194403 Desert Magazine 1944 March

8/14/2019 194403 Desert Magazine 1944 March

1/40

THE

M A G A Z N

Jfc

u

- - , ' * '


2/40

W e s t i f f t / u ' n k c u s to m e r sa r e m U j f i t t / i m p o r t a n t

By YourUnion Oil Minute ManIf you work in a service station,you know that customers comein bunches, like mallard ducks.Gloria, my M inute M aid, wasoff to lunch the other day whenall of a sudden in comes fourcars. I work like a beaver, butby the time I get t o the last car,guess who's there waiting for me?No less than Moose W ilson.Moose is big, weighs about2 5 0 , and when he loseshis temper, the windows forblocks around rattle.I expect him to roar like a bull.

"Heiio," he says in a little voic e.Surprised? You could haveknocked me over with a smallcarburetor gasket. "Hello,Moo se," I say when I can

recover, "anything the m atterwith you?""Oh, no ," he says sadly, "I justfeel kinda whipped."We ll, sir, Moose has a sadstory. People don 't payattention to him any more. Hishousekeeper go t uppity andleft, for instance, and th en anew grocery clerk insulted h im.And just that m orning, a wait-ress down at the Bijou B eanerytold him if he didn't like thecoffee, he could make it himself.

"Now , Moose," I say, "it isn'tlike that around here. Treatingcustomers like human beingsis a Minute Man po licy.""That so?" He steps outof his car which rocks like aboat when he leaves it."Yes,.f7>, " I say.Then I tell him how U nion OilCompany figures it: nowadays

it's no trouble to sell all thegas and oil you can get. Butthese times aren't going to lastforever. Treating customersrigh t todayeven if you canonly give them a smileis likebuying a War Bond. It's goingto pay dividends later on.

"By the way," I remembersuddenly, "what can we dofor you today?""Oh , that," says Moose, "I gotan awful rattle som e placein my engine. Nothingimportant, but .. . "Aha, I think. I call Gloria, who

is back from lunch by this time.W e look the m otor over care-

fully and bounce u p and dow non the bumpers. Gloria, whois poking around up near thefan, suddenly straightens up ."Mr.W ilson," she says, grinningfrom curl to curl, "I don't thinkthis is standard equipment."She is holding up a monkeywrench.

"What!?" bellows Moose. Heis fit to be tied."It's that#% &!!/!$* /#$ kid of mine.Always tinkering. I'll tan hishide! I ' l l . . .I ' l l. . .rraughh !"He leaps for his car, slamsit in gear and guns o ut of thestat ion. The same old Moose.

"Gloria," I say, "how's that forsticking to our Minute Manpolicy about treating customers

right? W e not only stop hiscar from ra ttling, but we alsobring him back to life."Gloria wipes some grease fromher nose and grins. Mightyfine girl, Gloria.

The latchstring is always out atUnion Oil Minute Man Stations.We may not be able always toprovide all the gasoline you want.You m ay have to wait now andthen for service. But you'II findthat courtesy, friendliness andessential motoring services arenever rationed. We're busy, y e s , asbusy as anyone else, but we're...

TOTOOW B L V F H L

T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


3/40

D E S E R T

0 Since sending his editorial pagewhich appeared in December issue, RandHenderson, on "leave of absence" fromDES ERT'S staff, has gone through thebattle of Tar aw a. As this issue goes topress he with other members of the Ma-rine Corps is resting on a tiny islandsomewhere in the Southwest Pacific. In the Easter number DESERT willpresent for the first time a feature storyon the Penitente Brotherhood of NewMexico. This strange survival of theThird Order of St. Francis which firstwas introduced into New Mexico in1 540 at time of the Span ish C onquest h asstirred the imaginations of many writerswho have used it not only as the subjectof historical, religious and ethnologicalarticles and books, but as the theme ofstories and novels. Susan Elva Dorr,who has been interested in Southwestculture for many years, has written asympathetic account of the Brothers ofLight part of whose rites she was per-mitted to witness. In this issue Theron Marcos Trum bohas told one of the best known of NewMexico's lost treasure legendsthe 18thcentury story of Padre La Rue's SpiritSprings colony and their great cave ofgold bullion in the Organ mountains. In 1940 DES ERT started a long seriesof lost mine stories, written by John D.Mitchell. New readers have been re-questing the back issues containing thisseries but many of them no longer areavailable. Now DESERT is preparinganother set of lost mine stories whichhave so many actual clues to their loca-tions that readers will want to start rightout looking for themif they had thegas. Betty Woods, after a long absencefrom DESERT'S pages has written thestory of Agnes Meader Snider, typicalNew Mexico pioneer, for this issue.Betty and her husband Clee both arewriters. They claim Tyrone, New Mex-ico, as their home but much of theirtime in the past has been spent wander-ing into little known corners of theSouthwest. They recently returned fromChihuahua City where Betty did a four-page assignment on the Chihuahua Fiestafor a national pictorial magazine.

CREED OF THE DESERTBy J U N E L E M E R T P A X T O N

Yucca Valley, CaliforniaThe wind comes sweeping o'er the waste-landWith naught to break its fitful rush;Then settles down in quiet rhythm,Singing softly to the brush.

V o l u m e 7 M A R C H , 1944 N u m b e r 5C O V E RCLOS E-UP SP OETRYP ETROGLYP HSBIRDSPIONEERP H I L O S O P H YTREASURETRUE OF FALSEART OF LIVINGB O T A N YG E O L O G YLETTERSN E W SB O O K SMININGHOBBYC R A F T SC O M M E N TP H O T O G R A P H Y

WESTERN HORNED OWLET, Photo by George Mc-Clellctn Brctdt, Fort Bliss, Texas.Notes on Desert features and their writersMou ntain Climber, an d other po em s . .Sheep Hunting Art is ts of Black Canyon WallsBy VERNON SMITHHorned OwletsBy GEO RGE McCLELLAND BRADT . .She Defied Victorio With an Empty RifleBy BETTY WOODSSoliloquies of a ProspectorBy FRANK an d DICK ADA MS . . .GoWhere the Gold Lies Buried

By THERON MA RCO S TRUMBO . . .A test of y o ur d es ert k n ow le dg e . . . .Desert Refuge, by MARSHAL SOUTH . .You're Sure to Meet the Blue Daleas

B y M A R Y B E A LBasaltthe Rock from Ha desBy JERRY LAUDERMILK

Com ment from Desert M agazin e read ers .Here and There on the DesertGeom orpholo gy, an d other review s . . .C u rr en t b rie fs from d es er t r eg io n . . . .Gems and Minera l s

E dited by ARTHUR L. EATON . .Amateur Gem Cutter, by LELANDE QUICKJust Between You and M e, by the Editor .Zuni Maid

10

13

141617

19

2025273132

33363839

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Publishing Company, 636State Str eet El Centro, California. Entered as second class matt er October 11, 1937, atthe post office at El Centro, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registere dNo . 358865 in U. S. Patent Office, and contents copyrighted 1944 by the Desert PublishingCompany. Permis sion to reproduce contents mu st be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor. LUCILE HARRIS, Associate Editor.BESS STACY, Business Manager. EVONNE HENDERSON, Circulation Manager.Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full retur n postage is enclosed. Desert M agazine assum es no responsibility for damageor loss of manuscrip ts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Subscribers shouldsend notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue. If address U u n-certain by that date, notify circulation department to hold copies.SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne y ea r . . . . $ 2.5 0 T wo y e ar s . . . . $ 4.5 0Canadian subscriptions 25c extra, foreign 50c extra.Subscriptions to Army personnel outside U.S.A. must be mailed in conformity with

P.O.D. Order No. 19687.Address corro6pondenoe to Desert Magazine, 63 6 State St., El Centro, California.M A R C H , 1 9 4 4


4/40

At peak oj San Jacinto mountain. Photo by Gene Hassler.

WHE N T HE WI ND WAL K S O NTHE DESERT

B y M I N A M O R R I S SC O TTColumbus, IndianaWhen the wind walks on the desertAh! I know its footsteps wellAnd it casts an eerie magicThat is more than tongue can tell,When it whispers through the sagebrush,When it stirs the chaparral.When the wind walks on the desert,Few are there to hear it pass,Where the scarlet ocotilloThrusts aloft its fiery mass,As it touches rose and mallow,As it waves the prairie grass.When the wind walks on the desert.In a never-ending quest,Purple lupine shows its blossoms,Squaw grass lifts its creamy crest;While the ivory spike of yuccaStands supreme above the rest.When the wind walks on the desert.Sighing in an undertone,Wary wild things hark a moment,Coyote stands still and alone;Gopher, chipmunk, all are silent.Like the lizard by its stone.When the wind walks on the desertHow few folk can ever knowOf its sweet melodic cadence.As it whispers soft and low.Oh, that I might hear its musicAs I heard it long ago!

D U N E SB y SA D IE M A T H ER S M I L LERLos Angeles, California

The winds are raging across the dunes.Higher and higher are piled the sands,As they form into palaces, turrets and towersAnd again recede as waves on the strands.Beautiful, wonderful, cruel dunesThat cover the bones of long lost men,Shifting and drifting in every breeze,Sweeping and creeping and rising again.Beautiful, wonderful, lonely dunesThat lie where the sun and shadows creep,Luring men blindly across the worldAnd haunting their dreams when they fallasleep.

NI GHT DRE AMBy BOYD F. KESSINGERFort Belvoir, Virginia

Cool winds blew desert sand last nightAnd re-formed every dune;It caught the fronds of slender palmsAnd with the starry loomOf sky, it made them silver.I dreamed of you last night,Cacti heard my prayer,They sent it upward to the frondsAnd it fell lilting on the air,Caught by the wind and starsAnd sent to youto God.For answer to my prayer.

