195005 Desert Magazine 1950 May

8/14/2019 195005 Desert Magazine 1950 May

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Y o u W i l l Be W e a r i n g R a i n b o w sWhen you wear jewelry set with TITANIA. After years of experiments, syn-thetic Rutile is now available in facet cut brilliants. This magnificent substancehas been given the name of "TITANIA."W hen view ed u nder proper l ighting , round b r i l liants of TITANIA ap pe arto be pol ished b i ts of ra inb ow s . Cer ta in rem ark able opt ical proper t ies m akethis extreme refraction of light possible.

H E R E A R E T H E F A C T SSUBSTANCEAMETHYSTEMERALDRUBY, SAPPHIREDIAMONDTITANIA

INDEX OFREFRACTION1.544 - 1.5531.564 - 1.5901.760 - 1.7682.4172.605 - 2.901

CHROMATICDISPERSION.013.014.018.063.300 (APPROX.)

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The ability of a gem to bre ak u p light into its com pone nt colors an d pro du cea rain bo w effect is m ea sur ed b y its chrom atic dispersio n. Note that TITANIAh a s 525 t imes more ability to produce this RAINBOW EFFECT than any ofthe firs t f ive natural gems in the above lis t .Everyone to whom you show this new jewelry will wish to purchase a ringor pair of earrings. A free circular is avai lab le w hich giv es y ou all the factsabout TITANIA JEWELRY. This circular outlines a discount plan that will per-mit you to own one of these magnificent stones at no cost to yourself.

DEALERS INQUIRIES SOLICITEDAN ARTICLE TELLS THE STORY BEHIND THIS AMAZING DISCOVERY

T h e 1 9 5 0 R e v i s e d E d i ti o n of G r i e g e r ' s " E n c y c l o p e d i a andS u p e r C a t a l o g of th e L a p i d a r y and J e w e l r y A r t s "$ 1 . 0 0 Pe r C o p y

This is a 192-page boo k 9"xl2 " in s ize. The re are at leas t 60 pa ge s of in-structive articles by auth ors of nat ion al fame. There are ne w articles by EMILKRONQUIST an d LOUIS WIENER on jewe lry m aki ng. The 15-page articleon jewelry casting by the LOST WAX METHOD using the new KERR HOBBY-CRAFT CAST ING UNIT is al on e worth $1.00. "ROCK DETERMINATIONSIMPLIFIED" by M r. E. V. Va n A mrin ge with il lustrations an d cha rts help syou to identify your field trip disco veries . Two excellent f ield trips ar e m ap pe d.Everything you need in MACHINERY. TOOLS, SUPPLIES and MATERIALSis illustrated, described and priced for your convenience.VISIT OUR SHOP AND SECURE YOUR COPY OF THIS UNIQUE BOOKSent Postpaid in U. S. A., its Territories and Canada for only $1.00.

READ THESE REMARKS BY THOSE WHO PURCHASED THE FIRST EDITION"I would stillbuy it at $3.00 to $5.00 as it contains as much if not more meaty information for the lapidary andjewele r than any of the books on the market selling in that price range . " "It is better than mostlapi dary hand book s." "It is the only satisfactory catalog of lapid ary sup plies and mate rials thatI hav e ever seen. It is superbly illustrated and supe rbly p rinted."

