious festivals and peculiar dances draw many visitors. These
Indians no longer fear attacks from the savage Apache or Navajo,
but they have become so used to their rock fortresses that it is
not likely they will soon. leave them. The Navajos now live in
peace and raise large herds of sheep and goats; while the more
savage Apaches have been gathered upon reservations, never more
to go upon the war-path. Most of the Apaches still live in their
rude brush habitations.
[Illustration: FIG. 80.--NAVAJO WOMAN WEAVING A BLANKET]
While the Pueblo Indians make attractive pottery, the Navajos are
noted for their blankets. The wool, which is taken from their herds,
is dyed different colors, and woven upon their simple looms into
the most beautiful and costly blankets.
We usually think of the native inhabitants of America as leading a
wild and rude life, moving from place to place in search of food,
and constantly engaged in warfare with one another. The Pueblo
Indians alone are different. Possibly if the white man had never
come to America these Indians might in time have become highly
civilized. But it is more than likely that in their struggle with
Nature in this wild and rugged country, where they were constantly
subjected to attacks from their more savage neighbors, they would
have sunk lower instead of rising, and would finally have disappeared.
The Apaches were dreaded alike by the agricultural Indians and the
early Spanish. Issuing from their mountain fastnesses the Apaches
would raid the unprotected villages and missions, and then retreat as
quickly as they came. For many years after the American occupation
prospectors had to be constantly on their guard, and many are the
tragedies that have marked this remote corner of our country.
THE LIFE OF THE DESERT
During the blinding glare of summer the deserts of southwestern
Arizona and the adjoining portions of California are forbidding
in the extreme. Day after day the pitiless sun pours its heat upon
the vast stretches of barren mountain and plain, until the rocks
are baked brown and it seems as if every particle of life must
have left the seared and motionless plants.
Month after month passes without rain. Now and then light clouds
float into sight, and occasionally rain can be seen falling from
them, but they are so high that the drops all disappear in the dry
and thirsty air long before they can reach the ground. Cloud-bursts
may take place about the peaks of some of the higher mountains, but
they have very little effect upon the life out on the plains.
Animals and plants brought to this region from a moister climate
must drink continually to make up for the rapid evaporation of
moisture from their bodies; a day without water may result in death.
And yet the living things that have homes in the desert can resist
the dry air for many months without a renewal of their moisture.
There are areas where the average rainfall is less than three inches,
and sometimes two years may pass without a drop of rain. It will
certainly be worth our while to find out something about these
desert plants and the way in which Nature enables them to get along
with so little water.
Go where we will, from the moist heat of the tropics or the dry
heat of the deserts to the icy north, we find that everywhere the
plants and animals are suited to the climate of the particular
place in which they live. Therefore we might conclude that they
thrive better in those places than they would anywhere else, but
that is not always true.
A struggle is going on continually among plants for a footing in
the soil and for a share of the sunshine. The weaker plants are
generally killed, while those hardy enough to survive have to adapt
themselves to new conditions of life, becoming stunted and deformed
upon barren slopes; but they have plenty of room there because
fewer plants are striving for the same place.
It is not likely that the deserts of the southwest have always been
as dry as they are now. As the amount of rainfall slowly lessened
through thousands of years, the animals could migrate when it became
too dry; but the plants, fixed in one place, had either to give up
and die, or change their characters and habits to suit the demands
of the changing climate. The fact that these extremely dry deserts
are filled with plant life to-day is without doubt due to this
ability to change.
In a moist, warm climate plants are luxuriant; they take up a large
amount of water through their roots and evaporate it through the
leaves. If placed in a desert, such plants would immediately wither
and die. To avoid too rapid evaporation the bodies of the desert
plants have become smaller, and their leaves have either shrunk
greatly or wholly disappeared. Strong-smelling, resinous juices
exude from the remaining leaves and stems, and form a surface varnish
through which water passes with difficulty.
Some forms of plant life, such as the prickly-pear, are provided
with fleshy stems which hold a supply of moisture to be drawn upon
during the long dry season. Men and animals are sometimes saved from
death by chewing the pulp of the prickly-pear or other cactuses.
After a period of exceptional drought, the stems of the prickly-pear
lose their bright green color and become shrunken.
[Illustration: FIG. 81.--PRICKLY-PEAR, BALL CACTUS, AND SPANISH
BAYONET]
The development of the underground part of the plant is frequently
out of all proportion to the part above the surface. The manzanita,
which grows in the semi-arid climate of southern California, is
a low shrub with branches that are rarely large enough for fuel.
The roots, however, are large and massive, and are extensively
used for firewood.
The desert plants are armed, not only against the dry air, but
against the wandering animals which would bite them and suck their
juices. The smell of the sagebrush is such that very few animals
will touch it. Other plants are protected by thorns. In fact, the
drier the region, the more thorny are its plants. A little shrub
called the crucifixion thorn has no leaves at all, nothing but
long, sharp spines. Besides the straight thorns there are curved
and also barbed ones, for every conceivable form is represented
among the plants of these dry lands.
As the desert plants are armed against the animals, so the animals
are armed against each other. Many of the insects and reptiles
are extremely poisonous; the greater the heat of their habitat,
the more dangerous are their bites. The horned toad, while not
poisonous, is protected by having horny spines upon its head and
back. The little rattlesnake known as the "side-winder" is perhaps
the most dangerous of all, although the tarantula, centipede, and
scorpion are formidable foes. The Gila monster, long believed to
be so dangerous, is now considered non-poisonous under ordinary
conditions.
[Illustration: FIG. 82.--CRUCIFIXION THORN]
The desert tortoise is perhaps the most remarkable of all the animals
of the desert. It is rare, and little is known of its habits except
that it lives in the most arid valleys of southeastern California,
far removed from any water. This tortoise has a diameter across
its shell of at least eighteen inches. Its flesh is much prized
by the Indians and prospectors. A specimen which had been without
water for an indefinite period was dissected, and the discovery
was made that upon each side there was a membranous sac, containing
clear water, perhaps a pint in all. The desert tortoise, then,
carries his store of water with him, and is thus enabled to go many
months without a new supply.
[Illustration: FIG. 83.--THE GILA MONSTER]
A trip across the deserts of the lower Colorado in spring, before
the bracing air of winter has entirely gone, is one never to be
forgotten. The poisonous insects and reptiles are not at this time
warmed up to full activity, while many peculiar plants are just
coming into bloom.
Let us study some of the strange forms growing thickly over the
rocky slopes and sandy plains. There are miles of forest, but not
such a forest as we are accustomed to see. Tall, fluted columns
of the giant cactus (saguaro), with rows of sharp spines, reach
upward to a height of from twenty to fifty feet. At one or more
nodes, bud-like branches spring from the main trunk and, curving
upward, form columns about the parent stem.
[Illustration: FIG. 84.--THE PALO VERDE TREE AND SAGUARO]
The giant cactus bears near the top a purple flower and a large,
edible fruit. This fruit, which has a red pulp, is a favorite food
with the Indians, and also with many insects and birds. It is gathered
by means of long forked sticks, for if it should drop to the ground
it would be broken. The pulp of the stalk yields a little juice
or sap which is used by the Indians when hard pressed for water.
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--A FOREST ON THE PLAINS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA
Showing cholla and saguaro]
Scattered among the huge club-shaped columns of the saguaro is the
cholla, the next largest of the cactuses. This species, which is
tree-like in its branching and in rare cases grows to a height of
twelve feet, bears bright red or yellow flowers. One must approach
with care, for its jointed stems are so easily broken that at the
slightest touch of the hand or clothing, pieces break off and adhere
firmly by means of their sharp curved and barbed spines. Another
species of the cholla is small, reaching but a foot or two above
the ground, but this and other low forms so cover the ground in
places that one has to be constantly on guard to keep from running
the spines into his feet.
These are not all the plants of this wonderful forest. The ocatilla
is a cactus-like form having a group of long slender stems bunched
together at the root. In the spring each is tipped with a spike of
red flowers, and as the snake-like stalks wave in the breeze they
present an appearance scarcely less attractive than the saguaro.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--OCATILLA]
Scattered among the vegetation just mentioned is the palo verde
(green tree), so named from the yellowish green of its bark. It is
remarkable for the small size of the leaves, which afford scarcely
any shade for the traveller upon a hot summer day. (Fig. 84.)
Along the dry water courses we find the mesquite, a tree which does
not grow upon the gravelly plains and rocky slopes, for it needs
more moisture than most of the desert vegetation. In the spring
it puts out delicate green leaves which form a pleasing contrast
with the other plants.
Riding through one of these forests in the deepening twilight,
one is impressed with a feeling of awe and mystery by the strange,
weird shapes outlined against the sky. In the cooler air of evening
the animals come from their retreats. The insects and the snakes are
then abroad, and if one is on foot the sudden buzz of a rattlesnake
is not a pleasant sound to hear.
[Illustration: FIG. 87.--MESQUITE TREE, SANTA CRUZ VALLEY, SOUTHERN
ARIZONA]
The prickly-pear prefers slopes not quite so dry and hot as those
of the forest just described. Its broad, spade-like, jointed stems
are very interesting. The red fruit clustered upon their extremities
is not disagreeable to the taste, but is covered with a soft, prickly
down.
Associated with the prickly-pear is a species of agave, but this
does not grow so large in Arizona as it does farther south in Mexico.
The plant is familiar to us as the common century plant of our
gardens. The long fleshy leaves with spines at the ends are clustered
at the surface of the ground, and from their centre, at blooming
time, rises a tall flower stalk. The agave requires many years to
mature. When the flower stalk has once started it grows rapidly,
but after blossoming the plant dies.
The mezcal, or pulque, the national drink of the Mexicans, is made
from the sap of the agave. The fibre of the agave, known as sisal
hemp, is used in the manufacture of rope, twine, mats, brushes,
etc. Other parts of the plant have various uses.
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--THE AGAVE]
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--SPANISH BAYONET IN BLOOM]
There are many kinds of yucca in the more elevated portions of
the desert. They range in size from those only two or three feet
high, of which the Spanish bayonet is a type, to the giant yucca of
the Mohave Desert, which attains the proportions of a tree and forms
thick forests over an area of many miles. The Spanish bayonet, with
its long stalk of white, waxy blossoms, presents a very beautiful
appearance, as do also the young specimens of the tree yucca.
At rare intervals, once perhaps in many years, there is an unusual
amount of rainfall in the spring, and in a few weeks the desert
becomes transformed as if by magic. Seeds germinate, the presence
of which one would never have suspected in the drier weather. In
an incredibly short time the long gravelly or sandy slopes about
the bases of the mountains are covered with a veritable carpet of
green, yellow, and red. The sand verbena, the evening primrose,
baby blue-eyes, and different kinds of lilies grow so thickly in
places that every footstep crushes them.
[Illustration: FIG. 90.--YOUNG YUCCAS IN BLOOM]
But in a few short days the beauty has disappeared. The seeds mature
speedily and drop into the sand. A hot wind withers the stems and
leaves and blows them away; drifting sands take the place of the
rich carpet. How readily these plants have adapted themselves to
the brief period in which life is possible!
Thus it is that this vast region about the lower Colorado, although so
dry and hot, and at first sight apparently so unfitted for sustaining
life, nevertheless supports its share. Many of the plant forms have
assumed strange and monstrous shapes in their efforts to withstand
the hard conditions in the struggle for existence, while others simply
lie in waiting, sleeping during the long dry year, but ready to
spring into life when the favorable showers come, as they sometimes
do.
THE PONY EXPRESS
Although it is only a little more than fifty years since the discovery
of gold was made and the rapid settlement of the West began, what a
change has come over this great region! It was at first supposed to
be impossible to connect the growing settlements upon the Pacific
with the East by anything more than a wagon road, and those who
advocated the building of a railroad were ridiculed. Now the journey
across the continent is made upon smooth steel tracks in comfortable
coaches, for the skill of the engineer has overcome the difficulties
of the desert, the mountain wall, and the cañon.
The pioneers who pushed westward from the Mississippi River with
their slow ox-teams took all summer to reach the fertile valleys
of California and Oregon, and considered themselves fortunate if
they arrived at their destination before the coming of the winter
storms.
The first overland stage line was established by way of New Mexico
and Arizona, terminating at Los Angeles. Twenty-two days were required
for this part of the tiresome and dangerous trip. The route was
longer and more desert-like than that farther north across Nevada,
but the winter storms were avoided.
The stage-coach proved too slow for the needs of the growing settlements
upon the Pacific slope. A telegraph line was planned, but it could
not be completed for some time, and even then it was probable that
the Indians would destroy the poles and wires.
Then came the idea of a relay of fast messengers upon horseback,
and the pony express was organized. It is difficult to believe
that by this means the journey of two thousand miles between St.
Joseph, a point upon the Missouri a little above Kansas City, and
Sacramento, California, was once made in about eight days. This
is only a little more than twice the time required by the fast
trains at present.
For two years the trip was regularly made in about nine days, averaging
two hundred and twenty miles a day. It can be readily understood
that this wonderful feat required many relays of men and horses
scattered along the route. The express rider had no well-graded
roads to follow, but only the rough trail of the emigrants. This
led across broad deserts and over rugged mountains, and throughout
most of the journey exposed the rider to the attacks of Indians.
Let us take a map and trace the route of the express. It followed
closely the main overland trail which the gold-seekers had opened.
Now towns and cities are scattered along the old trail, and the
railroad crosses and recrosses it. But let us try to picture the
country as it appeared in its wild state.
Mountains, valleys and plains made up the landscape. Vast herds
of buffalo darkened the Great Plains east of the Rocky Mountains,
while farther west were numerous bands of antelope. The streams
were filled with beaver and other fur-bearing animals. Here and
there along the rivers were Indian villages with their curiously
shaped tepees. Even the deserts of Nevada were not uninhabited,
for the Indians lived there also, gathered in little family groups
about the desolate springs.
When we speak of the overland trail we do not mean a narrow path
for animals, but the wagon road, rude though it was, which the early
emigrants had made. They were determined to cross the continent, no
matter what the difficulties and dangers. Wagons could be drawn
by the oxen over the plains and deserts with little difficulty,
although there were some dangerous rivers to be crossed. Mountains
and cañons offered the most serious obstructions. In many places
the wagons had to be let down over precipices with ropes, or be
taken apart and carried piece by piece around the obstructions.