DE SE RT NOST AL GI ABy MARY E. PACKARtFullerton, California

I'm longing for the desert as a sailor for the sea.And as I sit here wishing, it all comes backto me:The sunlight on the cactus and the palo verdetree,The smell of sagebrush perfume upon the desertbreeze,The phainopeplas feasting in the mistletoe-cladtrees,And spring bloom filled with honey for the wildbrown bees.The sun and shade in patterns on the toweringcanyon wallsWhere the sweet breeze blows and the rock

wren calls,And the sands washed clean where the cloud-burst falls.And oh, I long to tramp again the hot and rockytrails,To stand atop a craggy hill while sunlight failsAnd watch the sunset drape the sky with crim-son veils.I long to rest again in the campfire's dying light.When the smell of burning greasewood is richupon the night,And the Easter moon is rising and the stars arelow and bright.It's there my heart is peaceful and life seemsever fair.There is joy in very breathing of the clean andquiet air;As long as I am living I'll be longing to bethere!

*7/te Mountain GL mle*B y G E N E H A S S L E ROakland, California

A million boulders, and ten million more!In geometrical design arrayed:Prismatic slabs, spheroids, that once were coreOf Earth, when molten igneous matter swayedThe seas, and lavas tore the world apart!A million boulders, cubed, or edged and shapedTo rhombohedrons, hemispheres, and cones.To truncate pyramids, where ice had scrapedTerrific hardness, or, in splintered zones,Where cleaved the granite from a crystal

heartA million boulders, and ten million more,Make up the towering mountains I explore.A million tree-trunks, and ten million more!In shape and hardihood, a mighty throng:Some, shafts unbroken, to the sky would soar;Some gnarled, with twisted limb and branch, orp rong ;Some, blasted ghosts, from lightning's fearfulend !A million tree-trunks, cedar, oak, and pine,Strong hardwood stands, or conifers that fight,By granite boulders , DEATH at t imberline!With reeling banners, but with souls alight,Their mountain birth-rights eager to defend,A million tree-trunks, and ten million more,Make up the towering mountains I explore.

BRIGHT DISTANCESB y I R I S LO R A TH O R PEPortland, OregonAcross these sunset wastes the mountains glow.Their granite summits broken into gold,Each ridge and slope and crudely sculptured foldPastelled in amethyst and indigo . . .Upon these transient hues my heart must feed,On barren ledges that have never knownThe quick green steps of grass, the lusty weed,The cool uprush of sword-fern in a blownBlue April rain . . .

Yet vision sharpens hereWhere vast bright distances allure the gaze,And dreams grow wider in the shining atmos-phereAnd the long silences of desert days;The mountains cast strange legends on the sage.The dusty voices of the winds relateA thousand memories of some lost age,And spindling cottonwoods before the gateStir in their meager soil and fill the skyWith silver reminiscencesthat startA sudden cry of birds, a lift of wings highIn the green forests of my heart. CHUCKAWAL L A PROSPE CT OR

{On the death of Scotty Byron.December, 1943)

By R U B Y C L E M E N S S H A F TRiverside, CaliforniaSheltered within the barren wallsOf the Chuckawalla rangeThe mystery man of the desertLived silent, alone and strange.For fifty years or more he searchedFor the bright elusive goldWith his pick axe and his shovelThrough the heat and stinging cold.The things he loved have claimed himnowThe mountains bare and high.He found his gold in the sunsetsAnd dawns in the eastern sky.He asked to lie near his mountainsWhere the desert willows weepAnd wild coyotes howl requiemFor his never-ending sleep.

THE DESERT MAGAZINE


5/40

Vernon Smith and Jim Macmillan really started out to add some moretonnage to a rock collection. But John Carricart sidetracked them when hetold about Black Canyon in northern Mojave Desert. They doubted his in-credible story, but curiosity made them willing to go on a wild goosechase. When they had power-dived over the desert roads and trudgedup the dry wash which led to the basalt walls of Black Canyon, theiramazement left them speechless. On the walls, on nearly every rock, pre-historic Indians had left a record of their lifeabout the only record whichscientists have found. P. S.On this trip Jim added only 30 pounds to hisrock collection.

Skeep -Hunting -ffttbtiMackGnyonWalU

By VERNON SMITHCARRICART, a little red-faced manwith a big voice, trudgedup the dry wash of Black canyonsweeping the rocky walls with triumphantgestures and shouting back at us, "Therethey are, you see! Just like I told you. Allyou want."Prlroglyphs and pictographs were therelitei.illy by the hundreds. Almost everyrod had a symbol, a figure or an animaletched on it. In some instances, oldpetro-glyphs were defaced by those of a laterdate.

"My gosh!" I gasped.John roared with raucous laughter,"You didn't believe me, did you?"I hadn't. My mouth hung open and Istared in utter amazement. "No," I admit-ted sheepishly, "I have never seen any-thing to equal it.""Not many white men have ever beenhen," John boasted.On an impulse of curiosity I turned tomy t ity - dweller companion, Jim Mac-mil).in, to see how he was taking it.Jim, a practical man, built solidly fromthe ground up, appeared about ready tobreak into a warwhoop. Either that, orthree rousing cheers for the modest feeJohn had charged for guiding us to a SandDune Sage's heaven.JiMI'S hobby is anything left by the In-dians, no matter howlarge, or how small.He I us all the fundamental instincts of apad rat andwill pack home anything froma bi nken arrowhead to an abandoned ho-gan. His artifacts, strictly speaking, maynot beorthodox in-so-far as art is concern-ed, but from the standpoint of sheer ton-nage, his collection outweighs all others Ihavi seen, including the museums thathouse them.Snme years ago, I took Jim with me ona field trip to San Miguel island fromwhirl i he brought back 800 pounds netM A R C H , 1-944

weight of pestles, mortars andbones.Nowwe were off on another salvage collectingexpedition to a district where prehistorictribes of Indians had hunted in the Cosomountains of California.We entered the district from Darwin.At Junction ranch, where John Carricartlived, John told us the incredible story ofBlack canyon and agreed to act as ourguide. Needless to say, we impulsively re-vised our original plans and set out onwhat appeared to be a wild goose chasethe kind that destroys your faith in humannature and leaves your car hopelessly stuckin the sand.Leading the way in his truck, Johnpower-dived over the old Nadeau road inwhat resembled a hurried evacuation, or alightning getaway. We followed blindlyhis grey streak in a cloud of dust towardsCold springs for 11 miles, then southdown a roadless valley of brush and Joshuatrees for twomiles to the base of Louisianabutte. Here the valley widened and Blackcanyon cut a deep gaping wound in theearth.Black canyon has been ignored by thegovernment topographic map-makers asan illegitimate child of nature, for it is aplace which seems to defy all reason forits existence. As a matter of fact, I wascurious to know howanyone, even an old-timer like John could have found it.John sat on the runningboard of Jim'scar, watching us make camp, and explain-ed, "Me and mybrother used toherd sheepover here."John had a twinkle in his squinting blueeyes that suggested either amusement orjust a plain sarcastic frame of mind. Inever could tell which. Anyhow, hissearching glances gave me an inferioritycomplex. Not that I was ashamed of ourcoffee percolator, our air-mattress sleepingbags, or our fresh vegetablesnot in the


6/40

! '!

Vernon Smith, left, and Jim Macm illan. They started out to en large a rock col-lection but ended at a prehistoric art collection.least. I take great pr ide in my deliciouscamp stews. But John annoyed me until hegot back on the subject."We brought our sheep in, in the earlyspring, and stayed until the water wasgon e." He rolled a cigarette and reflected,"Th at was many years ago. One spring thesnow caught us. A blizzard so bad wecouldn't get out of our blankets for twodays. We were camped down in the can-

yon, there, out of the wind, but we damnnear froze to death. Most of our sheep did.That's how I happened to find those In-dian thingspictureswhat do you call'em?"The petroglyphs told us another story.The story of a prehistoric tribe of Indianswho came to the Coso mountains to huntbighorn sheep.Their camps were made on the rim of

the canyon and worn trails led to the smallstream below. Originally a fissure, thecanyon with its basalt walls was more than100 feet deep. The surrounding countrywas fairly level. Altho ugh 6000 feet abovethe sea, the shelf through which Black can-yon cut a rugged gash extended for milesin a southerly direction, surrounded bypeaks of brown granite. The soil was adeep rich loam, sprinkled with lava,abounding in wild flowers, and unusuallyrank vegetation for such a desert country.The district was capable of supportinggreat numbers of bighorn sheep, and theplateau itself was a perfect pasture foryoung lambs.Many of the petroglyphs were recordsof the hunt. Bighorn sheep, with marksshowing where the fatal blow of an arrowpenetrated their bodies, predominated.Eagles, deer and antelope also wereamong the trophies. But most interestingof all, were the pictures of the Indiansthemselves. They appeared much more ad-

vanced than the coastal Indians or theneighboring Mojaves.By the time we had finished my wellbalanced, tempting repast, night closedover us with the stillness of death. No t abreath of air nor the sound of a living thingbroke the silence all nigh t long. Brilliantstars hung low in the sky peering into aland where the curtain of life had fallen ona chapter of history in the dim past. I layin my sleeping bag wondering what hadhappened to the sheep, the deer, and ante-lope and where the Indians had gone. Itseemed to me their lives had been the span

of but a fleeting moment, a brief record ofgrim survival in the endless march of time.

v > ' PA N A Ml N T V A LLY

TO BALLARAT

T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


7/40

"MR. RRINLFIKE"The breath of dawn ushered in the nextday with a gentle breeze rustling through

the |(ishua tree above us, and while thebluf haze gave way to a rising sun, thecrisp .iirwas permeated with the temptingarotn.i of coffee and frying bacon./liter breakfast Jim gave vent tomonthsof pent up energy by touring the ancientcampgrounds while I photographed in thecanyon.