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D E S E R T C A L E N D A RMay 1Feast day and spring corndance, San Felipe pueblo, NewMexico.May 1-7Palo Verde Festival, Tuc-son, Arizona.May 1-15Joshua trees in JoshuaTree National Monument, reachedthrough Twentynine Palms, Cali-fornia, will be in bloom.May 1-19Special exhibition ofHopi Kachinas, with publicationsrelating thereto. At SouthwestMuseum, Highland Park, Los An-geles.May 3-5Annual Las Damas ride,Wickenburg, Arizona.May 3-8Cinco de Mayo celebrationat Tucson, Arizona, Nogales, Ari-zona, and Nogales, Mexico. Fiestasde Mayo and La Fiesta de LasFlores.May 4-5Little Theater of Taos,New Mexico, presents "The Petri-fied Forest."May 5-7Annual spring QuarterHorse show, Sonoita, Arizona.May 6Annual Fish Fry, Sports-men's Club, Palm Springs, Califor-nia.May 6-7Annual rock, mineral andgem show, Yermo, California.May 6-7Final performances of Ra-mona Outdoor Play, in Ramonabowl, near Hemet, California.May 6-7Sierra Club trip to AftonCanyon, Menagerie and PastelCanyons near Cave Mountain onMojave desert. Overnight campnear Mojave River.May 6-2824th Annual Julian Wild-flower show. Nearly 2000 varietiesof wild blooms to be displayed inJulian Community Hall. At Julian,mountain community 60 milesnortheast of San Diego, California.Mrs. Myrtle Botts, chairman.May 7Apple Blossom Festival,Farmington, New Mexico.May 7Public pilgrimage to oldSpanish homes dating back 100years. Mesilla, New Mexico.May 11-14Annual Helldorado: pa-rade, rodeo, whisker contest, kan-garoo court, dancing, horse races.Las Vegas, Nevada.May 13Founders day at Chandler,Arizona, featuring competitionamong 17 different tribes from thePima, Maricopa and Gila RiverIndian reservations.May 15Eagle, rain and Kiowadances, Santa Clara pueblo, NewMexico.May 19-20-21Annual Calico DaysRodeo and celebration, Yermo,California.May 19-20-21Celebration marking50th anniversary of discovery ofTonopah, Nevada. Three days ofWild West mining camp celebra-tion.May 24-27Utah State IndustrialCouncil, Ogden, Utah.May 28Fiesta of San Felipe deNeri, held in Old Town plaza, Al-buquerque, New Mexico.May 29-31Sixth annual conven-tion. New Mexico Association ofHome Extension Clubs, at New

Mexico Western College, SilverCity. Tours to Chino Mines Cop-pe r pit and to smelter and mill atHurley.

V o l u m e 13 M A Y . 1950 N u m b e r 7C O V E R

CALENDARPOETRY

P R O G R E S SN A T U R ETRAVELLO ST MINEQUIZFIELD TRIP

FICTIONP H O T O G R A P H YLETTERSC O N T E S TCLO SE-UP SW I L D F L O W E R SN E W SM I N I N GH O BBYLAP IDARYC O M M E N TB O O K S

BEAUTY AMONG THE THORNS. Photo taken byWalter Pittenger of Tucson, Arizona, in the Cata-lina Mountain foothills.

M ay events on the desert 3Selected poems 4They're Closing the Gates at Davis Dam

By RANDALL HENDERSON 5Its Tiny Fangs Are Harmless

By GEORGE M. BRADT 10W e Are Desert Gypsies

By BETTY WOODS 11Swampers' Gold

By JAY ELLIS RANSOM 16Test your desert knowledge 18Wonder Pebbles of Lake Lahonton

By HAROLD O. WEIGHT 19Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley 24Contest winners for March 25Comments and views of Desert readers . . . 26M ay contest announcement 26About those who write for Desert 27Desert's monthly survey 28From here and there on the desert 29Current news of desert mines 38Gems and Minerals 39Amateur Gem Cutter, by LELANDE QUICK . . 45Just Between You and Me, by the Editor . . . 46Reviews of Southwest lite rature 47

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press, Inc., Palm Desert,California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the post office at Palm Desert ,California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No. 358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1950 by the Desert Press, Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor AL HAWORTH, Associate EditorBESS STACY, Business Manager MARTIN MORAN, Circulation ManagerE. H. VAN NOSTRAND, Advertising ManagerLos Angeles Office (Advertising Only): 2635 Adelbert Ave., Phone NOrmandy 3-1509

Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility fordamage or loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Sub-scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceeding issue.SUBSCRIPTION RATESOn e Year $3.50 Two Years $6.00Canadian Subscriptions 25c Extra, Foreign 50c ExtraSubscription to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed In Conformity WithP. O. D. Order No. 19687Address Correspondence to Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, California