It was not the mountains alone which made the trip "across the
plains" one long to be remembered. It was often difficult to obtain
water and fodder for the animals, and at many points savage Indians,
bent upon plunder, were in hiding, waiting for a chance to stampede
the cattle or kill the emigrants. The way was marked by abandoned
wagons, household goods, bones of cattle, and the graves of human
beings.
The trail led from the Missouri across the state of Kansas to the
Platte River, then followed this long stream to its head at South
Pass on the continental divide. From the South Pass the trail led
southwest past Fort Bridger, in southwestern Wyoming, through Echo
Cañon and over Emigrant pass of the Wasatch Range down to Salt Lake
City, which had been founded but a short time before the discovery
of gold. West of Salt Lake City the trail skirted the northern
shore of the Great Salt Lake, and after passing a low mountain
divide in what is now northwestern Utah, reached the head waters
of the Humboldt River. Thence the path ran along by this river down
to the place where it disappeared in a vast sandy desert known as
the sink of the Carson. The Carson River, after the dreary desert
was passed, led the emigrants still westward toward a wall of mighty
mountains known as the Sierra Nevada. Here Nature seemed to have
done her utmost to shut off California, with its fertile valleys
and rich gold-fields, from the longing eyes of the emigrants. There
are, however, several low places in the range, and through one of
these openings, at the head of the Carson River, the travellers
gained the western slope of the mountains. Then in good time they
reached the mining town of Placerville, and at length Sacramento,
the capital of California.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--CHIMNEY ROCK
On the old overland trail near the Platte River, western Nebraska]
In order that the pony express might make the time required over
the two thousand miles, five hundred horses and several hundred
men were needed. The stations were placed about ten miles apart
and were strongly built so that they might withstand the attacks
of the Indians. These stations, nearly two hundred in number, all
had to be supplied by means of freight teams, which often hauled
hay, grain, and food for the messengers for hundreds of miles.
The horses selected for the messengers to ride were the small,
sure-footed ponies called mustangs. Through a stretch of ten miles
the pony was pushed to its utmost speed, then it was carefully
groomed, fed, and rested until the time came to make the return
trip.
In selecting the riders three things were of great importance:
they must be light in weight, must be possessed of great powers of
endurance, and also must be brave and resolute. At each station,
as the time approached for the express to arrive, the relay horse
was saddled and in waiting. As the rider dashed in he jumped from
his horse, and with but a moment's rest, threw the saddle-bags
containing the letters upon the fresh horse and was off again,
riding like the wind. Upon smooth stretches the horses often made
twenty miles an hour, but it was quite impossible to maintain this
speed over the rocky and rugged portions of the route. Storms and
Indian ambuscades often delayed the riders. Sometimes the messenger
kept up a running fight with the Indians for miles.
The riders were frequently killed, but the mail-bags were rarely
lost. If a rider did not come in on time, it was known that something
serious had happened, and search was immediately made. The riders
were not allowed to stop for any purpose whatsoever; neither storms
of the greatest severity nor even the presence of hostile Indians
near the trail kept them from their duty. One of the few riders
who are still living says that he was never afraid except on dark,
cloudy nights. At such times he made no attempt to guide his horse,
but trusting to the intelligence of the well-trained animal, gave
it rein, and at the same time spurred it to its utmost speed. Think
of riding at such speed into the dark night, not knowing what is
ahead of you! The rider's only safety lay in the carefulness and
sagacity of the horse. Such a ride called for more courage than
did a conflict with Indians!
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--PALISADES OF THE HUMBOLDT RIVER, NEVADA
Near the overland trail]
The pony express carried no passengers. It carried no freight,
not even the usual express package. The messenger was intrusted
with nothing but two bundles of letters carefully stowed away in
a pair of saddle-bags.
The letters were not like our ordinary letters, for the paper used
was the thinnest and lightest possible. Hundreds of the letters
weighed only a few pounds. It was very important that there should
be no great weight, for if the horses were heavily loaded, they
could not make the required time. Only those whose business was
of great importance could afford to send letters by this express,
for the charge was five dollars upon each letter.
In spite of the high charge the pony express is said never to have
been profitable, for the expenses were very heavy. It was discontinued
in 1860, as by that time a telegraph line had been constructed
across the continent.
HOW CLIMATE AND PHYSICAL FEATURES INFLUENCED THE SETTLEMENT OF THE
WEST
The story of the exploration and settlement of the Pacific coast,
and of the great region lying between the Pacific slope and the
Mississippi Valley, offers a most interesting opportunity to study
the control which physical features of the earth exert upon the
trend of men's activities. The position of the mountains, the courses
of the rivers, and the character of the sea-coast have all helped
to shape the history of the West. The presence of gold in the rocks
of the Sierra Nevada mountains was the chief incentive which led
to the breaking down of the barriers placed by Nature between the
Pacific and the Mississippi basin.
When an unknown land is accessible by water, the shore line offers
the easiest means for the first explorations and settlements. So
it came about that nearly all the eastern coast of North America
was known before men ventured far into the interior. Then the large
rivers, like the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, and the Mississippi,
seemed to offer inviting routes into the recesses of the continent,
but exploration through the pathless woods and rough mountains
was slow.
It was soon discovered that the Hudson was a short river and did
not lead across the continent as was at first hoped. Because of the
absence of other large rivers upon that portion of the coast which
the English occupied, their settlements did not spread westward as
rapidly as they otherwise would have done. The country was covered
with dense forests, and savage Indians disputed the right to occupy
it. In time, however, passes were found leading over the Appalachian
Mountains to the Ohio River and through the Mohawk Valley to the
region of the Great Lakes.
The advantages for travel offered by the St. Lawrence River and
the chain of lakes above it were utilized at an early day. The
route of the French missionary explorers and fur traders was from
Montreal up the Ottawa River, then by a short portage and a series
of small lakes to Lake Huron. From this point the most remote shores
of Lakes Superior and Michigan could be easily reached. By the
aid of several small bodies of water west of Lake Superior, Lake
Winnipeg and Great Slave Lake were finally discovered; but from
this point the waterways into the West were small and could be
followed no farther, so that it was a long time before the Rocky
Mountains were crossed.
By floating down the Illinois River the French arrived at the
Mississippi, explored much of its course, and took possession of
the country in advance of the English. This fact was directly due
to the difficulties which the English explorers experienced in
forcing their way over the Appalachian highlands.
The Spanish explored the southern shores of the continent, and
crossing the Isthmus, were the first to behold the Pacific. The
fact that the Pacific coast of North America was so easily reached
at this point gave the Spanish a great advantage, and explains why
they gained such a hold upon the lands bordering that ocean. It
was a comparatively simple matter for them to fit out ships, and
sailing north and south, to take possession wherever they desired.
However, when they had gone as far as California, their progress
was for a long time almost completely blocked by storms and head
winds, for the prevailing direction of the wind is down the coast.
The Spanish finally reached Vancouver Island, but never succeeded
in making settlements north of San Francisco. Even the interior of
California was little known to them, for the mountains and deserts
discouraged their progress in that direction.
From an examination of a map we might suppose that the Colorado
River would offer as good a means for penetrating the continent as
did the Mississippi River, but as a matter of fact it is navigable
for a comparatively short distance. The Spanish made one attempt
to ascend this river, but finding themselves surrounded on every
hand by a most desolate, barren country, they turned back before
reaching the Grand Cañon. In the eager search for gold the Spaniards
pushed north from Mexico and planted settlements in Arizona and
New Mexico, but upon the northwest their progress was stopped by
cañons and deserts.
Now we are prepared to understand why it was that the western portion
of North America remained for so long a time a mysterious and unknown
region. There were no waterways by which it could be explored,
while snow-clad mountains and deserts made access to it doubly
difficult.
By the beginning of the last century the Americans had overcome the
natural obstacles in their westward progress, and their settlements
reached as far into the wilderness as the Mississippi River. Hunters
and traders were soon pushing far beyond, spreading over the Great
Plains and up to the very base of the Rocky, or Stony Mountains, as
they were then called. The Missouri River became the great highway
into the Northwest, for the adventurers took advantage of the streams
wherever possible. Many other rivers were discovered flowing from
the western mountains, but with the exception of the Platte and
Arkansas they were generally too shallow for navigation even with
a light canoe.
Starting in the early spring from the mouth of the Missouri, the
hardy trappers sailed and paddled up the river, taking several
months to reach the head of navigation at the Great Falls. In the
autumn, when the boats were loaded with furs, it was a comparatively
easy matter to drop down the river with the current. It would have
been almost impossible to transport the loads of goods on pack-horses
across the thousand miles of prairie, where the traders would be
subject to attack from hostile Indians.
Adventurous men pushed farther and farther west through the passes
in the mountains and began trapping upon the waters which flow into
the Pacific. It had long been supposed that the Rocky Mountains
formed a barrier beyond which our country could not be extended,
and that the Pacific slope was made up of mountains and deserts
not worth securing.
The explorers showed that the Rocky Mountains were not continuous,
but consisted of partly detached ranges, and that while their eastern
fronts were indeed almost impassable for long distances, there
were places so low that it was difficult to locate the exact spot
where the waters parted to seek the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of
Mexico. In southwestern Wyoming the continental divide, known as
the Great Divide mesa, though more than a mile above the sea, is
but a continuation of the long, gentle slope of the Great Plains.
The Rocky Mountains decrease in height toward the south, near the
line between New Mexico and Colorado. Here is situated Raton Pass,
an ancient Indian highway from the valley of the Arkansas to the
Rio Grande. In the early half of the last century this trail was
much used by the caravans of traders and came to be known as the
Santa Fé trail.
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--ON THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE IN SOUTHWESTERN
WYOMING]
In the early days of the American occupation of California, the
Santa Fé trail became an important route to the Pacific. From the
Mexican town of Santa Fé it led down the valley of the Rio Grande,
following the old road to Mexico, and then turned west across the
broad plateau of the continental divide, not far from the present
course of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Passing Tucson, the road
kept near the course of the Gila River to Fort Yuma, and then led
over the Colorado Desert to Los Angeles. This path avoided all
the high mountains, but much of it lay across deserts, where the
heat and scarcity of water made it an impracticable route for the
emigrants.
One not acquainted with the physical geography of the West might
wonder why the gold-seekers on their way to California did not make
use of the Missouri River, which, except for the Great Falls, was
navigable for small boats to the very base of the Rocky Mountains.
A partial explanation is found in the report of the hardships endured
by the Lewis and Clark exploring expedition, and later by the Astor
party, which went out to found a fur trading post at the mouth of
the Columbia. It had been supposed that after once crossing the
continental divide it would be an easy matter to embark upon some
stream and float down to the Pacific Ocean. The parties referred to
became lost in the defiles of the mountains, and when they finally
reached the Snake River it was only to find that rapids and waterfalls
continually obstructed navigation. Although there was in most places
plenty of water upon this northern route, yet the mountains were
impassable for wagons.
Because of these conditions the emigrants started out boldly across
the plains, following the general course of the Platte River, and
crossing the Rocky Mountain divide at the South Pass in western
Wyoming, a place famous in its day. At this point those who were
going to Oregon turned northwestward to Fort Hall, a trading post
of the Hudson Bay Company. From here they crossed southern Idaho,
keeping near the course of the Snake River until they reached the
point where it enters the grand cañon; there they left the river,
and climbing over the Blue Mountains, entered the fertile valleys
about the present city of Walla Walla. From this place the emigrants
followed the Columbia River to The Dalles, whence they proceeded
either by boat or raft until Fort Vancouver and the mouth of the
Willamette were finally gained. Wagons were taken through on this
route, and it was not dangerous, although accidents sometimes happened
at the Cascades, where locks were built at a later day.
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--THE OLD SANTA FÉ TRAIL
Over this thousands of freight and emigrant wagons have passed]
The emigrants for California, who were the most numerous, turned
southwest at South Pass, and after crossing the Wasatch Range through
Emigration Cañon, came out upon the plain of Great Salt Lake. Then,
traversing desert plains, they reached the Humboldt River, which
they followed until it sank into the sands.
Several routes had been opened across the Sierra Nevada mountains
into California, but those through the Carson and Donner passes
were most used. Several high ranges of mountains lay between the
Willamette Valley of Oregon and the Great Valley of California,
so that in the early days there was very little travel between
these two territories. The overland trip required so long a time,
and involved such dangers and hardships, that many preferred the
water route, in spite of the fact that its ships were crowded,
and the voyagers must cross the fever-infected Isthmus.
It is very interesting to note how widely different the rivers
are upon the opposite sides of the Rocky Mountains. Those upon
the east, with the exception of the Missouri at the Great Falls,
are not marked by waterfalls after leaving the mountains. There are
few cañons of importance. The streams generally flow in channels
only slightly sunken below the general level of the Great Plains.
The streams upon the west, on the contrary, are broken by rapids
and waterfalls, and are generally buried in cañons so deep and
precipitous that in places a man might die of thirst in sight of
water.
No other great migration of people over the surface of the earth
ever encountered such difficulties as that which pressed westward
after the discovery of gold. It was at first thought that railroads
could not be constructed through the mountains and deserts, and
until the mineral wealth of the West became known, many men believed
that the greater portion of the country was not worth taking.
It would be interesting to consider each of the main lines of railroad
which connect the Mississippi Valley with the Pacific, and study the
features of the country through which it runs, determining as far
as possible the surveyor's reasons for selecting that particular
course. Some of the railroads follow for long distances the routes
of the emigrants. The emigrants, in their turn, often made use
of the ancient Indian trails.
[Illustration: FIG. 95.--THE CARSON PASS, SUMMIT OF SIERRA NEVADA
MOUNTAINS
One of the main emigrant routes to the Pacific Coast]
While Nature seems to have striven to raise impassable barriers
to shut off the Pacific slope from the rest of the continent, yet
she failed at some points, and through the unguarded passes the wild
animals and Indians first found their way. Then came the trappers,
prospectors, farmers, and at last the railroad, until the wilderness
was over-run.
Because of its temperate climate, abundant rainfall, and rich soil,
the Mississippi Valley was rapidly settled after the pioneers had
once reached it. The plains rising slowly westward toward the base
of the Rocky Mountains were found to be more arid the farther they
were explored. Consequently there exists a broad strip of plain
which is even to-day sparsely settled. The emigrants went on to
the fertile valleys nearer the Pacific, where the rainfall is more
abundant. The American settlers did not then understand irrigation,
although it was practised by the Mexicans to the south. Because
the discovery of precious metals was first made in California,
the pioneers crossed the intervening mountains without giving a
thought to the mineral riches which might be concealed in their
depths. Later, mines were opened in the mountains all through the
arid regions. The necessity of providing food for the miners brought
about the discovery that the desert lands were very productive
wherever the waters of the streams could be brought to them.