"MR. SINGER"I began where a lateral ravine enteredthe main canyon, forming a wedge-likepoint of boulders. On it was a three-footfigure dressed in a garment extending tobelow the knees and surrounded by rep-tile;. This obviously was intended for thegod of crawling creatures who protectedthe . ,impers from harm.On the floor of the canyon I found a

"MR. BEEMRN"

figure 20 inches high, apparently the like-ness of a woman. The checked pattern ofher garment, which came toher ankles, ap-peared onmany other such figures. In allprobability women were forbidden the useof other designs, leaving a more liberal se-lection to thechoice of the men.Without exception all the pictures ofpeople were shown dressed in these longrobes. Bighorn sheep must have been themain source of supply, for numbers ofthese garments were shown in the making.On e inparticular, stretched on a frame wasshown with a sheep. This easily could bemistaken for a rug, woven from the woolof the animal. However, when one takesinto consideration the bighorn sheep is ashort, straight-haired animal, and none ofthe garments sodepicted w ere shown withpatterns, a more logical conclusion wouldbe that it is a hide being tanned.

Three such hides were shown on an-other rock with a woman, joined one tothe other by a line. The joining line al-most invariably denotes possession. In thisinstance the woman was the proud pos-sessor of three new spring dresses. Which,by the way, brings me to the disturbingthought that the women mayhave triedtheir hand at engraving wh ile their braveswere afield. In fact, I strongly suspect thatwas the case, for some of the figures wereundoubtedly caricatures, a variety of goodold back fence gossip with a markedtendency towards Rabelaisian humor.Many of the groupings were intendedto tell some kind of story. One showing abighorn sheep with a lamb, the center of acircle of dancers, told of a thanksgivingcelebration that was held.Symbols were most numerous of all.Some I had to copy in mynotebook fornothing short of ahelicopter could be usedto photograph them. They appeared withfigures, singly, and in numbers. No twowere alike. One interpretation is that theyrepresent the name of a person orhis markof identification. The design, too, prob-ably was used onhis garment, and its pres-ence on a rock told of hisvisit to the lo-cality.It takes little stretch of the imaginationto see in one circle rain falling on a lake.This man's name could have been Rain-Falling-On-A-Lake, or, Mr. Rainlake, aswe would say. Another one resemblinghoneycomb might be Mr. Beeman's callingcard. And another, Mr. Acorn. And stillanother, Mr. Houseman, Mr. Star, Dr.Singer, and so on. Inany event, it's fun totry to figure them out, andstill more funto discover them.

The second day in camp an ominousstorm gathered and we had tobeat a hastyretreat to John's ranch. Jim had to comeaway with only one trophy, a rock with asingle bighorn sheep etched on it. Jim wasquite disappointed and wants to goback.The trip added only 30 pounds more tohiscollection.

M A R C H , 1 9 4 4


8/40

When George and Sis arrivedat the rancho, it appeared de-sertedin fact, it looked like theperfect setting for a haunted-house story. Later when thesilence of the night suddenly wasbroken with hooting, screaming,barking a n d whistling, furtherrealism was added to the scene.Flashlights revealed the weirdsounds to be the protests of West-ern Horned Owlets. Scientistscall them Bubo virginianus pal-lescens, the sub-species name re-ferring to the pale coloring ascompared w i t h others of thesame species, such as the Arctic,Montana, Northwestern, Duskyand Pacific horned owls. Thedesert variety ranges from cen-tral Texas west to southeasternCalifornia, into northern Mexico.These are the only large owlswith ear-tufts or "horns" theygrow to nearly two feet in length.The males (as male r e a d e r swould suspect) have a shorterseries of deep resonant hoots.The rhythm usually is hoo,hoo-oo, hoo, hoo; while the fe-mal es extend ithoo, hoo-hoo-hoo, hoo-oo, hoo-oo.

4 kFrom the expression on the owlet's fantastic face one would think he had caughtthe kangaroo rat himself.

otneOwlets

IN THE southeast corner ofNew Mexico, on the little-used des-ert road between Columbus and ElPaso, Texas, lies a long-forgotten rancho.Its rusty windmill, creaking and groaningin the gusty restless wind, pumps nothingbut air to the dry tank where thirsty cattleonce came to water. Tumbleweeds, notsteers, race about the ghostly corral. In arude log shed hang an empty trunk, anancient saddle, a single stirrup.Slowly the desert reclaims what oncewas desert. Seed by seed mesquite andyucca slip under the sagging fences. Rarecloudbursts wash away old foundations.Sand erodes and drifts and covers. Ableached and lonely skeleton lies the littlerancho under the heedless sky.But although abandoned by men, theranch's every inch is tenanted by infiniteforms of desert life.

Last spring, Sis (my wife) and I de-cided to confine our weekend "birding" tothe little rancho and its sandy environs.

Here we could find the material for aphotographic cross-section of desert bird-life which would be fairly representative" ofthe entire Southwestern area.On a glorious afternoon early in Maywe began our ornithological reconnoiter-

ing. After two hours of dusty driving wehad arrived in our venerable Buick towithin a few yards of the ranch's corralgate when, for the third time that after-noon, we bogged down in the betrayingsand. Extricating ourselves from beneaththe jumble of camera equipment, food andwater with which the car was loaded webegan shoveling away the loose sand.Hardly had we begun the odious task whenfrom the top of a tall yucca not 50 feetfrom the car flew a great, grey-brown,silent bird. Forgetting sand and shovel werushed to investigate. Cradled in theyucca's shaggy arms was a large nest. Iquickly returned to the car for a stepladderto see if the nest was occupied. It was!There in lofty solitude sat the three fierce,

By GEORGE McCLELLAND BRADTPhotos by the author

feathered babies of a pair of WesternHorned Owls.The moment I peered over the nest-edgethey spread soft, broad, brownish wings,clenched white feet, snapped hard sharpbeaks, and hissed in impotent, infantilerage. Not the slightest fear did they show.Perhaps they were counting on the parentbird, perched watchfully on the nearbywindmill, to return to strike with vengefultalons the rash intruder. Perhaps they hadnever been taught to fear anything assingular as a soldier - ornithologist. Orwhat is even more likely, the three, great-eyed hunters-to-be probably were so ex-cited at the prospect of trying out theirbrand new falons on a real live victim(me) that they had forgotten to be afraid.

As much as I regretted it I had to dis-appoint the eager little creatures for I hadno desire to become a proving ground forTHE DESERT MAGAZINE


9/40

ow l l.iIons. Still, I wanted to examine thecontents of the nest, and secure a close-upof one of its occupants. It appeared Iwould have to pay dearly for my notes andpicture's this day. I pulled on a pair ofheavy gloves and "closed in." The ensuingbattL was fierce but short. I managed toknock to the ground for later study threefreshly - killed kanga roo rats, the hind-quarkrs of two cottontails, innumerablejack];ibbit feet, t h e w ings of severalmourning dovesand finally came awaywith one highly indignant baby owl. Tophotograph the furious nestling I handedit over to Sis. As I was wearing the onlypair of gloves she had to hold the violentbundle of claws, beak and feathers bare-handed. But I got the picture., Alicr separating wife from owl I return-ed it lo the nest. We replaced the variousrodent tidbits and started for the car. Oncewe looked back. Hig h in their yucca homethe three little birds were nodding sleepily,their .imber eyes shut tight against the set-ting sun.

Tw o weeks later we again startedfor I lie deserted rancho . W e planne d tospend Saturday night there in order to be-gin the next day's exploring early. But somam limes did we get stuck in the sandthat 11 was long after sundow n before wereached the sentinel - like w indm ill sil-houeiied against the starry, purple sky. Be-fore shirting to make camp we hurried tosee how the little owls were faring. Butexcept for the weird shadows caused byour il.ishlights the nest was empty.In I he corral were two cottonwoodsone Jiving, the other dead. Beneath them

In lofty solitude sat the three fierce feathered babies . . .we deposited our duffle and were just be-ginning to bemoan our ornithological luckwhen the soft silence of the clear cool nightwas broken by a startling chorus of hoot-ing, screaming, barking and whistling.Our friends were with us after all! Withour flashlights we picked out all three inthe dead cotton wood ju st above our heads.On the topmost vanes of the windmill sat

Sis held the violen bundle of claws, beak and feathers barehanded whileGeorge "shot" them.

both adult owls. Two of the young birdswere well out of reach of ladder and flash-gun. But the third and smallest stood on alow thick branch only a few feet above thegroun d. It stared at us with blazing eyes,pupils contracted in the light. In its talonswas the limp body of a kangaroo rat.The fact that the young birds did nottake wing when approached undoubtedlymeant they had but recently left the nest.They probably were about six weeks old.Normally, fledgling horned owls do notleave the nest until they are five weeks old,and do not fly well until another five havepassed. Tha t they could get about wellenough, however, was shown by the con-siderable altitude reached by the two high-est owls. But although able to fly a shortdistance they probably were not yet hunt-ing for them selves. For some time to comethe parents would have to supply themwith sufficient food to satisfy their vora-

cious appetites. Between meals the owletsdoubtless improved the starlit hours prac-ticing the fine arts of flying and hunting.To avoid annoying the owl family, andinterrupting their nocturnal pursuits, Sisand I moved our duffle some distance off.We then returned to the owl-filled cotton-wood to photograph the lucky possessor ofthe kangaroo rat as he examined his catch.From the expression on the owlet's fantas-tic face one would think he had capturedthe elusive rat himself. And we "shot" theearnest little fellow as if he were indeedthe great hunter he someday would be.Early next morning we awoke to findour rancho deserted by the owls. Du ringthe night they had drifted silently off intothe desert distance.

M A l i C H , 1 9 4 4


10/40

Agnes Snider and son Bert read a letter from Bert, Jr.. torpedoman on a submarinein Southw est Pacific.