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MISFITSBy GLADYS L. SAVAGEDenver, Colorado

Yucca, blooming in a crowded city garden,With white bells drooping in the rain,Your once proud blades hang limp andbroken,Sodden with painOf your surroundings.Are you dreaming now of desert sand,With a cactus by your side,Hot winds rasping through your blades,Singing high with pride?Singing songs of wagon trains,Of gold and cattle kings,And bands of horses running,Instead of little things?Little men who ponderLittle thoughts within each head,And are content to wanderOver paths that others tread?Flower of the desert,You are homesickFor that hot and lonely land,Yucca, please believe me,When I sayI know and understand.

DRY SKYBy MRS. R U T H L E V I ELos Angeles, California

The dust winds blow,An d the tumbleweeds goA-hurrying, scurrying by.But when the storm passes,There's nothing surpassesThose white clouds and indigo sky!

By TANYA SOUTHThen seek not ease and luxury,But rather seek to try and seeThe worth in every phase. For strifeAnd grief, and struggle, and desireWithout fulfillment can make lifeA sacred, spiritual fire,And bring to us a greater goalThan any merely worldly role.Let life be what it is. Or pain,Or grief, or wealth and ease and love,Al l can be useful to attainLight from above.

By CYNTHIA STRATHMANNClaremont, CaliforniaLord, I would beLike this treeWhen life burns parched and sterile as thesand.That my shadeMight be madeA promise and a blessing in a landWhere hate, fear, doubtLike droughtHave laid their blistering hand.Thus green to growOnly to showWhat rivers flow at thy command.That seeking sheltering leaf,Men find thy source beneath;And finding, drink, and understand. DESERT HOUR GLASS

By RUBY CLEMENS SHAFTArlington, CaliforniaI wonder if you still rememberThat wasted desert landAn d you and I at twilight,Our footprints in the sand.I often look when passingIt seems they must be there;With purple shadows shielding themOn sand dunes smooth and bare.But desert winds blow swiftlyFrom dark until the dawn,And through the hour glass of timeI find our footprints gone.

GREASEWOOD INRAINBy PHYLLIS J. BAILEYTwentynine Palms, California

I like to smell the greasewood in a desertrain.And see all its tiny dusty leaves washedshining green again.It may not be a useful shrub, as to beautyrather plain;But earns its right to being, with its per-fume after rain.Some praise the piney fragrance of statelytrees and tall.Sing of sweet scent of new-mown hay, orof burning leaves in fall.I concede the truth there be in much ofwhat they claim:But I like to smell the greasewood in adesert rain.

DESERTBy ELLA ELIZABETH PRESTONDavenport, Iowa

This pebbled floor lay once beneath a seaWhich thundered to the mute and staringsky.Long lost that sea and gone the gull'sshrill cry.Forever lost the cold waves' symphony.When darkness falls the sharp spiked JoshuatreeLeans on the listless breeze which loiters by,Ushering the night, while from the mesahighThe lengthening shadows measure immen-sity.Oh, fruitless plain, you yield not drink, normeat.Nor shelter, nor the voice of friend to shareWonder and grief. Your quiet everywhereReveals to me my loneliness complete.Robbed of imagined stature, here I stand,One with the nameless pebbles on the sand.T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Aerial view of Davis Dam project. The dam is left center, blending so well withthe coloring of the landscape as to be difficult to recognize. The spillway on theright is now being plugged with cement logs. Power plant is to the left of the gates.Lower cofferdam will be removed as soon as structure is completed.

They're Closing theGates at Davis Dam

By RANDALL HENDERSONPhotog raphs , cour tesy U. S . Reclam ation Service

Map by Nor ton AllenCompletion of Davis Dam will mean many things to many people.To users of electricity in Arizona, California and Nevada it will meanmore hydro-electric energy. To farmers on the irrigated lands below thedam it will mean a better regulation of their water supply. To sports-men it will add a new 65-mile lake for boating and fishing. For those

who like to follow the desert trails the new roads to and across DavisDam already have opened up new scenic and mineralized areas forcamping and exploration. Here is the story of the sixth and latest damto be constructed in the lower Colorado River.