THE LIFE OF THE PROSPECTOR
Perhaps some of us who have comfortable homes, sleep upon soft
beds, wear neat clothes, and can obtain every variety of food that
we wish, think with pity of the men who lead a rough and lonely life
among the mountains far from all comforts. Let us learn something
more about the life and work of the prospectors, for we may find
much that is desirable in their experiences.
Not many thousands of years ago our ancestors led what we would
now call a wild and savage life. They had no permanent homes, but
wandered here and there in search of food, and lived in caves or
constructed the rudest kind of shelter from the storms. Perhaps
we are right in feeling thankful that we were not born in those
primitive times, but are there not really many things to regret
about the way in which we have to live at the present day?
The utterly free outdoor life is not open to many. We have little
or no opportunity to become acquainted with Nature, the guardian
of our ancestors. The woods, the rocks, the mountains, and the
dashing streams are almost complete strangers to many of us.
Many men are now obliged to go every day to their work in office
or shop, and spend the hours shut in from the fresh air and bright
sunshine. At night they sleep in rooms into which they admit little
fresh air for fear of taking cold. To-day each man has to learn
to do one thing well to the exclusion of nearly everything else,
in order to make a living. For this very reason we are in danger
of becoming human machines and of losing the use of some of the
powers with which Nature has endowed us. Many things about our
present mode of life are not natural to us, but through successive
generations we have become somewhat adapted to them. The Indians,
if taken from a life in the open air and made to live as we do,
often sicken and die.
The farmer enjoys much more freedom and more of the sweet fresh
air than do the artisans and office workers; but of all the men in
civilized countries the trappers and prospectors live most out of
doors. To be sure, they have to endure many hardships and dangers,
and their beds are not always the softest nor their food the best,
but you will seldom find one who is willing to exchange his free
life for work in the town or city.
The trappers have nearly disappeared. Their occupation will be gone
with the passing of the wild animals which were once so abundant.
The prospectors are, however, becoming more numerous year by year
throughout the mountains of western America. To them we owe a great
debt, for had not their searching eyes brought to light the hidden
mineral deposits this portion of our country would be far more
thinly populated than it is to-day.
The discovery of gold in California was accidental. A man named
Marshall was building a mill for Sutter in the foot-hills of the
Sierra Nevada mountains at the time (1848) when California had
just come into the possession of the United States. While at work
he noticed some shining grains in the sand of the mill-race. A
little testing of the grains led him to the conclusion that they
were gold.
The news spread rapidly over the world, and since that time a constantly
increasing tide of gold-seekers has been pushing out into the unexplored
portions of the earth. Comparatively few of these men have become
wealthy, but their discoveries have led to the settlement of new
regions and to the growth of important industries. In truth, if
it were not for the deposits of valuable metals, large areas of
the desert and mountainous West would be of small value.
[Illustration: FIG. 96.--A PROSPECTOR IN THE DESERT]
The prospector needs little capital except health and strength, but
he must be willing to lead a rough life. He will be more likely to
succeed if he knows something about the different kinds of minerals
and rocks, and is able to distinguish the valuable ones from those
which are of little or no worth.
The prospector may have a pack-horse and a second horse to ride, or
he may go afoot with merely two burros to carry blankets, provisions,
and tools. A burro costs little and will live upon almost anything.
The variety of food that can be carried is not large; such things
as bacon, flour, sugar, beans, and coffee are the most important.
With the rifle one may frequently add to the supply. This, you may
think, is pretty hard fare, but life in the open air will make
one hungry enough to relish almost any sort of food.
The prospector does not need a road or even a trail. He seeks the
least-known portion of some mountain district where he has an idea
that gold may be found. Through the cañons he goes, and over the
mountains, either on horseback or driving the burros before him.
Water and grass are usually abundant, and the little cavalcade
stops where night overtakes it. In the desert prospecting is more
difficult and often dangerous, because of the scarcity of water.
It is necessary to know the location of the few scattered springs,
and to make one of the burros useful in carrying water kegs. A
spring must be the starting-point in the morning, and a sufficient
amount of water must be taken to last until the traveller can get
back to the same spring or until he can reach another.
A pick, a shovel, and a hammer are among the most important parts
of the prospector's outfit. Gold is a heavy substance, and as it
washes down the mountain sides and into the gulches from some quartz
vein, its weight finally takes it to the bed-rock beneath the sand
and gravel. With his pick and shovel the prospector can reach the
bed-rock. He takes some of the gravel from its hiding-place close
to the rock, places it in a pan filled with water, and then, with
a peculiar rotary movement, washes away the lighter materials,
leaving the heavier substances and the gold, if there is any, at
the bottom of the pan. If there is no trace of gold, the prospector
goes on to another creek; but if some of the yellow metal is washed
out, he tests the place thoroughly for more.
In searching for ledges the prospector spends his time in the smaller
gulches and upon the mountain sides. Every piece of detached quartz
that meets his eye is examined, and if any specks of gold appear,
the search is directed toward the vein or ledge from which the
specimen came. With the hammer, pieces of quartz are broken from
the veins which here and there rise above the surface of loose
and crumbling rock. When the worker finds a piece that is stained
with iron and has the appearance of carrying gold, he places it in
his bag and keeps it for further examination. At camp, the pieces
of quartz are pounded to a powder in a mortar and then washed in a
horn spoon. A string of fine grains of gold tells of the discovery
of a rich vein.
[Illustration: FIG. 97.--A PROSPECTOR'S CABIN IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS]
It is not usually an easy matter to find home of a piece of stray
quartz upon the mountain side. Days and weeks may pass while search
is made up the slope, for the fragment must have come from some
point above. But the ledge, once discovered, is traced along the
surface for the purpose of determining its direction and extent.
When a promising bed of gravel or a vein of gold-bearing quartz
is found, the prospector posts the proper notices of his right
to the claim and has them recorded at the nearest land office.
Then he makes a permanent camp by cutting down trees and building
a cabin. The interior of the cabin is very simple. Its table and
chairs are made of split lumber. One end of the single room is
occupied by the bunk, and the other by a large fireplace. There
may be no windows, and the roof may be made of earth piled upon
logs, or of long split shingles commonly known as shakes.
Sometimes, after discovering a very rich quartz ledge, the prospector
goes back to a settlement to attempt to interest some one in buying
or developing it. Sometimes it happens that he loses the location of
the vein and cannot go back to the place where it was discovered. In
this way his discovery becomes a "lost mine," and grows in importance
in people's minds as the story of its riches spreads from one to
another. Although men may spend years looking for such mines, they
are not often found again.
Frequently two men go prospecting together so that their work will
be less dangerous and lonely. If they are not at once successful,
they manage in some way to get supplies for a trip each year into
the mountains. Often they are "grub-staked," that is, some man
who has money furnishes their supplies in return for a share in
their findings.
If they have enough to eat, the prospectors, in their snug cabin,
are comfortable and happy. The cabin is built as near as possible
to the mine, so that the men need not be cut off from their work
during the stormy weather. The temperature underground is about the
same in both winter and summer, so that winter storms and summer
heat form no hindrance to the work.
[Illustration: FIG. 98.--MOUTH OF A TUNNEL]
Years spent in life of this kind lead men to love the mountains.
They feel a sympathy with Nature and a companionship in her presence.
When they have to visit the town for supplies, they long to get back
to their little cabins. They feel lost in the whirl and confusion
of the city.
Summer is a delightful time at the many little miners' cabins scattered
through the mountains. The air is invigorating, the water pure and
cold. There is everything in the surroundings to make one happy.
In the winter the miner sits by his great fireplace, with the flames
roaring up the chimney. He has no stove to make the air close and
oppressive. About the fireplace his dishes are arranged--the kettle
for beans, the coffee-pot, and the Dutch oven in which the bread is
baked. If there are some old paper-covered story-books at hand, it
does not matter how fiercely the storms rage without. Ask any old
prospector who has spent years in this manner if he would exchange
his cabin for a house in the city, and he will most decidedly answer
"no."
This lonely life in the mountains seems to engender hospitality.
The old-time prospector will make you welcome to his cabin and
will share his last crust with you. When he asks you in to have
some coffee and beans, he does not do it merely for the sake of
being polite, and he will feel hurt if you do not accept his
hospitality. His dishes may not be as white as those to which you
are accustomed, but I will venture to say that you have never tasted
better beans than those with which he will fill your plate from
his soot-begrimed kettle.
We ought all to see more of this wildlife. Even if we do not care
to, make our permanent homes among the mountains, it would do us
good to go there every summer at least, and so not only become
stronger, but cultivate that familiarity with and love for outdoor
life which our ancestors enjoyed.
GOLD AND GOLD-MINING
Gold derives its value partly from its purchasing power, partly
from those properties which make it serviceable in the arts, and
partly from its beauty. The high esteem in which gold money is
held is as much the result of its comparative rarity as of its
physical properties. Among nearly all the nations of the world
it has been agreed upon as a standard of exchange. Gold has one
disadvantage as a medium of exchange; it is rather too soft to wear
well. But this difficulty is overcome by alloying the gold with
another mineral of nearly the same color,--copper, for instance.
In order that we may understand better the position which gold
occupies in the arts and trades of the world, let us compare it
with other metals, and first with platinum. This mineral is far
less abundant and has many properties which make it valuable in
the arts. Like gold, platinum is malleable and ductile and does not
tarnish in the air, but it differs from gold in not being easily
fusible, so that it is used in the laboratory for crucibles. The
steel-gray color of platinum is, however, so much less attractive
than the yellow of gold, that it is not used for ornamental purposes.
An effort was made at one time by Russia, where a comparatively
large amount of platinum is found, to coin this metal into money,
but its continued use was not found practicable because of its
changing price in the markets of the world. If the leading nations
would agree upon a fixed value for platinum, it might be used like
gold as a medium of exchange.
Silver is brighter and more attractive than platinum, but is of
little use in the laboratory. It has been found in recent years
to be so much more abundant than gold that its value has decreased
greatly as a commercial article. In our country when coined it
has, like paper money, been given a value equal to gold.
The diamond has a value far exceeding that of gold, but this value
is dependent almost wholly upon its ornamental properties, although
the brilliant stone is also useful as an abrasive and cutting agent.
From these facts it is evident that gold, because of its rarity,
its physical properties, and its beauty, combines a larger number
of desirable characteristics than any other mineral.
Gold can be found in very small quantities nearly everywhere. It
is present in all the rocks and also in sea-water. The gold that
is distributed in this manner is of no value to us, for it would
cost many times as much to obtain it as it is worth. Nature has,
however, concentrated it for us in some places. In portions of
the world where the crust has been folded and broken there are
veins of quartz extending in long, narrow, and irregular sheets
through the rocks. This quartz is the home of the gold, and it
is usually found in hilly or mountainous regions.
Do not mistake the yellow iron pyrites for gold. Pyrites is brittle,
while gold is malleable. You can hammer a little grain of gold
into a thin sheet. Do not make the mistake, either, of thinking
that the shining yellow scales of mica which you see in the sand
in the bottom of a clear stream are gold. These yellow minerals
that look like gold have been called "fools' gold" because people
have sometimes been utterly deceived by them.
[Illustration: FIG. 99.--A GOLD-SILVER MINE
Summit of San Juan Range, Colorado]
Upon the Pacific slope minerals are now being deposited in some of
the openings of the rocks from which hot springs issue. A study of
these springs has led to the opinion that the gold-bearing quartz
veins were formed in a similar manner, but at a very remote time
in the past.
The milky or glassy quartz, which is so hard that you cannot scratch
it with the point of your knife, the little grains of pale yellow
iron pyrites, and the grains and threads of gold scattered through
the quartz, were at one time in solution in water. This water came
from some region far down in the earth, farther than we can ever
reach with the deepest shafts, and there, where it is very hot and
the pressure is great, the water dissolved the little particles
of gold and other minerals from the rocks; and then, gathering
them up, bore them along toward the surface, depositing them as
solid particles again in the form of veins in the fissures through
which the stream was passing.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--HYDRAULIC MINING ON THE KLAMATH RIVER,
CALIFORNIA]
As the rocks upon the surface decay and the crumbling material is
carried away by running water, the gold, being very heavy, washes
down the hillsides and is at last gathered in the gulches. This
fact explains why we find gold both in veins and in the gravel of
the streams. Getting gold from the veins is called quartz-mining.
Washing it from the gravel is called placer-mining; and if the
gravel is deep and a powerful stream of water is required, the work
is called hydraulic mining.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--MAY ROCK, A VEIN OF QUARTZ ON THE MOTHER
LODE]
Everyone has heard of the Mother Lode of California. Every miner
wishes that his mine were upon this famous lode, which is made
up of a large number of quartz veins extending along the western
slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and is marked by hundreds
of important mines. A line of towns marks the course of the Mother
Lode for over a hundred miles. They are almost entirely supported
by the gold which the lode supplies.
The gold first discovered in California was placer gold. After
the miners had worked over the stream gravels and had secured all
that they could in that way, they began to search for the home of
the gold. It could not always have been in the creek beds, and
the miners were correct in thinking that it must have been washed
from some other place. Gold was so frequently found in pieces of
loose or float quartz that this fact finally turned their attention
to the quartz veins which were numerous upon the mountain slopes.
Then came the discovery of the series of great quartz veins now
known as the Mother Lode.
[Illustration: FIG. 102.--AN ARASTRA]
When the miners first found the quartz flecked with gold, they
used the simplest means for separating the two substances. If the
quartz was very rich in gold, it was pounded and ground fine in
a hand mortar. Then the lighter quartz was washed away and the
gold left.
The miners also made use of the Mexican arastra. This is a very
crude apparatus, and is employed even now by miners who cannot
afford to procure a stamp-mill. To build an arastra, a circular
depression ten or twelve feet wide and a foot or more deep is made
in the ground. This depression is lined with stone, which forms
a hard bottom or floor. Four bars extend outward from an upright
post placed in the middle of the floor, and a large flat stone is
fastened to the end of each bar by means of a rope. A horse is
hitched to one of the bars, which is purposely left longer than the
others. The ore is thrown into the arastra, and water is admitted,
a little at a time. As the horse is driven around the stones are
dragged over the circular depression, crushing the ore and setting
free the gold.