SheW ith,

l/ict&tioan

Butch Ca ssi dy still lives! Re-gardless of the va r ious ends sup-posed to ha ve bee n met by theleader of the Wild Bunch, he stilllets his friends hear from him andoccasionally even visi ts them,dec la res Mother Snide r , who byher test imony adds another facetto the Ca ssid y legen d. MotherSnider is the kind of pioneer yourea d abo ut in fic tion. At the a geof 19 she ro de in a wildly care en-ing wagon poin t ing an emptyrifle a t Victorio and his Apachera ide rsand a l though a bul le tr i ppe d t h rough h e r s unbonne tshe aimed the bluffing rifle ascourageously as i f she were hold-ing her fi re for mor e dead ly a im . .But when Butch Cassidy came totown for an interlude betweenrobber ies he was counted as afamily friendand she hopes hewil l com e to see them ag ain soon.

first of Victorio's marauders were toppingthe hill from Alma.More and still more Indians raced theirponies down the slope. They brandishedtheir rifles. Their yells carried to the wallsof the nearby Mogollons. Agnes looked ather father's tense white face."They 're cutting us off," he said. " We 'llnever make it!"On the long low mesa paralleling thewagon road 200 more Indians came charg-ing the Meader wagon. Then suddenly sixwhite men lashed their horses from theRoberts place toward the imperiled family.They raced their horses out into the face ofthe Apache horde. Just six neighbors who,By BETTY WOODSr HE UNEASY bawl of cattle comingtowards the Meader ranch housewarned that something was wrongin the desert valley on this bright NewMexico morning. Spring was bursting in

the willow and cottonwood buds along theFrisco river on the last day of April, 1880.Yet pretty 19-year-old Agnes Meader feltan ill-boding hanging over the cedar-dot-ted range country."Look," s h e pointed as the familywatched the restless cattle. "H ere comes aman riding lickety-larrupit's Mr. Lam-bert.""Get over to Roberts' cabin!" he yelled."The Apaches are coming!"Mr. Meader whacked the team to thewagon. Agnes snatched a gun. Hermother and sister grabbed a few pro-

visions. They all leaped into the wagon.Meader lashed the horses into a run to-wards the Roberts place a mile away. Hekept laying on the whip, for already the Present day Apaches, first and second generation removed from Victorio.Notice "Keep Out" sign over door of home.10 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


11/40

like the Meaders had come into this desert-batht il valley to make homes. But six gal-lant devils who thought nothing of theirown lives when Agnes, her mother andsister might be dragged from that wagonwhili the father was being scalped.This reckless half dozen threw them-selves squarely in between the Meadersand the Apaches. Their rifles began pick-

ing .Indians from the backs of sweatinghorses. This brought a thousand Apachebullets spattering haphazardly aroundthemAgnes, sitting in the front seat with herfather, held a heavy rifle on the attackers.But I he rifle was empty! With nervousfingers the girl fumbled at the cartridgebelt her father wore. The wagon bouncedand swayed so wildly she couldn 't load hergun. A bullet whizzed past Mr. M eader'shead, cutting off a wisp of hair. A secondbullei ripped through the cape of Agnes'ssunb'innet. Still the girl pointed the bluf-

fing rifle at the on-coming Apaches asthough she were holding her fire for moredeadly aim if they dared charge closer.Al last the wagon reached the cabin.Two other families, the Colters and theRoberts were "forted up" in the smalla dob' house."I never thought we'd make it," breath-ed A;;ues, unbelievably."We wouldn't have, if it hadn't beenfor Wilcox, Skelt Williams and the otherfour," declared Mrs. Meader. "They savedour lives."Quickly the Indians surrounded the lit-tle stnmghold. Agnes and her mother thennoticed the scarcity of water in the house.A few steps away from the back door ranan irrigation ditch."Plurry," Mrs. Meader urged Agnesand the others. "Hurry and fill every avail-able vessel with water before the Indiansturn il out of the ditch."While the Apaches took potshots atthem, the women raced from ditch to door,filling every possible container with water.Just as Agnes filled the last bucket, thewate. began to fall.Then on the mesa above the cabin cameVictoi 10 himself, riding a white horse. TheApaclie leader's dark round face, framedby a long bob held down with a red bandtied ihout his head, glared hatred for allwhiti people. He raised his hand andwaved a wh ite cloth. It was not a sign ofpeaa, but a signal to his warriors on theopposite mesa to attack. Now the siege ofRoberts' cabin began in earnest.All day blood-curdling yells and bulletsbeat ngainst the thick solid walls thatsheltered the three families. Wilcox, oneof th' heroic six, was killed. Night came

Victorio, a contemporary of Geron-imo, terrorized inhabitants of NewMex ico, Arizona and Chihuahua until1880. Rose collection photo.and with it the dread of morn ing. Agnesfelt, and so did the others, that the firststreaks of dawn would bring a new furyof attack. The re was no hysteria. Just colddread of death that daylight promised.They apportioned their ammunition to thebest advantageand waited. They waitedwith the determination to fight as long asone of them lived.Taking part in these preparations,Agnes remembered that the night beforeat this time the family had been celebrating

the successful planting of the potato patch.Not a single Indian scare had interruptedthe work. Mr. Meader had called the fam-ily together and said, "Let's drink a toastto old Victorio. He d idn't stop us fromplanting our potatoes!""No," Agnes thought, now, "but willwe ever live to dig those potatoes?"Agnes Meader and her family did liveto harvest that potato crop. In fact, Agnesis still alivea tall, slender woman of 80-odd adventure-packed years."Well," she says, in summing up thestory of the siege of Roberts' cabin, "thesun came up and the only sound was thesong of a cardinal. The In dians had leftthe country. They took their dead withthemnine in all. We went out and pick-ed up nine pair of moccasins. It was anApache custom to remove the moccasins ofdead warriors before disposing of thebodies."This was only one of numerous raidsVictorio led against settlers. Four timeswithin five years he had broken off reser-vations and renewed the Apache wars.From this day on, though, Victorio rodeswiftly to his end. Am erican troops press-ed him harder and harder through thesummer of 1880. Scores of his followerswere slain, his son among them. W ith hisweary, tattered raiders he escaped intoMexico. There, in September, Mexicantroops attacked his band, killing Victoriowith many others and scattering the rest.For weeks "Mother Snider," as many

Leaders of W ild B unch, some of whom spent interludes between robberies c ow-punching near Alma, New Mex ico. Left to right, standing Bill Carver and HarryLogan. Seated Harry Longaba ugh, Ben Kilpatrick and George Parker, aliasJim Low e and B utch Cassidy. R ose collection photo.

M A R C H , 1 9 4 4 11


12/40

now call her, had been too busy canning tovisit with me."I haven't retired to a rocking chair tosit wrapped in a shawl and old m emories,"she told me. "I'v e a family, and we've al-ways bestirred ourselves."Mrs. Snider lives in her own house nextdoor to her son, Bert, in Silver City, NewMexico. She is still keen-eyed and steadyof nerve. No t long ago a friend of thefamily complained to her that the sights onhis rifle weren't quite accurate."Let me try your gu n," said Mrs. Snider.She took careful aim at a sparrow on apost some 20 steps away, and squeezed thetrigger. The bird dropped off the post,dead."Nothing the matter with those sights,"she declared, handing back the rifle."My g randson ," she smiled as she spokeof him, "is a good shot. Wh en he was justa little button I told him he'd better learnto shoot for he came from a fighting fam-ily. Now he's fighting the Japstorpedoman on a submarine."There is a quality about Mrs. Sniderwhich reminds you of the women whomsculptors so like to depict in pioneerstatues. She has the gentleness and the de-termination and a kind of ageless strengththat come from living on the desert fron-tier.She likes people who possess the old-time integrity and those who have a dashof daring in them. She says of the yearswhen she was a young woman near thetown of Alma, "In those days everyonehad to be self-reliant. Take the time whena bear chewed up Sandy Joslin. A friend

Roberts cabin in which M eader amily"forted up " during Victorio's terror-izing raid. From an old photo in Mrs.Snider's collection, made many yearsbefore cabin tvas razed.

Left Lone survivor of buildings inAlma where some of the Wild Bunchat times hid out, leading respectablelives. Below Susan ElizabethMeader, Mrs. Snider's mother, from aportrait taken about the time of theApache raid, 1905. Photo courtesyMrs. Snider.

of his, John Coffee, got a team and broughthim to our house to be fixed up . Motherunravelled silk thread from a dress of hers,so John could sew up Sandy's cuts. He dida right neat job of it, too."Alma was young and wild, and one ofthe toughest towns in New M exico. Menfrom the Mogollon mining camps, cow-boys and a few outlaws always made thelittle plaza on the Frisco a place of roughand ready excitement."Today about all that is left of Alma arehumps of earth, like giant graves, whichcover the foundations of houses long gone.One small false-fronted build ing standsunder the great cottonwoods that mark theold plaza. You w onder if this adobe sa-loon, now empty, was owned once by"Butch" Cassidy, famous outlaw and bossof the "W ild Bunch." Butch and his gangholed up in Alma after various far-awayrobberies. Cassidy, like many Westerndesperados, was a capable all-around cow-boy whenever he took a notion to punchcows anywhere from Canada to Cananea,Mexico.Unlike most outlaws, Cassidy was notfeared by the local citizenry, for Butchnever was a killer. He m ade his hideawaysmore famous than any single one of hisdaring escapades. Two of his favorite andbest known spots were "Robbers' Roost"in Utah and "The Hole-in-the-Wall," innorthwest Colorado. On occasion, he'd

12 T H E D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


13/40

stay with the Meaders near Alma. Butdon't I hink that the Meaders even remotelybelonged to the outlaw element. Cassidymerely was a friend who had plenty ofdaring and craved excitement, but theMeadiTS didn't: try to reform him. Thatwasn't the way of the West."Now," says Mrs. Snider of Jim Lowe

or Butch Cassidy as he was better known,"there is a real gentleman, if there everwasone. He was wild and reckless, sure, butaren'l most young fellows. He'd nevertake anything from poor folks. He was akind of Robin Hood, with friends every-where liewent. Even the sheriffs might tiphim off when Pinkerton men got too ac-tive."H e wasalways a devil-may-care fellow,and we all remember the 20-dollar bill in-cideni. He had just come back from rob-bing .1 Wyoming train and was buyingsupplies at a store inAlma. Hehanded the

storekeeper a 20-dollar bill. The pro-prietor told him the bill wasn't good sinceit hadn't been signed by a bank president."What shal l I do about it?' Butchwant 11 to know." 'I'd send it to the U. S. treasury to besigne'l,' said the storekeeper."I'll just dothat,' said Butch.