N THE afternoon of January 9this year I stood with a littlegroup of engineers and specta-tors and watched a huge mobile craneslowly lower into place the first of 180concrete stop logs which had been builtto close the gates in the Colorado Riv-er 's newest projectD avis Dam .The closure is still in progress asthis is written and as the 2x2x 13-foot logs of cement, each weighing sixtons, are drop ped into slots in the spill-way sidewalls, the waters behind thedam are rising until eventually theywill form a new reservoir extending65 miles upstream. Since Davis Damis only 67 miles below Hoo ver Da m theheadwaters of the new lake will meetthe tailrace two miles below the Hoov-er structure.Hoover Dam, its white cement slabrising 726 feet between the precipitousdark-stained walls of Black Canyon,is a spectacular giant, well known as

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the highest dam in the world. Probablyit is also the most photographed damin the world for the majesty and col-oring of its setting have made it verypopular with photographers .By comparison, Davis Dam is justa dwarfan ugly duckling of the damfamily. It rises only 138 feet above thefloor of the river and is constructed

of earth and country rock. Its colorblends so perfectly with the surround-ing landscape visitors generally aredisappointed when they get their firstglimpse of it.But despite its lack of glamor, DavisDam fills a very important role in theReclamation Service's over-all plan forthe control and development of thelower Colorado River.Work was s tarted on the $115,000,-000 project in March 1946. The en-gineers selected a site known as Pyra-mid Canyon, between the Dead Moun-tain range in Nevada and the Black

Mountains in Arizona. The countryrock here is brown gneiss. In placesit is highly mineralized.An earth and rock-fill structure wasspecified for reasons of economy. Tobuild a concrete dam, it would havebeen necessary to excavate 200 feetbelow the floor of the river to reachbedrock. In building a dam from un-processed local materials it was neces-sary to go down only 62 feet. The baseof the structure is 1400 feet wide. Thecrown is 50 feet, carrying a roadwaywhich will serve as a new bridge be-tween Arizona and Nevada. Kingman,31 miles away by oiled road, is thenearest Arizona town. Searchlight,about the same distance on the Nevadaside, also is connected by paved road.The length of the dam is 1600 feet.The construction work is being doneas a joint venture in which 11 majorcontractors are participating, with UtahConstruction company as the sponsor-

ing organization. The other contractingcompanies are: Morrison-KnudsenCo.,Pacific Bridge Co., General Construc-tion Co ., K. & E. C orporation, W in-ston Bros. Co., Henry J. Kaiser Co.,J . H. Pomeroy & Co., Raymond Con-crete Pile Co., The Kaiser Co., andKaiser Engineers, Inc.H. F. Bahmeier is construction engi-neer for the Reclamation Service andHenry E. Williams is project managerfor the contractors.Before work could be started on thedam it was necessary to blast out a di-version channel on the Arizona sideto carry the entire flow of the stream.A great cement gate in this diversionchannel serves as a permanent spill-way for the dam. Behind this is a fore-bay where are located the intakes forthe power plant.As soon as the river was divertedcofferdams were installed both aboveand below the dam site and excavation

The Reclam ation Service built this town just below the dam o n the Arizona sideof the river for its employe s. A fter the dam is completed the houses will be occu -pied by maintenance employes. The postoffice, named Davis Dam, is across theriver on the Nevada side.

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S e v e n D a m s a n d A R o c k W e i rThe numbers on the map and the text below indicatee chronological order in which the lower Colorado Riverwere constructed.

1 9 3 1 ; completed in 1936. Height is 726.4 feet, lengthof crest 1244 feet. Length of Lake Mead behind dam115 miles. Storage capacity 32,359,000 acre feet ofwater. Power-plant capacity 1,835,000 horsepower.Built for storage, flood control and power develop-ment.