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--THE STAMPS IN A QUARTZ-MILL]
This way of separating the gold was too slow, and in a short time
the stamp-mill was invented. It has grown from a very simple affair
into the great mill which crushes hundreds of tons of ore in a
day. The iron stamps each weigh nearly half a ton. They are raised
by powerful machinery and allowed to drop in succession upon the
ore, which is gradually fed under them. The stamps crush the ore
to a fine sand more easily and rapidly than could be done by any
other method. Water is kept running over the ore, and as fast as
it is crushed sufficiently fine for the particles to pass through
a wire screen, the water with which they are mixed is allowed to
flow over large plates of copper which have been coated with
quicksilver. The latter mineral has an attraction for gold, and
so catches and holds most of the particles, no matter how small
they are.
The compound of gold and quicksilver is a soft white substance
known as amalgam, utterly unlike either metal. When the amalgam
is subjected to heat, the quicksilver is driven off in the form
of a vapor, and the gold is left pure. The quicksilver vapor is
condensed in a cool chamber and is used again.
The iron pyrites in the ore contains gold which cannot be separated
by the crushing process and a machine called a concentrator has
been invented to save this also. After passing over the copper
plates the crushed rock and pyrites are washed upon a broad, flat
surface, which is moving in such a way that the lighter rock waste
is carried away by the water. The pyrites now appears as a dark,
heavy sand. This sand is placed in a roasting furnace, where the
sulphur is driven off, and the gold and iron are left together.
Now the gold is dissolved by means of chlorine gas, with which it
unites in a compound called gold chloride. From this compound the
metallic gold is easily separated. All this may seem a complicated
process, but it is carried through so cheaply that the ore which
contains only two or three dollars to the ton can be profitably
worked.
[Illustration: FIG. 104.--MINING THE GRAVEL OF AN OLD RIVER-BED]
Not all quartz veins carry gold. There are many in which not a single
speck of the precious metal can be found. Gold usually prefers the
society of quartz to that of other substances, for minerals, like
people, seem to have their likes and dislikes. Along the Mother Lode,
however, gold is sometimes found in little bunches and "stringers"
scattered through slate. In such cases the slate is mined and sent
to the mill.
Some miners devote themselves to pocket mining. They trace the
little seams in the rock, and where two seams cross they sometimes
find what they call a "pocket." This is a mass of nearly pure gold
of irregular shape, varying from a few dollars to thousands of
dollars in value. This kind of mining is very uncertain in its
results, for a man may make hundreds of dollars in one day, and
then not find anything more for months.
The western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains was once covered
with the camps of thousands of placer miners. Piles of boulders and
gravel are scattered along the creeks where the eager workers took
out millions of dollars' worth of gold-dust and nuggets. Now many of
the streams and gulches are entirely deserted. But in other places,
where the quartz veins outcrop, there are scores of stamp-mills at
work, night and day, pounding out the gold. Some of the mines have
been sunk more than a half mile into the earth, and the gold is
still as abundant as ever.
In some portions of the mountains hydraulic mining is more common
than quartz-mining. Years ago many of the rivers occupied different
channels from their present ones. The gravels of these old channels
in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and in other parts of the West
where gold-bearing veins occur, are rich in gold. In these channels
the gold is so deeply buried that it cannot usually be obtained by
means of pick and shovel. In order that the overlying gravel may
be removed as cheaply as possible, water is supplied by means of
ditches, often many miles long. From some near-by hill the stream
is conducted down to the mine in strong iron pipes. It thus acquires
a great force, and when directed against a gravel bank rapidly
washes it away. Torrents of water bearing boulders, gravel, and
sand, together with the particles of gold, are turned into sluice
boxes lined at the bottom with quick-silver. This metal catches
the gold and forms an amalgam as it does in the quartz-mills.
COPPER-MINING
There is a city hidden away in a narrow cañon in the extreme southern
portion of Arizona which is supported solely by a copper-mine.
The cañon lies upon the southern slope of a range of mountains,
and from its mouth one can look far off to the south across the
desert plains and mountains of Mexico. The city has an elevation
of more than a mile above the sea, and the cañon in which it is
situated is so narrow and steep-walled that you can almost jump
down from one street upon the roofs of the houses along the street
below. Stairways, instead of walks, lead up the hillsides from
the main street in the bottom of the cañon.
You might well wonder at the position of the city, and think that
out of all the waste land in this region a better place might have
been selected for its location. But cities grow where people gather,
and people do not come to live in the desert unless there is important
work to be done there.
A party of prospectors who were searching carefully over the mountains
found several mineral veins with green copper stains crossing this
cañon and outcropping in the adjacent hills. Claims were staked out
and recorded at the nearest land office. Then shafts and tunnels
were opened, and the miners became confident from the rich character
of the ore that an important copper-mine might be developed.
Supplies were brought across the desert with teams, and cabins
were built in the lonely cañon. Then an enterprising man started
a store. As the mine was opened farther, its importance was better
understood. There was a call for more miners and the town grew
larger. The houses clustered about the mine, the centre of all
the activities. At last a railroad was built, and the town became
a city, with narrow, winding streets occupying the winding cañon,
while tier upon tier of houses crept up the sides of the cañon,
which formerly had been covered only by growths of cactus and other
plants of the desert.
If the mine should close, there would be no inducement to keep
people in the locality, and the city would become merely a group
of deserted buildings. Water is so scarce that only a small amount
is allowed to each family, and it is delivered in barrels instead
of by pipes. Provisions of all kinds are very expensive, for they
have to be brought a long distance.
The great mine supports the thousands of inhabitants. The varied
industries represented there are dependent upon it alone. As long
as it pays to mine the copper, the people are as contented as if
they were not tucked away in a cañon in a remote corner of the
world.
The most interesting things to be seen about the city are the mine
and the smelter. In the former the ore is obtained; in the latter
the ore goes through various processes until it comes out in the
form of shining, metallic copper. The copper ore, we must understand,
is not metallic or "native copper," as it is called when found pure,
but a combination of copper with other substances which change
its appearance entirely.
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--COPPER SMELTER AND CITY OF BISBEE, ARIZONA
The pipe leading up the hill carries away sulphur fumes from the
smelter]
The mine is opened by a shaft, that is, a square hole sunk in the
ground. The shaft of this mine is a thousand feet deep, and is
being continually extended downward. If we wish to go down into
the mine, we must put on some old clothes and get the foreman to
act as guide. The cage in which we are to descend stands at the
mouth of the shaft, suspended by a steel rope. It looks much like
the elevators found in city buildings. At different levels horizontal
passages, called drifts, extend to the right and left upon the
vein of copper ore. We step out of the car at one of these levels
and with lighted candles start to walk through a portion of the
mine. There are so many miles of tunnels that it would take us
days to go through them all.
Overhead, under our feet, and upon the sides of the drift, lies the
vein of copper are, presenting a different appearance at different
places. The various ores sparkle in the light and we gather specimens
of each. The common are is chalcopyrite, a copper sulphide; that
is, it is composed of copper and sulphur. It has a brass-yellow
color, but is often stained with beautiful iridescent tints. In
places the chalcopyrite has been changed to the delicate green
carbonate of copper called malachite. In other places it has given
place to the oxide of copper. The little crimson crystals of this
mineral give bright metallic reflections.
The deposit of copper ore is apparently inexhaustible, for in places
the vein widens so that chambers one hundred feet wide and several
hundred feet long and high have been made in taking it out.
In going through the mine we have to be very careful not to step
into openings in the floor of the passages, or drop rock fragments
into them, for far below miners may be working. The places where the
men are taking out the ore are called "stopes," and to reach them
we have to crawl and creep through all sorts of winding passages,
now through a "manhole," and now down a long ladder which descends
into black depths.
From the stopes the ore, as it is blasted out, is shovelled into
chutes running down to some drift where there are men with cars.
Each car holds about a ton of ore, and after being filled it is
pushed along the drift and upon a cage which raises it to the surface.
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--HOMES OF MINERS, BISBEE, ARIZONA]
The mine is not wet, for there is so little rain in this region
that there are few underground streams. In places, however, it is
warm, for when the oxygen of the air reaches the fresh sulphide
it begins to oxidize the ore; that is, it begins to burn it, and
change it into a different compound, just as fire changes wood
or coal. Wherever oxidation is going on, heat is produced.
Fresh air is constantly needed in these workings far underground.
A supply is forced down in pipes, and then allowed to flow back
to the surface. In this way a thorough circulation is kept up.
Underground one loses all thought of the changes between night and
day, for it is always dark there. Consequently we are surprised
on coming up from the mine to find that night has settled over
the town. Lights are twinkling everywhere, and miners with their
pails of luncheon are coming for the night shift.
Another interesting experience now awaits us in the form of a visit
to the smelter. Here the bright copper is extracted from the
rough-looking ores. How different the two substances appear! They
look as if they had scarcely anything in common.
The interior of the smelter seems like a bit of the infernal regions
set upon the earth. While watching what goes on, we might imagine
that we were far down in the earth, where Vulcan, the fire god, was
at work. At night the scene is particularly weird and impressive,
for the shadows and general indistinctness make everything appear
strange. The glowing furnaces, the showers of sparks, the roar
of the blast furnaces, the suffocating fumes of sulphur, and the
half-naked figures of the Mexican workmen, passing to and fro with
cloths over their mouths, form all together a bewildering scene.
The ore is first pulverized, and then placed in large revolving
cylinders, where it is roasted. A fire is started in the cylinder
at first, but after the ore becomes so much heated that the sulphur
in it begins to burn, no further artificial aid is necessary. Little
by little the ore is added in quantities sufficient to keep the
fire going. The object of the roasting is to drive off as much
sulphur as possible.
After being raked from the roasting furnace, the ore is wheeled
in barrows to the huge upright furnaces and is thrown in. Here
such materials as limestone and iron are also added to aid in the
formation of a perfectly fused or molten mass. These substances
are known as fluxes. With the melting of the ore the copper begins
to separate from the impurities.
The melted ore, in the form of a glowing liquid, gathers at the
bottom of the furnace and runs out into a large kettle-like receptacle.
When ore of these vessels is full it is tipped up and the molten
copper which has collected at the bottom, because it is heavier than
the slag, is allowed to run into another large kettle, supported
by chains from a rolling truck above.
[Illustration: FIG. 107.--SHIPPING COPPER MATTE]
The slag is dumped into a car and is carried outside, while the huge
dish containing the copper and some slag is swung to the opposite
side of the building, where its contents are cast into another
furnace. A very strong blast of air is forced up through the molten
mass in this furnace, and the remaining portion of slag is blown
out at the top in a shower of glowing particles.
From the bottom of the furnace the liquid copper is drawn out and
allowed to run into moulds where it finally cools. It is then known
as copper matte. The copper still contains some impurities, and
retains in addition whatever gold and silver may have been present
in the ore. Most copper ores carry a small amount of these precious
metals.
The heavy bars of copper matte are now ready for shipment to some
manufacturing point, where they are refined still further and made
into the various copper utensils, copper wire, etc. Copper is valuable
for many purposes, as it does not rust easily, is highly malleable
and ductile, and is a good conductor of electricity.
In the great copper-mines upon Lake Superior, copper is found in the
native state mixed with the rock, and does not have to be smelted;
but in most mines the ore must go through a process very like the
one described before metallic copper can be obtained.
It does not matter how remote a region may be, how intense the
heat or cold, or how desert-like the surrounding country, men will
go to it if minerals of value are discovered; and there they will
perhaps spend the whole of their lives, mining these substances
which are of such importance to the industries of the world.
COAL AND PETROLEUM
People are beginning to ask where fuel will be obtained when the
coal-beds are exhausted and the petroleum is all pumped out of the
earth. The cold winters will not cease to come regularly, and we
shall continue to need fires for many purposes. This is a question
which need not trouble us. So long as the sun lasts in the sky
and the oceans cover so much of the earth, and so long as there
are mountains upon the land, there must be streams with rapids
and waterfalls. The power of these streams, which has for ages
gone to waste, is now being turned into electricity for purposes
of light and heat. We may be sure that long before the mines cease
to produce coal and the wells to supply petroleum, there will be
something better ready to take their places.
But coal and petroleum are still such important commodities that
everyone should know something about the way in which they were
made. This earth of ours has had a very long history, much of which
has been recorded in the rocks beneath our feet, and the record
is more accurate than are many human histories which have been
preserved in the printed books.
The story of the earth has been divided into different periods,
each marked by the predominance of certain kinds of living things.
The Carboniferous period has been so named because at that time
the climate and features of the earth in many places favored the
growth of dense and heavy vegetation. This vegetation accumulated
through the long years, so that it formed thick deposits which
gradually changed to beds of coal. It would be wrong, however, to
think that all the beds of coal were formed at about the same time.
Ever since there have been forests and marshes upon the earth there
have been opportunities for the forming of coal-beds. Materials
are accumulating even now which will in time be transformed to
beds of coal.
We must be equally careful to gain correct ideas of the making
of petroleum, for many wrong notions are current. While coal has
come from the accumulation of plant remains, petroleum has been
derived from sea organisms, chiefly animals. If coal and petroleum
are found near each other, the occurrence is accidental and does
not mean that the two substances are in any way related.
Our earth is very old, and its surface has gone through many
transformations; mountains, plains, and portions of the sea floor
have changed places with one another. Wherever there have been
marshy lowlands, since plants first began to grow luxuriantly upon
the earth, it has been possible for beds of coal to be formed.
We all know how rankly plants grow where there is plenty of heat
and moisture. Many of us have been in swampy forests and have seen
the masses of rotting tree trunks, limbs, and leaves. Now, if we
should form a picture in our minds of such a swamp slowly sinking
until the water of some lake or ocean had flowed over it and killed
the plants, and then washed sand and clay upon the buried forest
until it was covered deeply in the earth, we should understand
how the coal-beds began. Veins of coal that have been opened by
the miners frequently show trunks and stumps of trees, as well
as impressions of leaves and ferns. Underneath the coal there is
usually a bed of clay, while above sand or sandstone is commonly
found.
The oldest coal has been changed the most. It is hard and rather
difficult to ignite, but when once on fire it gives more heat and
burns longer than other coals. This coal, known as anthracite, is
not found extensively in the United States outside of Pennsylvania.