"Weeks passed. Then suddenly thecountry was alive with government andPintail on men. The law had traced thesource of that 20-dollar bill. It had a lineon Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch atlast. I lut a Silver City stage driver whisper-ed thiword to Butch and he and the WildBund i went to the rugged mountain can-yons. Detectives and officers got tiredwaiting for Butch to show up, so they re-turned east without their man."

"What became of Jim Lowe or ButchCassidy?" I asked Mother Snider. "Dif-ferent writers always give him a differentending, but you should know the realone.""He doesn't have an ending yet," shelaughed."Yon mean he's still alive?"Sh< nodded. "You see, down throughthe years we've heard from him. He stillcomet to see us."Mrs. Snider chuckled at my utter sur-prise."When was he here last?""A year ago last Fourth of July. Hecame to see Silver City's rodeo. My sonBert wanted to introduce him to the rodeocrowd, but Butch said, 'No. That part ofmy life is all in the past. I want to forgetabout it.' "Th e old West is not dead as long asthere live women like Agnes MeaderSnidei and men like "Butch" Cassidy.

NEW FIVE-ACRE TRACTS REPORTEDOPENED INTHE VALLECITO AREAOpening of a 600-acre public land tract in Vallecito valley, in western Colo-rado desert, has been announced by Secretary of Interior Harold L. Ickes, re-ports the San Diego Union. Tract is opened under Izaac bill which permits leas-ing of five-acre tracts for home, cabin, health, convalescent, recreational sites.Vallecito area lies in the foothills of Tierra Blanca mountains about 40 milesnorthwest of El Centro, California, at mouth of Canebrake canyon, about 1500feet elevation. Water sufficient for domestic use is said to be available.Site is on the old Butterfield stage trail and is best reached by state high-way 78 (which connects Kane Springs on Highway 99 with the Pacific coasthighway 101) 10 miles east of Julian, through Banner, and thence southeastthrough Blair valley, Box canyon and Mason valley. From junction with high-way 78 the road is well improved gravel, to Vallecito stage station.Information regarding applications for leases may be obtained from U. S.district land office in Los Angeles, or general land office, department of interior,Washington, D. C.

2>edeS O L IDrawing

*lLb y

1 PLo o uFrank

Jodaf.I E S

Adams

ikO

e nF A

P R O

TextS Pb y

E CDick

T O RAdams

D E S I R E FOR GOLD WAS STRON G AND REA LWHEN I DECIDED HERE TO TARRYBUT STRONGER NOW THE DESERT CALLSFOR GOLD, I FIND , IS SECON DA RY . *

M A H C H , 1944 13


14/40

(fO--W ket2 the (fold J1U5 SutledBy THERON MARCOS TRUMBO

Illustration by John Hansenr HE PADRE leaned closer to thelips of the dying man, so that hemight hear the low-spoken words."In the Sierra de los Orga nos, there isgold! I have seen it with my own eyes. Itis no good for me to know of it, now.Padre . . . our people are starving . . .take them and go to the Organs. Surelythey, too, will find the gold."Gold! T he padre was still young enoughto feel an upward surge of desire and hopeas he heard the words. The old soldiersurely couldn't be wrong, for he had travel-ed over that whole wild northern part ofNew Spain. Then, too, the incrediblewealth of the Aztecs was still remembered,for the year was only 1798 . Padre La Ruelooked out through the window to wherehis little flock were trying desperately towrest a living from the drying fields ofcorn. Perhaps this was the answer to hisprayers.The man on the cot stirred and openedhis tired eyes."This gold," the padre reminded him,"how can we find it? Wh ere are theseOrgan mountains?""You must travel ten days until youcome to the place where the Rio Grandecuts its way through the mountains. Theycall it El Paso del Non e. Two days' jour-ney farther north and you will see the stonepipes of the Orga n mountains . . " Ex-hausted, he again wearily closed his eyes,rousing only with an effort. "At the northend there is a pass, and the Spirit Springs.Nearby you will find the Cueva Vegas,Cave of the Meadows, at the foot of a highcliff. The gold is there. Go, padre . . .

go where the gold lies buried. You cansave . . . our . . . people . , ."With these words the old man died. Thepadre performed the last rites in a thought-ful mood. Go . . . where the gold liesburied . . . It seemed madness. Yet in afew months' time his people would bedying from the drought and poverty of thisplace. W her e now were his early dreams?He remembered the day in France whenhe had been told that he was one of tenlucky young priests to be chosen for mis-sionary work in the New W orld. He re-called the zealous thrill with which he hadfaced the long trip from France to thisdesolate little colony of hardy souls innorthern C hihuahua. He had led his peo-ple wisely, becoming more than a mere14

priest, more like a real father to his littlefamily. And then the meager stream thathad irrigated the fertile fields in the valleyslowly dwindled, leaving the crops to dryand burn in the desert sun. Something hadto be done soon.Resolutely Padre La Rue called his peo-ple together."There are but two things we can do.It is impossible for us to remain here untilthe drought is passed. Certainly we wouldall die of starvation. We either can go backto Mexico and find homes among ourfriends . . . or we can go to the Organmountains. Perhaps we shall find the goldof our good friend. Perhaps we shall findnothing. Wh ich shall it be?"There was among his people only oneanswer, "Gold."It didn't take them long to prepare forthe journey. Their m ean little hovels heldfew possessions. One fine morning thecaravan moved out of the village, leavingit quiet and deserted. And the Camino

Real, that Royal Highway between SantaFe and Mexico, was trod once more by ahopeful band toiling slowly northw ard.True to the old soldier's word, after 12arduous days they came to a broad greenvalley with the towering Organ mountainson its eastern horizon . Here was the abun-dant water of the Rio Grande, and the lit-tle Indian village of Tortugas traded themprecious food for the bits of finery whichwere remnants of better days.After a brief rest and a laying-in offood, they left the lush valley and con-tinued up to the pass at the north end ofthe Organs. Again they were thankful tofind that the old soldier's directions wereaccurate. There were the Spirit Springsgushing from the rocks, and there was theCave of the Meadows.' Now, where wasthe gold? Eagerly the men scattered intothe adjoining canyons, unmindful ofdanger from lurking Apaches. Soon theystumbled onto chunks of milk - whitequartz with evident gold content. Theyhad found the right place!"This is to be our home," Padre La Ruetold them after he had performed mass."We must make it as safe as possibleagainst attack from without, and strifefrom w ithin. Gold is a good thing whenit is used wisely. I ask you to remem berour poverty, and that we are here by God'sgrace. To prevent trouble, I request that

all gold be brough t to me. I shall buy allsupplies and equipment we need from thevalley settlements and from El Paso. Wemust keep this gold a secret. If others learnof it, many shall aspire to possess it."Months passed . . . and years. The richvein of ore was found far back in the can-yon, where they could tunnel into it with-out detection from prying eyes. A highstone wall was erected about the village,and a constant guard was kept at the gate.Inside, the little houses of stone were bee-hives of activity and contentment. Ar-rastras, or ore-crushers, were built andadobe smelters arose where once the moun-tain goat had held dominion. Steadily thegold bullion poured into Padre La Rue'streasure - house the old Cave of theMeadows.

But, as he had once warned his people,gold usually brought trouble . . .The first hint of disorder was caused byPadre La Rue's own neglect of clericalduty. When he first had come to his colonyin Chihuahua, he had wanted to wait untilhis mission was well established before hereported to the Church in Mexico City.But the drought came, and the climaxingknowledge of the gold . In the excitementof preparing for the journey, the questionof his report to Mexico City was forgottenand when he did remember it, after reach-ing Spirit Springs, he deemed it unwise tolet the Church know about their good for-tune. The revelation of the gold wouldonly bring an avalanche of greedy treasure-seekers down upon their quiet village. Sothe matter of his report gradually was for-gotten by Padre La Rue.

But it wasn't forgotten in Mexico City.The Church was intensely interested inthe progress of each of the promisingyoung priests. Reports came in regularlyfrom nine of the priests, but from the tenthone in Chihuahua . . . only silence!One Senor Maximo Milliano was sentnorth as a representative of the Church tofind a solution to the puzzle. After a jour-ney of many days he arrived at the site ofthe colony to find only crumbling adobewalls and sand-drifted barren fields.Senor Milliano was deeply vexed. Findin ghis way to a nearby Ind ian village, he facedthe danger of bribing the natives to revealtheir knowledge of the colony. He receivedfor an answer, "They go . . ."After reporting back to Mexico City,T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


15/40

To you w ho w ould "Go Where the Gold Lies Buried" this m ap isnot the ke y to your fortune. But it is as a ccurate a s leg end can ma keit. The story of the golden treasure of Padre La Rue and his 18thcentury colony in the Organ mountains is commonly known insouthern Ne w M exicobut yo u will hear a different version at e achstreet corner. For almos t 250 yea rs m en ha ve se arch ed for the c aveof gold bullion. There are today men who have spent most of theirlives in a vain se arch . At least one m an is certain he ha s definiteclues that he is on the right trail.

T I X A S

H \ I H U A H U l

"Senor, the mine do es not belong to me . . . the goldbelongs to my people . . . I would suggest that youreturn to Mexico City and forget us."Maximo Milliano, with the aid of theChurch, organized an expedition to searchfor the whereabouts of this colony whichhad so strangely disappeared. After awhole year's time they stumbled by chanceonto the Indian village of Tortugas . Herethe Indians told Milliano of the colony inthe Organstold him of the gold that hadbeen traded them for food. At sight ofsome of this very gold, Milliano's eyeswidened in surprise. No wonder theChurch had heard nothing from Padre LaRue!

Barred from entering the stone portalsof Spirit Springs, Milliano demanded tosee Padre La Rue.A few minutes later, with sinkingheart, the good padre appeared on top ofthe wall near the gate.