Sche duled for com pletion in 1951. Height is 200 feet,length of crest 1600 feet. Length of reservoir behinddam 65 miles. Storage capacity 1,820,000 acre feet.Power-plant capacity 311,000 horsepower. Lake hasnot yet been named. Built for storage and power.

completed in August, 1938. Height 320 feet, lengthof crest 856 feet. Length of Lake Havasu behind damis 45 miles. Storage capacity 716,600 acre feet. Pow-er-plant capacity 30,000 kva. Built for storage, powerand as a diversion dam for the Los Angeles Metro-politan Aqueduct.

1 9 3 8 , completed in 1941. This is a diversion dambuilt to serve as a headgate for the irrigation of80,000 acres of land in the Colorado River IndianReservation below Parker, Arizona.ALO VERDE weirFollowing the completion of Hoov-er Dam the water in the Coloradono longer carry-ing silt in solutionbegan scouring its channel be-low the dam. Palo Verde Irrigation District put inthis weir just below its intake to insure continuedflow of water into its canals.

3IMPERIAL DamConstruction started in 1936; com-pleted in 1938. This is purely a diversion dam forthe lands to be irrigated in the Imperial and Coa-chella valleys of California, and the Yuma andGila valleys in Arizona.1First dam to be constructed on the lower ColoradoRiver, started in 1907 and completed in 1910, as adiversion dam for the Yuma irrigation district. Sincethe completion of Imperial Dam the Yuma valleyhas been served by the newer dam.

7MORELOS DamNow under construction to serveas a diversion dam for the canal system servingMexican lands in Lower California. Scheduled tobe completed by 1951.

LAS VEGAS

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started in preparation for the bringingin of 3,800,000 cubic yards of clayand rock for the embankment. Actualconstruction of the dam fill was startedin September, 1948, and 10 monthslater it was completed.The contractors established theircamp with dormitories and a huge messhall on the Nevada side, where thereis a postoffice named Davis Dam. TheReclamation Service erected a neatvillage with cottage housing for its em-ployes on the Arizona side. Two milesdownstream on the Arizona side isthe off-the-reservation community ofBullhead City with its own postoffice.The name Bullhead or Bullsheadboth spellings are usedcame froma rock formation near the damsitewhich is said to resemble a bull's head.I failed to find anyone who could pointout this landmark. Originally the pro-ject was called Bullshead, but in 1941it was renamed in honor of ArthurPowell Davis who served as directorof the Reclamation Service from 1914to 1923 and helped lay the foundationfor the development of the ColoradoRiver.

The new lake has not yet beennamed. Some of the local people wantto call it Lake Mojave for the Indiantribesmen whose reservation is down-stream in the Mojave valley. The nameLake Powell, honoring the memory ofJohn Wesley Powell, famous explorerof Grand Canyon, also is favored.In the construction of the dam the

core was built of packed clay, broughtfrom pits three miles away. Over thiswas placed fine gravel, and the topand sides completed with heavy rock.It is believed that the structure is asstable and permanent as a concretedam.Why was it necessary to build thissmaller dam so close below the greatHoover structure? What is its purposeand how does it fit into the generalreclamation plan for the Southwest?These and many other questions Iasked Harold Dean, progress controlengineer on the project, as he escortedme over the nearly completed work inJanuary .His answers revealed a close rela-tionship between the two dams. Toexplain Davis Dam, it is necessary tounderstand the functions of HooverDam. (Local people still refer to itas Boulder Dam.)The Hoover project is the sourceof tremendous electrical power forsouthwestern homes and farms andfactories 1,835,000 h o r s e p o w e rwhen fully developed. There is littleseasonal variation in the need for pow-er. Consequently it is necessary tokeep a constant flow of water throughthe penstocks which feed the greatpower turbines.