Coal which is younger and has been less changed by the heat and
pressure brought to bear upon it when it was buried deep in the
earth, is known as bituminous. This is the kind of coal which is
found in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, in the Rocky Mountains,
and upon the Pacific slope. A still younger coal, which is soft
and has a brownish color, is called lignite, and is found mostly
in the South and West.
Still another sort of fuel, known as peat, is found in swamps where
considerable vegetation is now accumulating, or has accumulated
in recent times. Peat is a mass of plant stems, roots, and moss,
partly decayed and pressed together. In countries where wood is
scarce peat is cut out, dried, and used for fuel.
The larger part of the coal in the eastern United States was formed
during the Carboniferous period. That part of our country was then
low and swampy; but the West, which is now an elevated area of
mountains and plateaus, was at that time largely beneath the ocean.
Then, as the surface of the earth continued to change, the ocean
retreated from the Rocky Mountain region, and extensive marshy
lowlands with lakes of fresh or brackish water came into existence.
There were such marshes in the areas that are now covered by New
Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Dakota, and Montana. Westward for some
distance the land was higher, but in the states of Washington,
Oregon, and California there were other marshy lowlands covered
with heavy vegetation.
We know from what we have seen of the manner in which wood decays,
that in the dry, open air it does not accumulate, but is in great
part carried away by the wind. It is only in swamps and shallow
bodies of water that the decaying wood can gather in beds. From
these facts we have a right to draw conclusions as to the former
nature of the surface where there are no coal-beds. There are extensive
beds of limestone in the western United States which are of the
same age as the coal-beds in the east. As such beds of limestone
could have formed only in the ocean, their presence throws a good
deal of light upon the geography of those distant times.
Upon the Pacific slope the marshes were not so extensive, nor did
they last for so long a period, as those in the East. Nature seems
to have confined her strongest efforts at coal-making to the country
east of the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps she thought that the people
of the West would not need coal if she gave them plenty of gold
and silver.
In the Appalachian mountains Nature folded the strata and left
them in such a position that the coal could be mined easily. In
the Mississippi Valley the beds were left flat, almost in their
original position, so that shafts had to be sunk to reach the coal.
Upon the Pacific slope Nature seems to have had a large amount
of trouble in arranging things satisfactorily. She has made and
remade the mountains so many times, and folded and broken the crust
of the earth so severely where the swamps stood, that now large
portions of the coal beds which once existed have crumbled and
been washed away by the streams. The scanty supply of coal which
now remains is in most places hard to find and difficult to mine.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.--SEAMS OF COAL ENCLOSED IN SANDSTONE,
CALIFORNIA]
The best coal mined near the Pacific comes from Vancouver Island.
Large beds of a younger and poorer coal are found southeast of
Puget Sound. There are other beds in the Coast ranges of western
Oregon, and a few small ones in the Coast ranges of California.
The great interior region between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast
ranges has very little coal. The people of California have to import
large quantities of coal. Some is brought by the railroads from the
Rocky Mountain region, but the most comes by ships from various
parts of the world, from England, Australia, or British Columbia.
The ships bring the coal at low rates and take away grain and lumber.
Coal is almost the only important mineral which Nature has bestowed
sparingly upon the Pacific slope. In California, however, she has made
amends by storing up large quantities of petroleum. In Pennsylvania
and Ohio there is petroleum as well as coal. Oil has also been
discovered in the Rocky Mountain region and in Texas.
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--A SPRING OF WATER AND PETROLEUM
The black streak is petroleum]
Petroleum is found flowing from the rocks in the form of springs,
either by itself or associated with gases and strong-smelling mineral
water. The oil is usually obtained by boring wells, but in southern
California there is one mountain range which furnishes large quantities
through tunnels which have been run into its side. Petroleum is
commonly found in porous sandstones or shales, from one or two
hundred to three thousand feet below the surface. It was not made
in these rocks, but has soaked into them just as water soaks into
a brick. The rocks which produced the oil or petroleum are dark,
strong-smelling shales or limestone. Heat a piece of such rock,
and you will drive out a little oil.
[Illustration: FIG. 110.--OIL WELLS IN THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES,
CALIFORNIA
Pool of oil in foreground]
Examine a piece of the shale from one of the oil districts of
California, and you will discover that it is a very peculiar rock,
for it is made up almost wholly of minute organisms which once
inhabited the ocean. Among the forms which you will find are the
silicious skeletons of diatoms, the calcareous skeletons of
foraminifera, scales of fish, and, rarely, the whole skeleton of
a fish.
Where now there are mountains and valleys dotted with oil derricks,
there was once the water of the open ocean. This water was filled, as
the water of the ocean is to-day, with an infinite number of living
things. As these creatures died, their bodies sank to the bottom, and
while the soft parts dissolved, the hard parts or skeletons remained.
Through perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, the skeletons continued
to accumulate until beds were formed hundreds or even thousands
of feet in thickness. The materials of the beds, at first a soft
mass like the ooze which the dredger brings up from the bottom
of the present ocean, became packed together in a solid mass.
Then disturbances affected this old sea bottom. It was raised, and
gravel, clay, and sand from some new shore were washed over the
bed of animal remains, burying it deeply. Continued movements of
the earth finally folded these rocks, which, as they were, squeezed
and broken, became warm. The heat and pressure started chemical
action in the decayed animal bodies, and particles of organic matter
were driven off in the form of oil and gas. These substances were
forced here and there through the fissures in the rocks. Part of
the products found a way to the surface and formed springs, while
other portions collected to form vast reservoirs in such porous
rocks as sandstone. The sulphur and mineral springs which occur
in oil regions tell us that this work of oil-making is still going
on.
The oil as it comes from the ground is usually brownish or greenish
in color, and much thicker than the refined product which we use
in our lamps. Some of the crude petroleum is thick and tar-like
in appearance, and when long exposed to the air turns to a solid
black mass called "asphaltum." This, when softened by heat and
mixed with sand, makes a valuable material for street pavement.
THE CLIMATE OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
The western portion of the United States exhibits very interesting
climatic features. In California, for example, there may be found
every degree of temperature between tropic heat and arctic cold.
In the deserts of the southeastern portion of the state the air
is extremely dry, while in the northwest it rains nearly every
month in the year.
Upon the borders of Puget Sound the thermometer seldom falls below
the freezing-point, while southern Newfoundland, in the same latitude,
is marked by cold and snowy weather for at least six months of
every year. Southern California has the same latitude as central
Georgia, but its average temperature near the coast is but little
higher than that of Puget Sound, while it is warmer in winter and
cooler in summer than Georgia. The deserts of southern California
and Arizona are so hot that for four months of the year work in the
sun is almost impossible; yet the higher portions of the Sierra Nevada
mountains, but a short distance away, have an arctic climate. The
whole Pacific coast region has, with the exception of the mountains,
a much milder climate than one would expect from a mere knowledge
of its latitude. It will be instructive to search out the reasons
for the remarkable contrasts in climate presented by different
portions of the slope.
The imaginary lines passing through points of equal temperature
upon the earth are called "isotherms." These lines rarely accord
in direction with the parallels of latitude, but curve far to the
north or south. The irregular course of the isotherms is due to
many causes. Among these are the distribution of the land and water,
the direction of the prevailing wind, the position of the mountain
ranges, and the elevation above sea-level.
[Illustration: WEATHER MAPS
Fair weather over central portion of Pacific slope. Storm coming
in upon coast of Washington
Stormy weather over the western half of the United States]
In winter the isotherms curve far to the north over the North Pacific
and North Atlantic oceans; but over the intervening land they curve
as much to the south. In summer the isotherms are almost reversed
in position, at least as far as the land is concerned, for they
bend to the north in the heart of the continent. There are important
reasons for the slight variation of the isothermal lines upon the
western borders of North America and Europe, and their great change
of position in the interior from winter to summer, but these reasons
are not at all difficult to understand.
The temperature of large bodies of water changes but little throughout
the year, for water warms and cools slowly. The surface of the
land, on the contrary, heats rapidly, and then as quickly loses
its heat with the changing season. The air over the ocean is cooler
in summer and warmer in winter because of the influence of the
water, but over the land, in districts far from a large body of
water, the changes in temperature between day and night, summer
and winter, are very great.
It was formerly thought that the warm Japan current, which flows
against the western shore of North America, was responsible for
the exceptionally mild climate there, and that the Gulf Stream
produced a similar climate upon the coast of western Europe. More
careful study, however, has shown that not the warm ocean currents,
but rather the winds blowing from the water, are the cause of the mild
climate in those lands across which they blow. In temperate latitudes
there is a slow movement of the air in an easterly direction, and
in consequence the climate of the western coast of North America
is not marked by such extremes in winter and summer as are the
interior and the eastern sections. It is also surprising to find
how nearly alike the average winter and summer temperature is at San
Francisco. It is also surprising to note that the average temperature
of Seattle differs so little from that of San Diego, although these
two places are separated by sixteen degrees of latitude.
In some places the climatic conditions which we should naturally
expect seem to be reversed. Oranges are grown in the Great Valley
of California as far north as Red Bluff, and actually ripen a month
sooner than they do near Los Angeles, five hundred miles farther
south. The early ripening of fruits in the Great Valley may be
explained by the presence of the inclosing mountain ranges: the
Sierra Nevada mountains upon the northeast shut off the cold winds
of winter, while the Coast ranges upon the west break the cool
summer winds which come from off the Pacific.
Another interesting fact connected with the climate of the West is
the influence exerted by the direction of the mountain ranges. As
these ranges usually lie across the path of the prevailing winds,
their tempering influence is lost much more quickly than it otherwise
would be. West of the Coast ranges the summers are cool and the
winters are warm. Upon the eastern side of these mountains the
winters are somewhat cooler and the summers very much warmer. In
the dry, clear air of the desert valleys, far from the ocean, the
daily range in temperature is sometimes as great as fifty degrees,
while the winters are cool and the summers unbearably hot.
We all know how much cooler a hill-top is than a valley upon a
summer day. Where the mountains rise abruptly to a great height, as,
for example, does the San Bernardino Range of southern California,
one can stand among stunted plants of an arctic climate and look
down upon orange orchards where frost rarely forms. Mount Tamalpais,
a peak of the Coast Range north of San Francisco, has an elevation
of nearly three thousand feet. The summer temperature upon this
mountain forms an exception to the general rule, for while the
lowlands are buried in chilling fog, the air upon the summit is
warm and pleasant.
[Illustration: FIG. 111.--ORANGE ORCHARDS CLOSE UNDER SNOW-CAPPED
PEAKS
Highlands, California]
The north and south mountain ranges not only make the interior
hotter than it would otherwise be, but rob it of much of the moisture
which it should receive. The winter storms coming in from the ocean
find the cool mountains lying across their path and quickly part
with a large proportion of their moisture. Where the coast mountains
are low, as is the case with a great part of California and of
Oregon, more of the moisture passes on to the next line of mountains,
the Sierra Nevada-Cascade Range, the western slope of which is
well watered. In the region of the Columbia the Cascade Range is
also low, and the storms, which often follow one another in quick
succession, sweep across the Columbia plateau and over the Rocky
Mountains. Farther south, not only are the storms fewer in number,
but the mountains are very much higher, so that the desert basins
of the lower Colorado and Death Valley region are extremely dry.
One can in imagination stand upon the summit of the Sierra Nevada
mountains, and upon the one hand look down upon barren valleys of
vast extent, broken by mountains almost as barren, where nothing
can be grown except by means of irrigation; and upon the other
side, toward the coast, see a country plentifully visited by rain,
and either covered with forests or given over to farming and
fruit-raising.
The Rocky Mountains form the eastern barrier which the storms encounter.
Their summits are very high and are covered with deep snow during
the winter. East of these mountains lie the Great Plains, where the
precipitation is light until we go far enough toward the Mississippi
Valley to reach the influence of the moist air currents from the
Gulf of Mexico. Many storms originate over the region of the Gulf
of California, particularly in the late summer, and supplement to
some extent the light winter storms of Arizona and New Mexico.
The storms of which we have been speaking are known as cyclones.
This term does not refer to the local storms which occur in the
Mississippi Valley and are frequently so destructive, but to great
disturbances of the air. Sometimes the column of whirling air is
more than a thousand miles in diameter. The air in a cyclone is
circling and at the same time rising, so that the motion is spiral.
If you will study an eddy in a stream of water, you will get an
idea of the nature of the motion, except that in the case of the
water eddy the movement is downward. The motion of the particles
in the dust-whirls which all have seen moving across the fields
near noon on warm summer days illustrate the movement of the air
in one of these great storms. The direction of the air in a cyclone
is opposite to that of the hands of a clock.
When the wind comes up from a southerly point, when high, thin
clouds, gradually growing thicken, spread over the sky, and the
barometer begins to fall, then it is known that a storm is corning.
If one will learn to watch the clouds and the winds carefully he
may become able to predict a storm with almost as much certainty
as if he had a barometer. This instrument registers the pressure of
the air, which is always less within the area of a storm, because
then the air is rising. So when the barometer falls we may always
know that a storm is approaching.
The greater number of the storms which occur in the central and
northern United States come in from the Pacific Ocean in the latitude
of Washington. Continuing east or southeast they reach the Mississippi
Valley, and then turn northeastward toward the St. Lawrence Valley.
In the summer months there are few storms, and they very rarely
reach as far south as California. As winter approaches the storms
become more frequent and severe, and move farther and farther south
until the whole land as far as Mexico receives a wetting.
Upon the Pacific coast there is often very little warning of the
coming of a storm, but in the Middle and Eastern States they may
frequently be predicted several days in advance. With the passing
of one of these storms the temperature falls rapidly, and this
lowering of temperature, together with the fierce wind, gives rise
upon the Great Plains to "blizzards" or "northers." These storms
endanger the lives of both men and animals.
At different times in the year, particularly in winter, spring,
and early summer, warm, dry winds occur. Those winds which sweep
down from the heights of the Rocky Mountains and quickly melt the
snows are known as "chinooks." The hot north and east winds of
California often do great damage to growing crops.
Now let us sum up briefly the factors which have together produced
the climatic features of the Pacific slope.
(1) Ordinarily the factor of the greatest importance is latitude.
We should expect that Seattle would have a much colder climate than
San Diego because it receives the sun's rays more slantingly.