"Father La Rue, as representative of theChurch, I demand that you immediatelydeliver possession of the mine and all goldbullion on hand to the Church, to whomit belongs."The padre gazed steadfastly down intothe greedy face below him."Senor, the mine does not belong to me.Consequently it cannot be long to theChurch. God led a dying soldier to dis-close its existence to us and God has help-ed us to develop it. It has been our onlysource of livelihood these years. Since thegold belongs to my people, I refuse to de-liver over one small portion to you or tothe Church. I would suggest that you re-

turn to Mexico City and forget us."In anger, Maximo Milliano left Spirit

Springs to return again to Mexico. PadreLa Rue knew that his little colony nolonger would be safe here in the shadow ofthe Organs. Soon would come the throngsof gold seekers. He sank to his bed thatnight with a heavy heart.Trouble came sooner than he had an-ticipated. The wild Apaches' hatred hadbeen smouldering since the desecration oftheir holy springs by the white men. Onedark night soon after Milliano's visit,when thunder was booming over the peaksand lightning threw weird shadows in thecanyons, they swooped down upon the vil-lage, showered it with deadly arrows, toss-ed firebrands upon the roofs, overcame theguards and rushed into the treasure-house.Brave to the last, Padre La Rue stoodguard over the mass of gold. But he was

M A R C H , 1 9 4 4 15


16/40

overcome . . . and died in the room wherehe hadguarded the gold somany years.After the padre fell, those of the col-onists still alive fled to the shelter of thecanyons and the peaks. Rain poured downin mad torrents and the Indians soon fled.Half-drowned people clung stubbornly totheir rocky shelters and listened with fear-ful hearts to the tumbling waters that were

breaking and dashing down the canyons.As morning dawned, the storm ended.Wearily, hopelessly, a little group of sod-den humans collected where once hadbeenthe village of Spirit Springs. The minewas gone, covered now by tons of rock andrubble. During the storm a mighty streamhad flowed through the village leavingonly a few rock walls to show that manonce hadcalled it his home. Padre LaRue'scave washidden, its entrance covered withstones that would take years to remove.Filled with despair, the pathetic refugeesmade their way down to the valley wherethey were welcomed among the Mexicanpeople who had newly colonized thebanksof the Rio Grande.But thegold was not forgotten . . .Each generation since has had its treas-ure-seekers. Today this land is no longerin Chihuahua, but lies in southern NewMexico. Like all legends there must be agrain of truth in this story of Padre La Rue,although most histories fail to mentionhim.It is told that in 1907 a prospector visit-ed the mountain home of one TesoAguirre, a descendant of one of the orig-inal Spirit Springs colony, and was shownthe old cave. But he was not shown thetreasure. Again, Col. A. J. Fountain ofLas Cruces, New Mexico, claimed to havefound an old record in either the MesillaMission or the Dona AnaMission describ-ing the richest mine in the Spanish Amer-icas, located near the present town of Or-gan, New Mexico.At a later date, a band of Spanish refu-gees on their way from Mexico to Spainstopped over in El Paso. They were re-ported to have found a church record inMexico City, giving the exact location of

the Spirit Springs mine. But even with allof these "proofs" nothing ever was found.Today, on the streets of Las Cruces, youcan hear wild tales of men who have wan-dered into a strange cave to find a couchof stone carved out of the rock on whichare dark stains of blood . . . And always itis just around the next peak, this chimer-ical treasure that lures men to spend theirentire lives in the rugged Organ moun-tains, searching and digging and pryinginto every cave and every crevice in thevain hope that here . . . or maybe overthere . . . or somewhere . . . they will

stumble onto the golden treasure of PadreLa Rue!

T i l I I P A D E A I 0 1 * ^ ' s m o n t h ' s I1"2 is a composite test ofI t i l l t V l l l A L w I n your inform ation on desert history, geog-raphy, geology, mineralogy, wildlife, le-gends, literature and Indian life. If you are an average interested reader of DesertMagazine, you should score more than 10,which puts you in the Desert Ratclass.If you answer 15 or more correctly, you may tell your friends you're a Sand DuneSage, for youhave proved you are a careful reader of DM and good desert books,and possibly youhave answered some correctly because of personal observation orexperience. A score of less than 10 should make you resolve to read your Desertmore carefully, discussing the various subjects with your friends or family, ormaking upyour ownquiz aseach issue arrives. Answ ers onpage 28.1Lowest elevation in United States is foot of Bright Angel Trail in the depthsof Grand Canyon. True False2Yucca baccata is a dance. Tru e False3Crystals found in geodes usually are of quartz. True False

One of J. Frank Dobie's best known books onlost mines and treasure is "Gol-den Mirages." True False5Franciscan Father Garces was murdered by Indians at Yuma in 1781.True False6Craft for which Hopi and Zuni Indians have gained greatest renown in com-mon is making of katchina dolls. True False7All "pure" sand is composed exclusively of finely ground quartz. TrueFalse8Hovenweep is the name of a group of Indian ruins on rim of Little Coloradoriver, northern Arizona. True False9The roadrunner, or chaparral cock, is a member of the Cuckoo family.True False

10One can be sure a specimen isdolomite if it effervesces instantly in cold hydro-chloric acid. Tru e False11Gila Monster is a hibernating lizard. True False12Lost Pegleg Smith mine generally is believed to be in the Colorado desert ofSouthern California. True False13D esert Lily, which usually begins blooming in February andMarch, is foundmost abundantly in desert foothill areas. Tru e False14"Down the World's Most Dangerous River," by Clyde Eddy, is the accountof a scientific expedition down Colorado river in the 1920s. TrueFalse15Largest island in Great Salt Lake is Antelope Island. True False16Helium, gaseous element of argon gro up, occurs in natural gas in New Mex-ico. Tru e False17Earliest Americans to come to the Southwest were seeking gold. Tr ue-False18Geologists say the Carrizo mountains in northeastern Arizona are examplesof sedimentary mountains. True False19Setting of Fierro Blanco's "Journey of the Flame" is along Camino del Diabloin Sonora, Mexico, and southern Arizona. True False20Bright red shades in such colorful Southwest areas as Grand Canyon and

Bryce Canyon are due to presence of hematite. True FalseIS THE DESERT MAGAZINE


17/40

I'or those who have adobe homes, or who areplanning to build with adobe, Marshal South hassome practical advice for preparing interior coat-ings. But the adhesive power of his mixture appliesnot only to its affinity for adobe wallsas Victoriadiscovered to her horror as she vanished into awhite geyser of the gluey stuff with only a pair ofdiminutive heels and a shock of blond curls protrud-ing to identify her.

By MARSHAL SOUTH

r HIS IS the time of year when our Ghost Mountain cli-mate is temperamental. One day you may shiver in ahowling windstorm. And the next be shedding wrapsand blankets to bask in a flood of dazzling sunshine as tinglingand kindly as that of early summ er. Only yesterday wewere allhugring the big open fireplace, feeding mescal butts and huskychunks of juniper wood to the leaping flames. Today, in ahushed warm stillness more perfect than any day in June, theyoungsters have lugged out the old cement mixing trough,lauri lied it on the pool, and gone canoeingusing fire shovelsfor p.iddles.Bui thewinter storms were good toYaquitepec this year. Allthe i i sterns and catch pools were filled to overflowing. Therain1, fell and fell until we, so long in need of water, began tofeel .mxiety. The re were ominous dam p patches here and thereon the inside of the walls. Big sections of exposed constructionoutsule slumped and slid off in ruin. We began to know thefear which every primitive dweller of the desert haswhen rain-storms of long duration assault his adobe. Would the adobehold.' We had uneasy thoughts of finding ourselves in theplight of the mud house dwellers of Egypt who,when unprece-dend .I Nile floods lick at their foundations, frequently findthemselves groveling in a heap of gooey mudsurmounted bya col lapsed roof. Adobe construction, unless plaster or cementprott c ted, does have weak points.Bui our fears were groundless. Our good stout walls, al-thou I'll scarred outside a little and marred in places by falls andslides, stood upnobly. And after the rain had cleared away anda few mild days had dried the earth we repaired theweak spotsand look away all traces of storm from our interior finish by agood heavy coat of whitewash.Li i ne whitewash is an excellent thing. Whitewash and adobehave the same affinity as bread and butter. They go together.If pmperly applied there is a great deal of protection for ex-terior walls in whitewash alone. There are various mixtures.One of the best we have run across consists of 25 pounds ofhydt.iled lime dissolved in 10 gallons of hot water, to whichis ad


18/40

miracle year after year there is always something mysteriousabout it. This season, in particular, the change was startling,for the dry spell had been long and hard.When we came back to the mountain the bunch grass all ap-peared dead. The mescals were shrunken. Famished rats hadmade cruel inroads on even the struggling chollasin some in-stances stripping them almost completely of their fleshy bark.In long walks we could find nothing of those showy succulentsknown popularly as "hen and chickens" except seemingly black-

ened corpses, wedged in the crevices of the rocks. It appearedthat Ghost M ountain could never "come back."Then came the rains. A few days after the first storm hadsubsided we went out to some of the farther ridges to collectfuel. Th e change in all the country was a shock. Everywherethere was a sense of slumbering life having suddenly awakened.Under the lee of almost every big rock delicate little desert fernshad unfolded their green fronds. Mosses and lichens glintedamong the stones underfoot. Th in blades of grass were thrust-ing through the sticks and gravel of every sheltered patch. Allthe cacti, especially the beavertails, looked plump and swollenand alive with new strength. And in all the rock crevices wherethe blackened shapes of the lamented "hen and chickens" hadmouldered, tiny leaf edges groped towards the sunlight. It

was a sort of mass resurrection. W e came home with our loadof firewood feeling strangely happy. Also we had seen a snail.Maybe it doesn't seem very important, the sighting of asnail. But on Ghost Moun tain the discovery and observation ofa live desert snail is an event. There must be numbers of themon the mountain, for their whitened shells are fairly plentifuland Rider has collected them for years. But: no m atter how yousearch you almost never see a living specimen. Th e only oneswe ever have found have been discovered immediately afterrains. Then at rare intervals, you will find one trailing its daintyform across the damp rocks. Delicate and striking little creaturesthese desert snails. Although of the same family as the com-mon garden snail, it resembles it no more than a slender song-bird resembles a fat barnyard hen. These Ghost M ountain snailsare jet black with fine, racehorse lines. And their delicate shellsare, in life, beautifully shaded with markings of brown. Thesebrown markings do not last long after the creature has died.They soon fade. Almost all the empty shells that Rider andRudyard discover are a bleached, desert wh ite. Always it is ashock to discover a snail in the savage .surroundings of thedesert. Like finding a fur seal somewhere in the jungles of theequator. But then, there is the equal shock of the desert tortoise.And once we found a tiny tree toad under a rock, right on theheat seared crest of Ghost Mountain.The Yaquitepec mail sack, when it gets in, is usually wellfilled, these days. And that is something to rejoice over. For ifthere is one thing more than any other which makes life worthwhile on our mountaintop it is to receive letters from good