But Hoover Dam also is a headgatefor the irrigation of nearly a millionacres of land along the lower Colorado.There is a wide seasonal fluctuation inthe demand for irrigation water. Aconstant flow of water through thegates of Hoover Dam to maintain asteady output of power results in greatwastage of water from an irrigationstandpoint. Colorado River water istoo valuable to be wasted.Davis Dam, then, is to provide anequalizing reservoir to insure a con-stant maximum of power at HooverDam while the farmers below are get-ting only the water needed for theirseasonal requirements.Davis Dam's secondary purpose ispower development. It will generate311,000 horsepower, one half of whichis allotted to Arizona and one-fourtheach to Nevada and California.Construction of Davis Dam and thenew roads into this area have openeda vast new interest for those who travelthe desert for pleasure and recreation.In canyons of the Dead Mountains aresome of the finest petroglyphs to befound in the Southwest. The regionaround Searchlight and on the Arizonaside of the river contains many miner-als which lure both prospectors androck collectors.The boundaries of the Lake Meadrecreational area are being extendedto include the new Davis Dam reser-voir which means that the NationalPark Service will have jurisdiction overboating, fishing, wildlife preservationand the providing of facilities for va-cationists and campers. The new lakewill be 65 miles long and have an av-erage width of four miles. It is ex-pected to be no less popular than LakeMead as a mecca for fishermen. Butwhereas fishermen go to Lake Meadmostly for bass, confidence is felt thatthe Davis Dam reservoir will becomefamous for its Rainbow trout.

Trout have thrived in the tailracebelow the Lake Mead power plantsdue to the low temperatures of thewater coming through the dam fromthe depths of the lake above. The wat-er at this point ranges from 55 to 60degrees. Since Davis Dam reservoirwill be fed constantly by this cool wat-er it is believed that all or the greaterpart of the new lake will be a troutpond.Rainbow were planted in the streambelow Hoover Dam several years ago,and evidently they have worked down-stream for a considerable distance al-ready, for the day I was at Davis Damone of the workmen on the projectboasted that he had just caught his200th trout in the river opposite hisdormitory.Sometime in 1951 the contractorswill be moving out and it is tentatively

understood that their camp will be dis-mantled. The Reclamation Service,however, expects to maintain its vil-lage permanently to provide housingfor the maintenance and operationcrew.Many years ago I stood on a butteoverlooking the Colorado River withChester Allison who was engineer forImperial Valley's irrigation system dur-ing the receivership days of Col. Hola-bird. Laguna Dam, built as a diver-sion embankment for the Yuma irriga-tion system, had just been completed."One of these days that river willbe harnessed," Allison predicted. Al-lison was thinking of the great damthen being considered at Boulder Can-yon. The engineer did not know howM E X I C O C E N T R A L H I G H W A YSAID VIRTUALLY COM PLETEThe new Mexico Central Highwayfrom El Paso, Texas, to Mexico Cityis virtually completed and is passableall the way, according to latest re-ports. For its entire distance the high-way is black-topped, is a high-speedroad most of the way. Only a fewbridges remain to be finished. Horse-drawn ferries still take tourists' carsacross some rivers. The new highwayis not as mountainous as the Laredo-Mexico City road, passes throughmuch territory new to most Americans.

Official opening of the new high-way will be celebrated May 5, Mexi-co's Independence day, with a roadrace starting at El Paso and endingon the Guatemalan border some 2000miles away.

DEPARTM ENT REACTIVATESU. S . INDIAN INSTITUTEReactivation of the National IndianInstitute within the Interior Depart-mentas a part of the Inter-Ameri-can Indian Institute with headquartersin Mexico Cityhas been announcedby Interior Secretary Oscar L. Chap-

man.This means, he said, that the U. S.government will reassume its share ofresponsibility in efforts aimed at im-proving the lot of the 30 million In-dians on this hemisphere. The Inter-American Indian Institute was estab-lished in 1940. The U. S. affiliate wasset up in 1941.D'Arcy McNickle has been namedacting director of the Institute. He isa member of the Flathead Indian tribeof Montana, will also be a member ofthe Institute's policy board. He has

been with the Bureau of Indian Af-fairs since 1933, is author of a recentlypublished history of American Indians,They Came Here First.8 T HE D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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Reclamation Service drawing showing general plan of the project.

true were the words he spoke. Duringthe 40 years since he made his pre-diction not only Hoover but five otherdams have been built in the lower Col-orado. Davis Dam is the sixth, and aseventh, Morelos dam, is now under

construction south of the border inBaja California.The lower Colorado has been socompletely harnessed that from Hoov-er Dam south it is today little morethan a glorified irrigation ditch. Old-

timers along the river will be glad thatthe new dam in Pyramid Canyon wasnamed in tribute to Arthur Davisfor he was a worthy pioneer in the taskof laying the foundations for the devel-opment of today.