(2) The influence of latitude is greatly modified by the temperate
winds blowing from the Pacific, so that places far separated in
latitude differ but little in average temperature, their summers
being cooler and their winters warmer than we should expect them
to be.
(3) The storms pass over the land with the general easterly movement
of the air. The largest number pass east across the northern portion
of the United States. The farther south we go the fewer are the
storms and the less the rainfall. Along the coast of Washington
the annual rainfall is nearly one hundred inches. At San Diego
it is only about ten inches.
(4) The position of the mountain ranges causes the influence of
the ocean on the air to be lost within a short distance toward
the interior of the continent, so that the extremes of temperature
rapidly become greater. The position of the mountains also affects
the rainfall of the interior. Since a large proportion of the moisture
is condensed upon their ocean slopes, the climate of each succeeding
range toward the interior becomes more dry and desert-like. While
in some of the lowlands thus cut off from the ocean the climate is
extremely arid, yet the country is relieved from utter barrenness
through the presence of mountain peaks and ranges, which often
condense considerable moisture.
[Illustration: FIG. 112.--SCENE IN FORESTS OF WASHINGTON
Showing spruce and cedar]
(5) The higher a region is above the sea, the colder the climate.
The summit of a high mountain and the valley at its base may be
in the same latitude, and yet one may possess an arctic climate
while the other has a sub-tropical one.
The heavy rainfall in western Washington, Oregon, and northern
California results in dense forests. To the south, the rainfall
upon the lowlands is not sufficient to produce forests, but as
it is greater upon the mountains, trees thrive upon their sides.
The elevation at which trees will grow becomes higher and higher
as we go into the more desert regions, until in northern Arizona
it is found to be above six thousand feet. The high plateaus are
generally treeless, but are covered with such shrubs as greasewood
and sage-brush.
We see now that our climate is the product of many factors. It
frequently varies greatly in places only a few miles distant from
each other. Consequently there may be a great variety of productions
and industries in one small area, while in other regions the climate
and productions are almost unchanged for hundreds of miles.
SOMETHING ABOUT IRRIGATION
Travellers from the Eastern States who visit New Mexico for the
first time are attracted by many unusual sights. There are the
interesting little donkeys, the low adobe houses of the native
Mexicans, and the water ditches winding through the gardens and
fields, which are divided into squares by low ridges of earth.
If the fields are seen in the winter time, when dry and barren,
the meaning of their checkered appearance is not at first clear,
but in the spring and summer one is not long in finding out all
about them. When the time comes to sow the seed, water is turned
into these squares from the ditches which traverse the valleys,
and one square at a time is filled until the ground in each is
thoroughly soaked. Afterward, when the ground has dried enough
to be easily worked, the crop is put in. The seeds soon sprout
under the influence of the warm sun, and the land becomes green
with growing plants. The same method of moistening the ground is
used for the orchards and vineyards.
What is the use of all this work? Why not wait for the rains to
come and wet the earth, as the farmer does in the eastern United
States? The Mexicans, who have tilled these valleys for more than
two hundred years, ought certainly to have learned in all that
time how to get the best returns. You may be sure that they would
not water the ground in this way if it were not necessary. The fact
is that over a large portion of the western half of the United
States it does not rain enough to enable the farmer to grow his
crops. The climate is generally very different from that of the
Middle and Eastern States.
When the Mexicans moved northward into the valley of the Rio Grande
River, into Arizona and California, they found a climate similar in
many respects to that at home, and soon learned that it was necessary
to water the land artificially in order to make it productive. Though
in many places sufficient rain fell, yet the heaviest rainfall
came in the late summer or winter, when the plants needed it less,
while the spring and summer were long and dry. The Mexicans were
not the first to practise watering the land, if we may judge from
the ruins of ancient ditches constructed by the primitive Indian
inhabitants. It is evident that they too made use of water in this
manner for the growing of their corn and squashes.
This turning of water upon the land to make it productive is termed
"irrigation." The work is performed in different ways, as we shall
see later. Irrigation is now carried on through all portions of
the United States where the rainfall is light and streams of water
are available.
To one who has lived in a country where there is plenty of rain,
it seems to involve a great deal of work to prepare the land and
to conduct water to it. One may feel pity for the farmer who has
to support himself in this manner in so barren a country. I am
sure, however, that if any such person will stop to think, he will
remember times when in his own fertile home the expected rain did
not come, and the vegetation wilted and dried up. He may have become
discouraged because of a number of "dry years," but probably never
thought that he had the means at hand to make up, at least in part,
for the shortcomings of Nature, in sending too much rain one year,
and another year too little.
[Illustration: FIG. 113.--WATER-WHEEL FOR LIFTING WATER FOR IRRIGATION,
VIRGIN RIVER, SOUTHERN UTAH]
It would doubtless have paid such a farmer many fold to have been
prepared at the coming of a dry year to turn the water from a
neighboring stream over his lands. This process would have involved
a good deal of labor; but how the plants would have rejoiced, and
how abundantly they would have repaid him for the extra trouble!
The showers come without regard to the time when growing things
need them most, but with irrigation the crops are independent of
the weather. The farmer may be sure that, if he prepares the ground
properly and sows the seed, the returns will be all that he can
wish. In many localities several crops may be raised in a year
by this method where otherwise only one would grow.
Now let us see how the water is taken from the streams and what
are the different methods employed to distribute it over the land.
Almost every valley is traversed by a stream, great or small. It
may be a river, with a large volume of water, or a creek which
completely dries up during the long, rainless summers of the West.
[Illustration: FIG. 114.--GARDEN IRRIGATION, LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO]
In rare cases the stream may flow upon a built-up channel which
is as high as the valley, but usually it is sunken below the level
of the floor of the valley, and enclosed by banks of greater or
less height. How is the water to be sent over the land? Where the
current is swift you may sometimes see a slowly turning water-wheel,
having at the ends of the spokes little cups, which dip up the
water as the wheel revolves and pour it into a flume that runs
back over the land. At some places engines are used to pump the
water from the stream and lift it to the desired height.
[Illustration: FIG. 115.--IRRIGATING AN ALFALFA FIELD, ARIZONA]
Generally, however, another method is employed: the water is taken
out of the stream in an artificial channel dug in the earth. But
in order to get the water at a sufficient height to make it flow
over the fields, it is necessary to start a ditch or canal at a
favorable point some distance up the stream, perhaps miles from
the garden.
The ditch is made with a slope just sufficient for the water to
flow. The slope must be less than that of the river from which the
water is taken, so as to carry the stream, at last, high enough
to cover the lands to be irrigated.
Visit almost any valley in the West where agriculture or fruit-growing
is being carried on, and you will at once notice the lines of the
ditches, apparently level, as they wind around the hillsides. At
convenient distances there are gates to let out the water for the
orchards and fields.
The ground may be moistened in different ways. The first method is
that employed by the Mexicans, who, if we except the Cliff Dwellers,
were the first to introduce irrigation into our country. This consists
in dividing the land into squares by embankments and allowing the
water to flood each in succession. The method is known as irrigation
by checks, and can be used conveniently only upon nearly level
land.
In many orchards a series of shallow furrows is ploughed between
the rows of trees, and the water is allowed to flow down these
until the soil is thoroughly soaked. In alfalfa fields the water
is often turned upon the upper end and permitted to work its way
across until it reaches the lower edge, soaking the ground as it
goes. The slopes must in every case be so gentle that the current
will not be strong enough to carry away the soil.
Once in every two to four weeks throughout the spring and summer,
the exact period depending upon the rapidity with which the ground
dries, the wetting is repeated. If the soil is light the water
must be turned on more often and a larger supply is required.
It frequently happens that the stream from which the water is taken
so nearly dries up in the summer, when the water is most needed,
that the cultivated lands suffer severely. During the winter little
if any irrigation is necessary, but at that time the streams are
so full that they frequently run over their banks and do great
damage.
How to preserve the water thus going to waste and have it at hand
for summer use has been an important problem in regions where every
particle of water is valuable. Study of the question has led to
the examination of the streams with reference to the building of
reservoirs to hold back the flood waters. A reservoir may be formed
of a natural lake in the mountains in which the stream rises, by
placing a dam across its outlet and so making it hold more water.
If this cannot be done, a narrow place in the cañon of the stream
is selected, above which there is a broad valley. At such a place
the dam which is built across the cañon is held firmly in place
by the walls of rock upon each side, and an artificial lake or
reservoir is made. Ditches lead away from this reservoir, and by
means of gates the water is supplied when and where it is needed.
[Illustration: FIG. 116.--SWEETWATER RESERVOIR, NEAR SAN DIEGO,
CALIFORNIA]
The streams which furnish the water for irrigation in the arid
region rise in mountains with steep rocky slopes, and until the
water issues from these mountains it is confined to cañons with
bottoms of solid rock, so that no water is lost except by evaporation.
After the streams emerge from the cañons upon the long, gentle
slopes of gravel and soil which lie all about the bases of the
mountains, they begin immediately to sink into the porous material.
They frequently disappear entirely before they have flowed many
miles. Some of this water can be brought to the surface again by
digging wells and constructing pumping plants, but the greater
part is lost to the thirsty land.
To prevent the water from sinking into the gravel, ditches lined
with cement are often made to carry it from the cañons to the points
where it is needed. Sometimes iron pipes or wooden flumes are used
in place of the ditches.
What a transformation irrigation makes in the dry and desert-like
valleys of the West! Land which under Nature's treatment supports
only a scanty growth of sagebrush or greasewood, and over which
a few half-starved cattle have roamed, becomes, when irrigated,
covered with green fields and neat homes, while sleek, well-fed
herds graze upon the rich alfalfa. Ten acres of irrigated land
will in many places support a family, where without irrigation a
square mile would not have sufficed.
One might suppose that the soil of these naturally barren valleys
was poor, but such is not the case. The ground did not lack plant
food, but merely the water to make this food available. With plenty
of water the most luxuriant vegetation is produced. The soil is,
indeed, frequently richer than in well-watered regions, for a lavish
supply of water carries away a portion of the plant food.
In some places, where the land is almost level and the soil is
filled with large quantities of soluble materials, such as soda
and salt, keeping the ground moist through irrigation brings these
substances to the surface in such quantities as to injure and sometimes
kill the vegetation. In order that such lands may be successfully
cultivated, the salts have to be either neutralized or washed away.
[Illustration: FIG. 117.--IRRIGATING DITCH, NEAR PHOENIX, ARIZONA]
Many of the rivers of the West carry large quantities of silt in
suspension, which fills the ditches and causes a great deal of
trouble; but when the silt is deposited over the surface it adds
continually to the richness of the land.
The full development of irrigation will mean a great increase in
the population and wealth of all the Western States.
THE LOCATION OF THE CITIES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE
This old earth has to be consulted upon every occasion. It is a
silent partner in all our undertakings. We sometimes think that
we come and go as we please, but a little thought convinces us
that we are not really so free.
The traveller must take account of the slopes of the land. It is
much easier for him to follow a valley and cross a mountain range
through a low spot, although his course be very crooked, than it is
to make a "bee line" for his destination. The farmer, in choosing
his home and the kind of produce which he will raise, has to consult
the soil and climate. He cannot expect to grow grain where the
soil is poor and dry, or grow apples where the late spring frosts
kill the buds. The miner knows that he cannot expect to find gold
veins in the valleys, where the rocks are deeply covered by the
soil, and so he turns his steps toward the mountains, where Nature
has made his work easy by lifting up the rocks and exposing them
to his view.
Routes of commerce and trade are governed by geographic, and to a
certain extent by climatic, conditions. Shallow streams with rapids
and waterfalls obstruct navigation. The absence of harbors along a
given coast makes it difficult for ships to take and discharge
cargoes. Railroads cannot be constructed unless long and expensive
surveys have first been made to determine the route which Nature
has made the easiest between two given points.
The character of the climate and geographic features of a given
country determine whether it shall become noted for agricultural
productions, mining industries, manufactures, or commerce. The
locations of the cities and towns and the roads connecting them
depend upon geographic conditions. There is not an occupation of
any importance in which people engage at any particular place that
is not dependent in large degree for its success upon the conditions
which Nature has imposed upon that place.
A city will not grow up at a given point unless the geographic
conditions are favorable. There must be some natural reason to
induce people to gather in large numbers in one place. At one spot
there are facilities for manufacturing, such as water-power and coal,
and easy means of communication with other parts of the world. At
another, the only reason for the growth of a city is the existence
of rich mines. A third place may be conveniently located in the
midst of a rich agricultural region, where it is easy to bring
in supplies and ship out the products of the soil.
A study of the founding and growth of some of the cities of the
West, and particularly of the Pacific slope, will bring out many
interesting facts.
San Francisco is the metropolis of the Pacific; its population
will soon reach half a million. If we look back seventy-five years
we find San Francisco an unimportant Mexican military post and
the seat of one of the smaller missions. Monterey, the capital
of the province of California and one of the two leading towns
(Los Angeles being the other), apparently had all the advantages
in the race for supremacy.
In date of discovery (1603) Monterey Bay has the advantage of more
than one hundred and fifty years over San Francisco Bay. It is
difficult to understand why the different navigators who sailed
north along the coast failed to discover California's most magnificent
bay. Sir Francis Drake went by it, evidently not seeing the narrow
opening between the headlands now known as the Golden Gate. Vizcaino,
after discovering Monterey Bay, also passed by and anchored where
Drake had stopped, in a little bay now called Drake's Bay, a few
miles north of San Francisco Bay.
After the founding of San Diego, in 1769, a party started overland
for Monterey, but by reason of the peculiar position of the bay
they passed it unknowingly, and by accident came upon the body of
water which has since been of so great importance to the commercial
life of California. Monterey Bay in time lost its importance, partly
because it was not thoroughly protected from the storms, and partly
from the lack of easy communication with the rest of the state.
Immediately after the acquisition of California and the discovery
of gold, the advantages of San Francisco Bay began to be appreciated,
and the little Mexican town grew rapidly. The narrow entrance to the
bay, which had for so long a time delayed its discovery, completely
protected it from the storms, while its long arms opened across
the coast mountains directly into the important valleys of the
interior. Ocean vessels could go up the bay and through the Strait
of Carquinez, while river boats could be used for many miles farther.
After the discovery of gold, ships from all parts of the world
found ample room and shelter in San Francisco Bay; and the incoming
miners, going by the water routes to Marysville, Sacramento, and
Stockton, easily reached the gold-bearing gravels of the Sierra
Nevada streams.