friends. They are good friends too. For they uncomplaininglystand the test of waiting scandalous periods for often the briefestof replies. Somehow they seem to know that all their lettersare carefully treasured, even if sheer pressure of circumstancesoften force just hastily scribbled postcards in return.Ma il day is always a big day, and it is a family affair. Every-one gathers ro und, as for a tribal council. Rider perches him-self on a chair and Victoria stands on a bench, in order to seebetter. Rudyard usually squats precariously on the extreme edgeof the table top, his little heels partly overhanging space andhis whole, intent, compactly bunched body giving the impres-sion that each instant he is going to topple backwards to disaster.But he never does. He and Victoria appo int themselves Mas-

ters of Ceremonies. They direct the order in which the mailshall be opened. And if their rulings ever are ignored pande-

monium breaks loose, with all the shoutings and gesticulationsof a regiment of excited organ grinders.All letters are read aloud, attentively listened to and com-mented on . Sometimes we have to go back and re-read specialparagraphs. The Board is very thorough and gets a great dealof joy and excitement out of its widely spaced mail day"meetings."Most letters are from kindred soulsoften far distantwhom we may never meet, but who also feel the restless urge

towards freedom and simplicity of living which is today tuggingat the hearts of so many of the human race. Once in a whiie weget letters of censurefrank scoldings from good folks who de-clare that we are very wrong to have "deserted civilization."They say that we are deliberately erecting stumbling blocks inthe path of progress. And w hen sometimes I answer and askinnocently what "Civilization?" And what "Progress?" theybecome very angry and their replies sound as though, whilewriting them, they had been jumping up and down like ourenraged pocket mice do when they are squabbling over grainsof corn. Some correspondents are greatly worried about the"Futur es" of our youngsters. And one expressed grave concernfor their health "separated as you are from all properly preparedcommercial foods," she wrote, "are you sure that they are gettingenough vitamins?"That one was a poser. It brought th e Board up with a shortturn. Victoria wrinkled her nose: "Wita-mines? Witerm inns? "she puzzled, puffing out her plump little cheeks. "Do youqwite wealize what she means?""O f course!" Rudyard pounded on the table with his fist likeTarzan calling for order in a council of gorillas. "Of course!Vitamins are all the goodness which is carefully extwacted fwomfood so that it can be pwoperly enwiched later on. Are you soabsolutely ignorw ant?" He glared at Rider who was chucklinglike a Cheshire cat.So that was that! W e forwarded on Rudy ard's definition to

our correspondent, telling her also that we did not know aboutthe vitamins on Ghost Mo untain. That there might be a few,lurking in the farther rock caves which we had never thoroughlyexplored. But we did not think the children wou ld come toany harm from them, as they were all thoroughly aware of thenecessity of giving a wide berth to all dangerous lookingcreatures. W e have not heard from her since.Yes, mail days on Ghost Moun tain are happy days. Despite"Civilization" and "vitamins" and "Progress"even the iratecorrespondent who told me that "after the war" the "new,mechanized civilization will be a thing surpassing our wildestdreams of liberty and ease"we get along very well.If it be our personal conviction that what "Civilization" needsis not more softness and ease but more simplicity and nearnessto the earth and fundamental things, at least we are not alone.

THE CLOCKThe clock is Master. Every hourIt measures for us. And its powerIs boundless. All our food, our thoughtSo dearly bargained for and bought,Is done to these tick-tocks of time,That mark o ur slavery and grimeIn this society today.And they ivho truly ivould be freeMust overrule and get awayFrom its obsessing mastery. Tanya South

18 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


19/40

uou te Suteto Meet tkeMlue

By MARY BEALsnN ALMOST any Southwest desert\J region you are likely to meet one or* more of the Daleas, those ornamen-tal shrubs, or perennial herbs, of the Peafamily with characteristics typically desert.When they bloom, each bush burgeonsinto .1 mass of intense blue or p urple, cer-tain lo rivet attention . They are especiallyallunng when companioned by GoldenCassia, a beautiful cousin. (See DesertMagazine, September, 1943, issue.) Sel-dom does a broad golden stream of Cassiabushes sweep down from the hills withoutaccents of blue or purple Daleas. Al-though the genus is widely distributed youcant go out and find a Dalea waiting foryou just anywhere, but sooner or laterthey'll turn up.The name Dalea was formerly the scien-tific label of the genus, honoring Dr.Samuel Dale, an early English physicianand botanist, who wrote especially onmedicinal plants . It is a suitable genus tocommemorate a botanically-minded physi-

cian for its aromatic balsamy odor suggestsmedicinal qualities. Although science haschanged the name to Parosela, Dalea is re-tained for common use.The most strongly aromatic of theDaleas is not a shrub but a decumbent per-ennial herb commonly known as DominoDalea, Silk Dalea, or if you like children'sfane ies, Persian Pussy Tails, descriptive ofthe fluffy flower-spikes. Un like most or:the Daleas, its flowers are pinkish orcreamy. In botanical language, it isParosela mo IUsIls several stout basal stems divide into

many leafy branches that spread out hori-zontally into a mat only a few inches highbut much broader, from 8 inches to 2 feetacross. I once found a splendid specimen30 inches broad, but it belonged in theblue-ribbon class. The grey-green herbageis VL-ry hairy and sprinkled with dark red-dish or almost black gland s. The pinnateleaves have 5 to 15 wavy-margined leaf-lets, often edged with red or purplish,notched at apex, the glands as regularlyspaced as the dots on domino pieces.The tiny flowers, bo rne in a dense spike,are creamy or pinkish, the calyx so denselyclothed with long pinkish hairs that itsslender pointed teeth are like silky plumes,as long as the almost smothered corollas.The axis of the spike is closely crowded

Children call it Persian Pussy Tails. This pink \lowered cousin of the GoldenCassia alsois called Silk or Domino Dalea. Photo by the author.with sharply-pointed, pear-shaped redglands, from daret to deep wine color, al-most black. In maturity the branches tendto lift up from the ground, the flat orrounding top changing to saucer shape orlike a low broad bowl.It prefers sandy or gravelly flats andopen valleys at low to moderate elevations,in the Colorado and Mojave deserts, norththrough the Death Valley region into Ne-vada. It seems to have a partiality for high-ways, often following along for mile aftermile, thriving and prosperous-looking.

Parosela parryiThis too is a perennial herb but some-what shrub-like, 1 to 2 feet or more high.The several to many slender purplishstems branch more or less widely, the ulti-mate branchlets very slender. Th e wholeplant is hairy and dotted with glands, yel-lowish to very dark red. The few pinnateleaves, xh to IVi inches long, are scatteredat intervals along the stems, the 6 to 10pairs of very small leaflets greyish and felt-like, usually notched at the tip. Ratherloose flower spikes, 2 to 5 inches long, endthe branchlets, the corollas oddly bandedpurple and white, the banner extremelyshort. Two rows of red glands mark eachside of the smooth yellowish pods. This isonly occasional in the Colorado and east-ern Mojave deserts but rather common inwestern Arizona, from low to moderatealtitudes.Parosela emoryiCall it Dye-weed if you prefer a simplename. This dense whitish shrub is 1 to 4feet high, with many intricate branches,

the herbage whitened by a felt-like cover-ing dotted with red glands. The pinnateleaves, V2 to 1 inch long, have 3 to 7 obo-

vate leaflets, the end one much the longest.The purple flowers are clustered into adense head, the ribbed calyx hoary withwhite hairs, often stained rusty, andsprinkled with bright orange glands, theelongated lobes especially hairy. The red-purple or magenta corollas stand out con-spicuously against the pale herbage. Butbeware, if you are tempted to pluck orhand le the flowers. Your fingers will bestained purplish or yellowish-brown, andyour clothing too, if you are not careful.The resourceful Indian steeped the flower-heads and glandular twigs in water tomake a dye, particularly useful in basket-making . It favors sandy locations and isquite common at low altitudes in the Colo-rado desert and Arizona, especially abun-dant in the Yuma area.

Parosela schottiiMesa Dalea or Indigo Bush to many ofits friends. A more slender, somewhatthorny shrub, 3 to 8 feet high, the mainstems light yellowish-brown, the season'sfresh stems and twigs bright yellow-greenand sometimes a bit hairy, with a few darkglands or none. The simple linear leaves,V2 to over an inch long, are commonlyhairless and dotted with dark - yellowglands or the new leaves finely hairy. Theflaring bell - shaped calyx is stronglyribbed, shiny and speckled with greenish-yellow glands. Th e indigo-blue flowers tipthe branchlets in loose racemes 2 to 4inches long. Conspicuous red or greenishglands dot the beaked pods. A frequentinhabitant of the Colorado desert ongravelly benches and mesas at low eleva-tions, noticeably common about PalmSprings and southward over the border.Occasional in southwestern Arizona.

M A R C H , 1 9 4 4 19


20/40

1Site of Pisgah Crater before anything happene d. AAlluvium, B Underlying strata,CBedrock, which con-tinues to unknoivn depths, possibly 40-50 miles where itblends with molten magma.

2 The fault forms and m akes a weak place in the crust ofthe earth. The lower margin of the fault makes a leadwayupward for the escape of the m agma. 3Magma beginsto rise along fault.