Spillway and intake structure, still under construction although the lake is nowin process of being filled.

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HUAC HUCA MOU NTAIN BLACK-HEAD ED SNAKE: This tiny snake (Tan-tilla wilcoxi wilcoxi) is found in southeastern A rizona, and can be told from otherspecies by the dotted dark line which can be seen behind the light ring at theback of the black head. They are exceedingly secretive snakes and are seldomfound in the open. The best place to look for them is beneath stones and deadwood and the dried sotol plants so comm on on the sides of desert foothills.Its T iny Fangs Are H armless . . .By GEORGE M. BRADTPhotograph by the authorTIE MOST interesting fact about the tiny black-headed snakes (Genus Tantilla) is their possessionof grooved, poison-conducting fangs at the rear oftheir upper jaws. They share this distinctive characteristicwith two other southwestern snakes: the lyre snakes ofCalifornia, Arizona and Texas, and the Arizona Vinesnake. The fact that the minute teeth of the black-headedsnake are unable to draw blood from a person's hand,and that the poison possessed by the other two is appar-ently extremely mild, keeps these strange snakes from beingin any way dangerous. In fact, only one rear-fanged snake,

the boomslang of Africa, has been known to bite a humanfatally.The black-headed snake is really more worm-like thansnake-like. Usually it will try to hide its head between its

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captor's fingers. It seldom attains a length of more than14 inches.The black-headed snake's diminutive size makes onethink, by contrast, of the truly amazing dimensions at-tained by the world's largest snakes. Imagine this littlecreature stretched out beside one of our own six-footrattlers. Then try visualizing the ten-inch Tantilla next toa ten-foot bushmaster from Central America or an 18-foot King Cobra. If you can do this, think of it alongsidethe snake that holds the record lengtha 23-foot reticu-late python!The food of our little black-headed snake affords an-other contrast. Centipedes and the larvae of insects seemto make up its principal diet. Compare this fare with thatof an Indian python known to have dined on a four-footleopard! A third comparison may be made between theone to four eggs laid by female Tantilla and a clutch of 100python eggs.T H E D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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The author enjoys early March sunshine between Sacaton and Casa Grande,Arizona.

We Are D e s e r t G y p s i e s . . .By BETTY W O OD SPhotos by the AuthorE STOPPED our car and house-trailer at the base of a rim-rocked mesa that rose up andsplit the road in two. The left traileaded straight into the fanfare of adesert sunset. The wagon-rutted path-way on our right hurried into a clumpof sandstone and cedar.

"Which road will it be?" asked Pon-cho, my writer-husband. Poncho is oneof his fiction characters."Let's flip a nickel," I suggested."Heads, left. Tails, right."Tails won. That's the way we've donefor years. Just let the flip of a coindecide which road we'll take. You cando that when you trailer on the desert.Fill the water tank. Pack ice in the re-frigerator. Stock up with groceries.Then start hunting for adventure.We were in Navajo country, whichmeant material for our stories. So nowwe turned up a secluded canyonpeopled with human-like formations.Great pot-bellied boulders squatted on

Many people who are caughtin the m e s h of artificial restric-tions imposed by today's high-speed living dream of beingable to start out and go wherethey will when they will foras long as they wish. And itcan be done. Here Betty Woodstells how she and her writer-husband have found the an-swer to this yearning by usinga modern auto trailer in whichthey visit little-known areas ofthe great Southwest desert coun-try.