With the exception of southern California and a portion of the
northern coast, almost all the agricultural and mineral resources
of California are directly tributary to San Francisco. This place
is naturally the centre of home trade, of foreign commerce, and
of population.
[Illustration: FIG. 118.--SAN FRANCISCO BAY
Formed by the sinking of the land and flooding of a river valley]
Nature failed to supply San Francisco with one essential advantage,
namely, cheap power for manufacturing. There is no water-power
near and but little coal in the state. Since the coal has to be
shipped in from distant points, its high price has impeded
manufacturing. But now it appears that San Francisco is not so
badly off after all, for important deposits of petroleum have been
discovered in the central and southern portions of California;
and besides, processes have been invented for transforming the
unlimited water-power of the mountain streams into electric energy,
and transmitting this power to all the cities about the bay.
The early Spaniards founded the pueblo of Los Angeles in its present
location, because at this point the Los Angeles River carried an
abundance of pure water which could be led out in ditches to irrigate
the fertile bottom lands in the vicinity. Partly because it became
a railroad centre, and partly because it is surrounded by rich
valleys, Los Angeles has grown with great rapidity and now stands
next to San Francisco in size among California cities.
San Diego, which has a harbor next in importance to that of San
Francisco, has grown more slowly, because of the greater difficulty
in developing water systems for irrigation, and because access
is not so easy on account of the enclosing mountains. However,
it must in time become the second commercial city of the state.
Mountain barriers make travel from one portion of California to
another somewhat difficult. Mountains separate San Francisco and the
Great Valley of California from all other portions of the continent.
Nature seems to have planned here a little empire all by itself. But
engineering skill in the construction of railroads has overcome the
barrier upon the north which separates California from Oregon. The
Sierra Nevada range upon the east has been crossed at Donner Pass,
and upon the south an outlet has been found through the Tehachapi
Pass.
In the state of Oregon, the city of Portland ranks first in importance.
Why did not Astoria or Fort Vancouver develop into the metropolis
of the Columbia basin?
Astoria, which was founded in the early part of the last century, has
a spacious and well-protected harbor, but it has no large tributary
agricultural valleys. Moreover, the greater number of deep-water
ships pass it by, and go as far up the Columbia as possible to
take on their loads of grain.
Fort Vancouver, on the site of the old Hudson Bay trading post, is
practically at the head of deep-water navigation upon the Columbia,
but there seems to be no particular reason why trade should centre
here, and this town also has been left behind in the march of progress.
The earliest settlements in western Oregon were made upon the Willamette
River, which drains a large and extremely fertile valley. Near the
point at which this river joins the Columbia, the city of Portland
sprang up. This town occupies an ideal position. It is accessible
for deep sea vessels, and has communication by river boats with
the Willamette Valley and the upper Columbia River.
In the eighteenth century, when sailors were looking for a passage
across the northern portion of the continent, an opening was found
extending into the land between Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery.
It was at first thought that this was the desired waterway, but
various navigators, among them Vancouver, explored the body of
water into which the Strait of Fuca opened, only to find that every
branch and inlet terminated in the land. Puget Sound is nearly
enclosed by water and is so large as really to form an inland sea.
Its long arms reach out in three directions among the most heavily
timbered valleys and mountain slopes of the United States.
The cities of Puget Sound had a later start than most of the other
cities of the Pacific coast, for this portion of the old Oregon
territory was for a long time claimed by the English, and during
that period was peopled only by Indians and trappers. In 1846 the
present boundary was established, and Puget Sound passed into the
possession of the United States.
Because of the dense forests, agriculture could not play an important
part in the development of the sound region for some time. Lumbering
was naturally the leading occupation. This industry could be carried
on all the more advantageously because of the innumerable inlets
penetrating the land.
The advantages of Puget Sound for foreign commerce began to be
evident, but the Cascade Range stood in the way of railroads from
the eastward. Although it was a comparatively easy task to build
a railroad north from Portland, yet the sound region did not begin
to grow rapidly until, after careful surveys, two railroads finally
found passes through the Cascade Range so as to reach tide-water.
As in other places, when the necessity for overcoming them arose,
the obstacles which Nature had interposed were found not to be
so troublesome as was at first supposed. Now the once formidable
range has been tunnelled and will no longer form a serious barrier
between the interior portion of Washington and the coast.
Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett have grown up on the sound as important
commercial and manufacturing cities, and will, on account of their
favorable situation, receive their share of the commerce of the
Pacific. The cities of the sound are particularly well situated
for intercourse and commerce with Alaska and northeastern Asia.
These cities are also well situated for manufacturing, because
coal and wood are plentiful and consequently cheap, but they have
not in their immediate vicinity so extensive agricultural valleys
as the Willamette and the Great Valley of California. The lumberman
must be supplanted by the farmer and fruit-grower before the slopes
about Puget Sound can be fully developed.
The natural outlet for the great wheat-fields of central Washington
is by way of the Columbia River to the ocean, but the tunnelling
of the Cascades partly diverts their products to the sound region.
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--FALLS OF SPOKANE RIVER
Location of the city of Spokane]
The city of Spokane, in eastern Washington, clearly illustrates
the control which physical features exert upon the settlements
and industries of men. The Spokane River, soon after issuing from
Coeur d'Alene Lake, flows out over the volcanic plains of Washington.
In the course of a few miles it descends into a shallow cañon by
a series of cascades and waterfalls. The water-power furnished by
these falls has determined the position and growth of Spokane.
The falls brought sawmills and manufacturing plants, and these in
turn brought people and railroads. The city has become a great
commercial centre for all the region round about. The extensive and
rich mineral district upon the north, extending even into British
Columbia, finds its most convenient source of supplies at Spokane.
East of the city is the Coeur d'Alene mining region, while south
and west are large areas devoted to the cultivation of fruit and
grain.
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA
Supported entirely by mining]
The city of Great Falls, Montana, in the Missouri River basin,
is destined to become a great industrial centre, because of the
presence of unlimited water-power afforded by the Great Falls of
the Missouri River. No other reason would lead to the growth of
a settlement at this particular spot, for boundless plains extend
about it in every direction.
[Illustration: FIG. 121.--BUTTE, MONTANA
A city of smelters]
The mining cities of the West, such as Butte, Virginia City, and
Leadville, illustrate the growth of important centres of population
in the vicinity of large deposits of minerals. In the case of these
cities, as well as many others, there are no agricultural resources
in the surrounding country to support the people gathered together
here. Nearly all their food has to be shipped hundreds of miles.
Cities supported by mining are less likely to be permanent than
those supported by an agricultural community, by commerce, or by
manufacturing.
THE FOREST BELT OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS
No other coniferous forests in the world can compare with those
covering the western slope of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges.
They are remarkable both for the number of species and for the
size of the trees. The moderate temperature and the moist winds
from the Pacific seem to offer the conditions which are best suited
to the growth of cone-bearing trees.
As we go northward along the coast, or ascend the mountain slopes,
we find the climate growing cooler and cooler. With this changing
climate the species of conifers change, for each has become accustomed
to certain conditions of temperature and moisture, which it must
have in order to thrive.
The Sierra Nevada is the most continuous lofty range of mountains
in North America. From the great valley at its western base to the
crest of the range the distance is about sixty miles. Because of
the great height of the mountains, there is found within these few
miles every variety of climate between the sub-tropical atmosphere
of the valley, where oranges ripen to perfection, and the arctic
cold of the summits, where little or no vegetation can live.
Thus, by climbing a single mountain range, we may experience all
kinds of climate, and have an opportunity to observe the different
forms of plant life such as we could not otherwise obtain without
a journey of several thousand miles.
[Illustration: FIG. 122.--FOREST BELT OF THE FOOT-HILLS, SIERRA
NEVADA MOUNTAINS]
Passing through the groves of valley oak, and beyond the orange
orchards at the foot of the mountains, we reach the foot-hills
and begin to ascend. Several species of oak are found upon the
hillsides and in the valleys, while mingled with them in many places
appear such shrubs as the California lilac, chamiso, and manzanita.
Where the soil is too poor or the slopes too steep for the trees,
these shrubs, commonly called "chaparral," are massed together
in almost impenetrable thickets.
The first of the coniferous trees which we meet is an odd-looking
one known as the digger pine. Instead of having a single straight
trunk it divides a short distance above the ground into many branches.
The large cones are armed with long hooked spines, so that they
must be handled rather carefully, but when opened they are found
to be filled with nutritious nuts. These nuts were an important
source of food for the Indians who once inhabited the foot-hills.
Now the Indians are gone, but the nuts are not wasted, if one may
judge by the fragments of the cones with which the squirrels strew
the ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 123.--THE DIGGER PINE]
The road climbs the foot-hills by many turns and windings through
cañons and up and down ridges. At an elevation of about two thousand
feet specimens of the yellow pine appear. The trees increase in
size and grow more closely together as we ascend. We soon find
ourselves in the edge of the forest belt which extends unbroken
northward to the arctic zone, and upward to the line of almost
perpetual snow.
The yellow pine, so named from the color of the bark, sometimes
attains a diameter of six feet, but does not form so dense forests
as we shall find higher on the mountains. The rays of the warm
sun, reaching down between the trees to the carpet of needles and
"bear clover," draw out their spicy fragrance. The yellow pine,
although it does not afford as good a quality of lumber as some
of the other pines, is one of our most important trees because of
its wide distribution through nearly all mountains of the West.
It has a much wider range in elevation than most trees, one variety
reaching upward nearly to the timber line.
[Illustration: FIG. 124.--A YELLOW PINE FOREST]
After getting well into the yellow pine forest, we soon come upon
other trees that contend with the pines for a footing upon the
slopes and for a bit of the sunshine. Among these the black oaks
deserve special mention, for in places they form dense groves upon
the ridges. The cedars, with their rich brown bark and flat, drooping
branches, are easily recognized. As these trees grow old they become
gnarled and knotty and very picturesque.
[Illustration: FIG. 125.--SUGAR PINE]
We first meet that "king of pines," the sugar pine, upon the more
shaded mountain slopes. Although higher up, on barren, rocky ridges,
this tree grows to noble size, yet it cannot withstand heat and
dryness. Our attention may be first called to the sugar pine by the
slender cones, ten to fifteen inches in length, which are scattered
over the ground. Then, as we look up to see whence the cones come, our
eyes light upon the smooth trunks, often over six feet in diameter
and reaching up one hundred and fifty feet before the branches
appear. From the ends of the long, drooping branches hang slender
green cones. The name of this pine is derived from the fact that
a white sugar gathers in little bunches at the spots where the
trunk has been injured. This sugar is pleasant to the taste and
somewhat medicinal.
[Illustration: FIG. 126.--ZONE OF THE FIR FOREST, SIERRA NEVADA
MOUNTAINS]
The wood of the sugar pine, which is white and fine-grained, is
of greater value commercially than that of any of the other pines.
This fact leads the shake-maker and lumberman to seek out the noble
tree and mark it for destruction. The sugar pine, when once destroyed
in a given locality, rarely replaces itself, as it is crowded out
by the more vigorous conifers.
Scattered through the forests of yellow pine, cedar, and sugar
pine is the Douglas spruce, commonly known in the market as the
Oregon pine. This is the most important forest tree in Oregon and
Washington. It often grows to a height of three hundred feet, and
forms dense forests for hundreds of miles along the base and western
slope of the Cascade Range. In Washington it is found growing down
to the sea-level, but in the Sierra Nevada the requisite moisture
for its growth is not found much below an elevation of four thousand
feet.
As we go upward the pines become fewer and the firs and "Big Trees"
take their places. The Big Trees are found in scattered groves,
at an elevation of five thousand to eight thousand feet, for a
distance of two hundred and fifty miles along the slopes of the
Sierra Nevada mountains. The Sequoia, as the genus is called, which
also includes the redwood of the Coast ranges, is in many respects
the most remarkable of all our coniferous trees.
[Illustration: FIG. 127.--THE BIG TREE FOREST IN THE SIERRA NEVADA
MOUNTAINS]
After travelling through forests made up of other trees of great
size it is difficult at first to appreciate the magnitude of the
Big Trees. Rising from a swelling base, which is sometimes thirty
feet in diameter, the symmetrical trunk reaches up and up, finally
terminating in a top three hundred to three hundred and fifty feet
above the ground. Their size, their reddish-brown bark, and their
small cones, clearly distinguish these trees. Great holes have
been burned in many of them, and in the hollows thus formed men
have made for themselves comfortable living rooms. In one of the
southern groves a fallen hollow tree has been used as a cabin.
The Big Trees and redwoods are the last surviving species of a
genus which was once widely distributed over the earth. The ancestry
of the Sequoia can be traced farther back than that of any of the
other living conifers. Impressions of cones and small stems with
needles attached belonging to the Sequoia have been found in the
oldest rocks of the Coast ranges of California. These cones and
stems were washed into some muddy estuary and there buried, millions
of years ago. The mud inclosing them was compressed and hardened,
and finally changed to slate. This was at last exposed upon the
surface through the uplifting of a mountain range and the work
of erosion.
Some of the groves of the Big Trees have been included in government
parks and reservations, but others are being cut as rapidly as
possible by the lumbermen. The redwood of the Coast ranges is not
easily killed, for it sprouts from the stump, and will in the course
of time form forests again; but the Big Trees rarely replace themselves
when a grove has been cut down. These trees are so few in number
and of such remarkable interest that they should be spared the
fate of the common forest tree.
It would make you feel sad to visit one of the groves and see,
as I did, a fallen giant, fully thirty feet in diameter, lying
split open upon the ground. This tree was so large that, in order
that it might be handled at all, powder had to be used to blast it
in pieces. The tree was knotty, and according to the lumbermen,
of little value, and might as well have been left. What excuse is
there for the wanton destruction of a noble tree like this one?
It must have stood from five thousand to six thousand years. It
was a mighty tree at the beginning of the Christian era, and was
growing, a strong tree, when our ancestors were the rudest savages
in the wilds of Europe.
But we must not remain among the Big Trees, for the forests extend
much farther up the mountains. The most important tree of the upper
forest belt is the fir, which is found growing from five thousand
to nearly nine thousand feet above sea-level. It is one of the most
graceful of the conifers. Sometimes these trees reach a height
of two hundred and fifty feet and form dense forests with little
undergrowth. The branches make the soft, fragrant beds which so
rest and delight the tired mountain climber. Here and there about
the springs and at the heads of the streamlets the firs appear to
stand back, making room for green meadows brightened with a profusion
of flowers.