Sa5alt the /


21/40

fact is, they were doing something persons of their ages havedone since the Year One they were running away. In thisthey were safe enough, the desert was full of water holes sinceit was a wetter time than now and there was plenty to eat in theway of chuckawallas, lizards, snakes and chipm unks. As forfire, both girls had their fire-sticks and could twirl a spark withthe palm-drill when they had to. According to the demands oftheir surroundings they were a couple of well-adjusted savagekids who had the situation well in handso far.It was about noon and while not particular about their lunchhoui, they were on the point of taking a little nourishment inthe form of a half-raw rattlesnake that steamed and sputtered inthe hot coals of their campfire. W hil e they waited for the snaketo cook almost their entire conversation was about eating. Loses-things was talking, marveling at the fact that when cooked, rat-tlesnake was one of the best things people ate but live snakeswere the worst things you had to deal with. If you were bittenyou had horrible pains where you had been struck. You weresick inside and out and if you tried to stand you shook . . .Loses-things had just reached the word "shook" when bothgirls gave a demonstration of shakingthey couldn't help it.They stood up but hardly could keep their feet. The groundheaved. Then almost as suddenly as it had begun the move-ment stoppe d. Somewhere off in the distance there was a soundlike thunder. From the near slope of the wash a trickle of dirtand pebbles rattled down in a small avalanche. A light breezeshook a dead weed and from the campfire the rattlesnake burstopen with a pop . The sun shone and everything looked thesame as usual.

The girls had that "all gone" feeling familiar to everyone inhis first earthquake. Snake felt that Loses-things was in someway responsible but they both were too scared to quarrel andboth had the same ideato get back to the tribe as soon as pos-sible. They were too scared to eat and had had enough adven-ture for one time.It hadn't seemed far when they started out. Now it was anunen ding distance. They panted down the Canyon and into the

open desert where they hid an unobstructed view off to the

& zPisgah Crater from the north. Cone is a circular pile of ashand lapilli about 160 feet high and ring-shaped like a gi-gantic ant heap. It is low-toned grey-brown in color.

southeast. It looked the same as alwaysthe same blaze of sun-light, the same clumps of creosote bush, the same distant moun-tains. For a while they jogged along tramp ling on their shadowsand then without preliminaries, terror took over the entiredesert.It was as if some vast bubble filled with unmitigated noisehad burst directly over their heads. There was no rounded rum-ble to this racket. It was a jagged, splintery hullabaloo that sur-passed all comparison. They were physically stunned by thecompression wave in the air. For an instant this wave had beenvisible as a brilliant arc of reflected sunlight rushing towards

4 Tongues of m olten rock begin to slope their way to sur-face. Magm a con tains water as superheated steam undergreat pressure. As columns rise they are preceded by crownof incandescent gas which melts everything it meets.5 With a violent steam explosion erup tion takes place.Dust an d lapilli are shot upw ard. Fragmented material andlava soon bu ild up cinder cone as they fall around vent.

After initial outburst, explosive phase rapidly sub sides.It m ay have lasted less than a month. Lava begins to fillcrater. At length pressure causes breaks through sides ofcone near base, lava pours out, forming flows A and B.Lava through other canals fails to reach surface and intrudesbetween strata to form laccoliths at C. Volcanoes like P isgahput on a single show, never repeating the performance.

M A R C H , 1 9 4 4 21


22/40

them. The wave pulled them back and forth like a couple oftadpoles in an olla of water. Then the wave knocked them offtheir feet. They sat in the sand and gravel and looked east to-wards what seemed a round up of all their tribal nightmares.Abou t three miles away the desert was going to pieces. Fromthe flat floor of the valley there loomed a frightful thing a vast,ghastly, solid but boiling shape like something seen in a baddream a cloud like a monstrous cauliflower. This seemed

rooted in the grou nd. It was black except where its summit andthe swelling billows of its mass caught the sunligh t. Here it wassilvery white. As they watched, it rose up and up until it touchedthe sky, then it spread out like a canopy, and dust and cindersbegan to fall.Other explosions shook the valley. The cloud heaved witheach concussion and finally the curtain of dust became so thickthat the cloud itself was hidden by a screen like a wall. Thiswas ripped at times by writhing stems of lghtning that twinedabout like veins of glittering fire. This was electricity generatedby the friction of particles of ash against one another. Muddyrain began to fall and the drenching with uncomfortably warmwater brought the girls back to what little sense they had leftbarely enough to run, run, ru n away from this focus of stark ter-rorthe birth of Pisgah crater.W hat had happened was this: A long long time before theChemehuevi ever thought of migrating into the valley of theMojavepossibly about the time the first brick was laid inBabylondeep down in the earth, perhaps 40 or 50 miles belowthe surface, a vast crack began to form and fret its way throughthe rocks of the crust. Th is crack or fault extended until it finallymade a weak place in the valley floor. At a depth of one milethe pressure amounts to 450 tons per square foot. It increasesrapidly after this and at 40 miles becomes fantastic.With the increase in pressure there also is an increase in tem-peratu re. Tow ards the bottom of the 40-50 mile zone the rocksare hot enough to boilonly they can't. The pressure is toogreat. These rocks which should flow like melted wax actuallyare extremely rigid. W e know this from evidence of the seismo-

graph which shows that earth shocks travel as fast in the deeplayers of the crust as they do near the surface.Inside Pisgah Crater. Clumps of silvery white grass againstbackground of basalt and lapilli emphasize melancholyeffect of "cinders from furnaces of hades:'

DEFINITION OF TECHNICAL TERMSBASALTHard, usually dark colored, fine grained rock,always product of volcanic activity. Type of solidi-fied lava.CINDER CONERing-shaped heap of fragmental ma-terial of all sizes built up around vent of volcano byvolcanic action.FAULTMore or less vertical crack or joint formed bymovement of earth's crust.LAPILLIItalian word for "little rocks." Small piecesof solidified lava varying from size of nut to sizeof pea.LAVAMelted rock which has been brought to earth'ssurface by volcanic action. Same fluid rock subse-quently solidified.MAGMARock, fluid from heat and pressure, as it oc-curs within the earth. Differs from lava in havingboth steam and gases dissolved in the hot materialunder pressure.MATRIXGround-mass of a rock when surrounding

some particular embedded substance which may beeither a mineral, a fragment of a different type olrock or a fossil.SEISMOGRAPHInstrument for recording period, ex-tent and direction of each vibration of an earthquake.STOPINGAction of a rising column of magma inbreaking its way through surrounding solid crust.Takes name from its similarity to ceiling stoping inmin ing operations. Large blocks break from roofand fall back into the magma.STRATUM (pi. Strata)More or less continuous sheetor layer of rock of any predominant type, as sand-stone, limestone, shale, etc.WIDMANSTATTEN FIGURESCrystalline markingsof a particular type developed on meteoric iron whenthis is etched with dilute nitric acid. Crystallineareas are of two types which differ in their reactionto the acidsome stand in relief, others are eaten inmore deeply so that in some cases the block can beinked and an impression drawn off as from an en-graved plate.

So the fault I mentioned not only cut through the valley floorat the surface but penetrated into the zone of fantasy at the bot-tom where we find melted rock with a reaction to stress similarto conditions in a lump of pitch. This may be plastic enoughto stick to your fingers but under a quick rap with a hammer flyto pieces with the brittleness of glass. W hen the lower edgeof the fault reached the hot zone things began to happen thatwo uldn 't be evident at the surface for thousands of years. Atsome point, possibly at several points along the vertical line ofthe fault, melted rock, the molten magma, began to rise.The magma is a red-hot hurlyburly of geochemical contradic-tions that defy all common sense. It is not only hot enough tobe fluid but is rigid as steel from pressure. It also holds waterand other gases actually dissolvedwater mixed with moltenrock. Nobody knows much if anything about the condition ofthe elements and compounds in the magma. Possibly moleculesof the oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium,sodium, postassium and other elements shove shoulder toshoulder with molecules of water and carbon dioxide like ajammed crowd at a ball game, but here held down by the ex-treme pressure. At the first oppo rtunity the molecules willseek relief by expansion. Th e water escapes first as superheatedsteam.

22 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


23/40

At first the magma rose slowly but each mile gained meant alessening of the fearful pressure and vaster amounts of energymade available to b attle against the crust. The magma sloped itsway upward and its advance guard was a crown of incandescentgas melting, pushing and shoving at the walls of the tunnel asit bored its way to the surface of the earth.This fiery column cut through stratum after stratum as itneared the outer air and finally, on its last lap, just about thetime the girls felt the earthquake, it mingled in a devil's dreamwith the ground w ater. Then w ith a catastrophic outrush ofgas, steam, pulverized rock, lava-spray and dust, the frightfulplume of pandemonium formed in the valley.Falling lapilli soon built up the cinder cone. Larger gobs oflava hurled high into the air solidified before land ing and form-ed volcanic bombs both big and little. W ith the final releaseof the pent-up gas, the explosive phase soon ended. Then thewhile-hot lava began to boil up in the neck of the volcano andfill the bowl of the crater. Th is was liquid basalt. By day it wasblack but at night it glowed a lurid and hideous red except whenbursting bubbles of steam split the cooler crust and showed theyellow and orange of the lower depths.There were no flames or fire connected with the eruption ex-cept the blue flames of a little burning sulphur and hydrogen.There were, however, vast volumes of steam being poured outwhii:h hung in a cloud over the top of the cinder cone. At n ightthe steam was illuminated by the glow of the melted rock andIndians around Newberry looked east and thought the mountainitself was on fire.The weight of the steadily mounting column of lava finallybecame too great for the strength of the sides of the cinder cone.Channels opened up near the base and bled torrents of red-hotlava which slobbered and gulped as they poured out to form theflow of vesicular black basalt that surrounds Pisgah and spreadsin a sheet northwest for six miles towards H ighway 66 .

This basalt, although one of the commonest of rocks, takeson a certain aura of terror when you realize what it actually israw world-material from the inside. Its composition varieswithin narrow limits and even the composition of basalt fromthe same volcano may change at times but the typical rock isalways hard, dense, fine grained, dark grey or even black, stone-Author w ith bom bs from Pisgah Crater,hong bomb is raretype, originally ab out three feet long, called a ribbon bom b.It w as formed by hot lava streaming throug

Documents

194403 Desert Magazine 1944 March