[Illustration: FIG. 128.--ALPINE HEMLOCKS]
The tamarack, or lodge-pole pine, is sometimes found at about the
same elevation as the firs, but seems to prefer the moist lands
about the meadows and the bottoms of the narrow valleys. This tree is
widely distributed at high altitudes all over our Western mountains.
Continuing our climb toward the alpine regions, we reach an elevation
where the trees begin to show the effects of the winter storms. The
fact that life is not so easy as it is farther down the slopes is
apparent from the gnarled and stunted trunks. Here are the alpine
hemlocks, dwarf pines, and junipers.
The juniper somewhat resembles the cedar, but has a short, thick
trunk. Near the timber line this tree grows but a few feet high
and becomes exceedingly gnarled. It seems to like the most exposed
and rocky places, but in truth, like many another form of plant
life, it has become accustomed to such locations because it cannot
successfully compete with other trees in happier ones.
Most weird and picturesque of all are the dwarf white pines, growing
upon the extensive mountain shoulders and ridges at a height of ten
thousand to eleven thousand five hundred feet above the sea. Since
an arctic climate surrounds them for nine months in the year, their
growth is very slow. Their short, gnarled trunks and branches are
twisted into all sorts of fantastic shapes. When, after struggling
with the cold and the storms, the trees at last die, they do not
quickly decay and fall, but continue to stand for many years.
These trees become smaller and smaller in size until at the extreme
timber line they are almost prostrate upon the ground. In many
cases they rise only three or four feet, and have the appearance
of shrubs rather than trees. Still above them, however, there are
rocky slopes and snow-banks reaching to an elevation of over fourteen
thousand feet. If we examine these upper slopes carefully we shall
find that they are not utterly devoid of life, but that certain
plants have been able to obtain a foothold upon them. In sheltered
nooks there are little shrubs and lichens. In some places among the
rocks, beneath overhanging snow-banks, beautiful flowers spring
up at the coming of the late summer, blossom, mature their seeds,
and die with the return of the winter cold.
[Illustration: FIG. 129.--THE UPPER LIMIT OF THE TIMBER
Sierra Nevada Mountains]
The magnificent forests through which we have passed in our long
climb, if destroyed by the lumberman, cannot be replaced for hundreds
of years. They contribute much to the glory of the mountains. They
hold back the water so that it does not run off rapidly, and thus
aid in giving rise to innumerable clear, cold springs. The springs
help feed the streams during the long, dry summers, when the water
is so sorely needed in the hot valleys below.
THE NATIONAL PARKS AND FOREST RESERVES
The people who first pushed into the unknown country west of the
Mississippi, in the earlier half of the last century, were chiefly
hunters and trappers. They did not intend to make permanent homes
in the wilds, but rather to stay only so long as they could secure
an abundance of fur-bearing animals.
Then came the discovery of the precious metals, and thousands of
gold-seekers crossed the plains, and spread out over the mountains
of the Cordilleran region. They, too, expected to get rich by making
use of the resources of the country, and return to their homes in
the East.
At the present time the destruction of our forests and serious injury
to the water supply has been threatened through the organization of
large lumber companies. Those interested in lumbering usually live
far removed from the scenes of their operations, and consequently
care little about the condition in which the deforested lands are
left.
The farmers were the first permanent occupants of the West. Unlike
the wandering trappers and miners, they established homes and made
the land richer instead of poorer. As long as the population was
scanty there was not much danger of exterminating the wild animals,
and the demands for timber were small.
Our forefathers who settled the Eastern states had to contend with
the forests. Nearly every acre of ground had to be laboriously
cleared before anything could be planted. It was only natural that
they should come to regard the forests as a hindrance rather than
a blessing.
As the settlers spread westward to the prairies and plains they
came upon a region almost destitute of forests; but still farther,
in the mountains of the continental divide and the Pacific slope,
they again found extensive forests. To them it seemed impossible
that these forests could ever be exhausted, and therefore little
care was taken for their preservation.
As the population increased, more and more lumber was needed for
building purposes. Before the sawmill came split lumber was used,
and the shake-maker did not hesitate to cut down the largest and
most valuable pines on the mere possibility that fifteen or twenty
feet of the butt would split well enough to make shakes. It made
no difference to him that the whole trunk rotted upon the ground.
When the sawmills were built and there came a demand from abroad
for lumber, the forests were attacked upon a much larger scale.
The need of the moment was all that concerned the lumbermen, and
they took no care for the preservation of the young trees, which
in time would have renewed the supply. The litter of the trunks
and branches which they left upon the ground furnished fuel for
the fires which frequently swept over these areas and killed the
remaining growth.
As a result of these fires, the few animals that have escaped the
hunters have been killed or driven from their homes, and the forest
cover, which would retain much of the moisture and preserve it
for the supply of the streams in summer, has been destroyed. The
removal of the forest cover leads also to the washing away of the
soil, the shoaling of the streams, floods in spring, and low water
in summer. In fact, all the people and industries of the region
are affected by its loss. It may take hundreds of years for the
country to recover; indeed, if the rainfall is light, the forests
may never grow again, without artificial aid.
[Illustration: FIG. 130.--A BURNED FOREST, CASCADE RANGE, OREGON]
The careless stockman, seeking to enlarge his pastures by burning
the underbrush, sets fires which often destroy hundreds of square
miles of forest. The summer camper and the prospector also frequently
go on their way without extinguishing the camp fire, though a great
forest fire may be the result.
Ours is a fertile and productive earth, capable of supporting a
multitude of living things. For ages the lower animals, as well
as savage man, lived under the protection of Nature, making the
best use of her products of which they were capable; but they never
brought about the unnecessary, and often wanton, destruction of
which we are guilty,--we, who call ourselves civilized. In killing
the wild animals we cannot make the plea of necessity, as can savages
who have no other means of support. Likewise, there is no necessity
for killing the beautiful singing birds, merely for their plumage.
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--EROSION UPON AN UNPROTECTED SLOPE]
The forests are cut away without any thought of the retribution
which Nature is sure to bring upon us. They are of vast importance
to the well-being of the country and are the natural possession
of all its people. We ought not to permit them to be destroyed
indiscriminately for the benefit of a few. We need lumber for many
purposes; but a careful treatment of the forests with an eye to
their continuance, the plan of cutting large trees, and preserving
the small ones, is a very different thing from our present wasteful
methods.
Every summer the air is filled with the smoke of burning forests,
and the lumbermen are at work harder than ever felling virgin forests
upon more and more remote mountain slopes.
Books of travel written fifty years ago tell of animal life in
such abundance in many portions of the West that we can hardly
believe their stories. A description of California written in 1848
mentions elk, antelope, and deer as abundant in the Great Valley.
How many of us living at the present time have ever seen one of
these animals in its native haunts?
There is hope now that this wasteful use of Nature's gifts will
soon be stopped. Large areas of the mountainous portions of the
public domain are being set aside as parks and forest reserves.
The parks contain some of the finest scenery and most wonderful
natural curiosities to be found upon the face of the whole earth.
This wild scenery, together with the forests and plants of every
kind, as well as the animals and birds that inhabit these areas,
are to remain just as they were when the first white man looked
upon them.
The parks form asylums for the wild creatures which have been hard
pressed for so many years. In the Yellowstone National Park, where
they have been protected the longest, the animals have almost lost
their fear of man and act as if they knew that they are safe within
its limits. In the Yellowstone you may see great herds of elk feeding
in the rich meadows; deer stand by the roadside and watch you pass,
while the bears have become so tame about the hotels that they
make themselves a nuisance. Sixteen bears at a time have been seen
feeding at the garbage pile near the Grand Cañon hotel.
The forest reserves differ from the parks in that they are established
for utility rather than for pleasure. The forests now existing
are to be cared for by the government and to be wisely used when
lumber is needed. Fires are to be avoided so far as possible, and
burned areas are to be replanted with trees. Another object to be
accomplished is the retention of the forests about the heads of
the streams so as to preserve the summer water supply. The water
runs off more slowly from a slope covered with vegetation than
from a barren one, and therefore has more time to soak into the
ground. This is a very important matter in all mountainous districts,
particularly where the rainfall is light.
The Yellowstone National Park is situated upon the continental
divide in northwestern Wyoming. It is largely a plateau, with an
elevation of seven thousand to eight thousand feet above the level
of the sea. The surface of the plateau is covered with forests,
meadows, and lakes; but the region is particularly remarkable for
the geysers and hot springs, and the Grand Cañon and falls of the
Yellowstone River.
Springs dot the surface of many parts of the park. The hot water
is continually bringing mineral substances, the chief of which is
silica, from the depths of the earth and depositing them about the
orifices of the springs. In this manner wonderful basins, terraces,
and cones have been built up, while the rocks have been either
reddened or bleached out and softened into a form of clay.
The park region must have been for a long period the seat of volcanic
action, for nearly all the rocks are cooled lavas. While the heat
has disappeared from the surface, it must still be very great below,
if we may judge by the quantities of hot water continually issuing
from the springs.
In many a subterranean cavern steam accumulates until its pressure
becomes too great for the column of water occupying the channel
that leads to the surface; then the water is suddenly and forcibly
expelled, giving rise to a geyser eruption. When the pressure of
the steam has become exhausted, the water sinks back into the earth,
leaving the basin of the geyser nearly or quite empty until the steam
has again collected. Each geyser has its own period of eruption
and is generally very regular. One little geyser, known as the
Economic, because it throws out but little water, spouts regularly
about every five minutes. Other geysers are active at intervals of
several hours, while some take several years to get ready for a
new eruption and then spout whole rivers of boiling water. In the
Upper Geyser Basin the effect is very impressive, particularly upon
a cool morning. The clouds of steam and the throbbing or roaring
geysers lend to the region a weird and unearthly aspect.
The Yellowstone Lake is a large body of water situated almost upon
the continental divide. Before the cañon, or Great Falls, or even
the Yellowstone River itself existed, the lake stood about one
hundred and fifty feet higher than at present, and its water emptied
into the Pacific Ocean instead of the Gulf of Mexico. The drainage
was changed by the work of a small stream having its source in
the volcanic plateau north of the lake. It deepened its channel
and extended its head waters back until they tapped the lake at
a point where the rim of the basin was lowest, and so drew away
its waters in the opposite direction. The Yellowstone River, with
its deep, wondrously colored cañon and grand waterfalls, is the
result of this change.
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--ECONOMIC GEYSER, YELLOWSTONE PARK]
To the south of Yellowstone Park, but included in one of the forest
reserves, are Jackson Lake and the Teton range. The Three Tetons,
one of which reaches a height of over thirteen thousand feet, were
evidently noted landmarks for the hunters and trappers in the early
days, for you will find them mentioned in many of the narratives of
those times. The precipitous range, with its crown of jagged peaks
and the beautiful lake nestling at its base, presents a picture
never to be forgotten.
Very different from the region which we have been studying is that
embracing the Crater Lake, National Park, which is situated upon
the summit of the Cascade Range in southern Oregon. Here occurred,
not many thousand years ago, one of the strangest catastrophes
which, so far as we know, has ever overtaken any portion of our
earth.
Towering over the present basin of Crater Lake was a great volcano,
reaching, probably, nearly three miles toward the sky. During the
glacial period it stood there, its slopes white with snow, apparently
as strong and firm as Shasta or Hood or Ranier. But for some reason
the volcanic forces within this mountain, which has been called
Mazama, awoke to renewed action. The interior of the mountain was
melted, and the whole mass, unable to stand longer, fell in and
was engulfed in the fiery, seething lava. This lava, instead of
welling up and filling the crater and perhaps flowing out, was
drawn down through the throat of the volcano into the earth, and
left an enormous pit or crater where once the mountain stood.
After the floor of the crater cooled and hardened, small eruptions
occurred within it and a new volcano grew up, but, though nearly three
thousand feet high, it does not reach to the top of the encircling
walls of the old crater, which are, on an average, nearly four
thousand feet high.
Then the rains and melting snows formed a body of water in the
crater, and the wonderful lake came into existence. No such sight
is to be found elsewhere upon the earth. Within a circling rim of
cliffs, from eight hundred to two thousand feet high and nearly
vertical, lies the lake, rivalling the sky in the depth of its blue
coloring. The height of its encircling cliffs and its five-mile
expanse of blue water help to make the lake a spectacle grand beyond
description. At the present time the volcanic fires appear to be
entirely extinct.
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--CRATER LAKE
From the top of the cliffs two thousand feet above. Upon the right
is Wizard Island, a volcanic cone]
Forests of fir and tamarack have spread over the once barren slopes
of lava and pumice which extend back from the cliffs. In the hollows,
after the lingering winter snows have melted, there are grassy
meadows dotted with flowers. It is many miles from the lake to
any human habitation, and all the region about remains just as
Nature left it. It was a happy thought to make another national
park here.
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--THE PUNCH BOWL, YELLOWSTONE PARK]
We have already learned something of the grandeur of the Yosemite
Valley and have seen how it came into existence. The valley is
owned and cared for as a public park by the state of California,
but, with Hetch-Hetchy Valley, it is included in a larger park
under the control of the general government. Within the boundaries
of this national park, as in the case of the others described, the
natural features of the landscape, the forests, and the animals,
are to be left forever undisturbed. The Yosemite Valley, although
situated in the heart of the rugged Sierras, is reached by several
good wagon roads and many more people visit it than go to Crater
Lake, although the latter is fully as interesting.
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--THE FALLS OF THE YELLOWSTONE, YELLOWSTONE
CAÑON]
About a hundred miles south of the Yosemite is the General Grant
National Park. This park is of comparatively small size, but contains
a group of some of the largest and finest Big Trees in the country.
Still farther south there is a reserve called the Sequoia Park,
which contains the largest remaining groves of the Big Trees.
There are also many state parks scattered over different parts of
the Union. The establishment of these parks is intended to preserve
either the forests or natural scenery.
The retention by the state or general government of large tracts of
mountain and timber land, and of those areas which are particularly
interesting on account of their natural scenery, is of the greatest
importance. The timber and water are preserved for the general good
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The preservation of scenic features in their original wild state
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out-of-door life, elevate men's feelings, and cultivate a love for
the beautiful. The protection afforded the plant and animal life
by these reserves gives a better opportunity for studying them,
and tends to foster a general interest in the welfare of living
things.
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