the hillsides, and sandstone gnomesbalanced whimsical burdens on theirheads. We found a camping spotamong the pinyons and pines. Soonwe had a fire crack ling b eside thetrailer even though I cook inside onthe Coleman high-test gas range. Acampfire invites people to stop andtalk. We had just finished the last cupof coffee when we heard horses com-

ing down the canyon. Three youngNavajos in black hats, purple shirtsand blue jeans rode into the firelight."Hello," we said."Hello," the oldest boy answered."Where you from?" the youngestwanted to know.The third boy looked past us to thetrailer. I took the hint. "Would youlike to see inside our rolling hogan?"He didn't answer. He just got off his

horse and followed us into the trailer.We showed him everything from themedicine cabinet in the tiny bathroomto the m odern gas range. Then helooked around with a very bored air."Pretty smooth job. Where did youbuy it?"The other two boys came in andmade comments in Navajo. In Englishthey asked, "How much did it cost?"I made another pot of coffee whilePoncho built up the fire. The threeboys stretched out on the ground. Nowbegan another of those wonderfulnights on the desert. Getting to knowa neighbor race better. Navajos un-derstanding white people better. We

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We like the Indian country, where Navajos often were our friendly neighbors.told them about Indians up north anddown in Mexico. They told us aboutschool in Santa Fe and about a verysmart medicine man in Toadlena. Wealso learned that a Fire dance wouldstart in three days. We had alwayswanted to see this dancethe mostspectacular of all Navajo dances.

Early the next morning I felt ratherthan heard someone at the door. Iturned and saw a tiny young Navajowoman dressed in an orange velvetblouse and a wide green satin skirt.There are few beautiful Navajo girls,but here was one of them. The proudway she held her head. Her deepbrown eyes serious, yet ready to laugh.She reminded me of what the Navajoss in g, " I w alk in b ea ut y . . . " S heseemed to do just that."Come in," I invited. We lookedat each other and smiled. Suddenly

it seemed as though Charlotte and Ihad known each other for a long time."My husband told me to come seeyou," she said. "He was here lastnight."Our talk was woman-talk. Clothesand recipes and a bit of gossip aboutold Pumpkin Top's young wife. Char-lotte felt better in Navajo clothes. "Youcan't sit on the ground in a white wo-man's dress," she said. "And whenyou wear a blanket, you don't needa coat and a hat."She told me how she preserved cac-tus fruits and made jams from desertberries. She told me about the herbsshe gathered for seasoning mutton stewand how to make that strange Navajobread nun-es-ka-day. Then we talked

of the Fire dance. It was being helda few miles beyond Window Rock."Get there when the sun sets," she

said. "That is the time the medicinemen make the big corral."We were at the dance ground muchearlier. We knew there would be muchto see. We watched the medicine mensprinkle corn meal in a wide circlearound a huge pile of logs. Then youngNavajos seized fresh pinyon boughsfrom a nearby stack and laid themfour feet high on the corn meal circle.Quickly the great enclosure was finish-ed. Hundreds of Indians quietly movedin. With blankets and coffee pots eachfamily picked a spot to build a fireand spend the night.We shared our fire with Charlotteand her husband and watched the doz-ens of other little fires busily cookingIndian suppers. You could smell mut-ton sizzling and coffee boiling andgreen corn roasting. You had a feel-ing of comfort and abundance herein this spectacle of ceremony and col-or. At last the Navajos lit the log pile.The naked white-painted dancers be-gan their weird all-night ritual.

At daylight we went back to thetrailer sleepy and dusty and full of be-wildered wonder at what we had seen.After the Fire dance my husband need-ed a ghost town setting for a piece offiction he was writing. So we headedfor Coal Basin.But first we stopped in Gallup to getice, non-perishable groceries and to fillthe trailer's built-in water tank and theextra 10-gallon water cans. We carrythese cans for additional water when

campsites aren't near wells or springs.We also find these containers conven-ient for hauling and heating water forbaths. Since story interest in the lo-cale comes first with us, we make campat an interesting spot, regardless ofmodern comforts. We drive out fromit to further see and enjoy the desert.We don't mind what might seem in-conveniences for we can adjust our-selves to most situations. What if wedo have to heat the bath water in thoseten-gallon cans on the Coleman range?There's a bath tub built in under oneof the dinette seats that in other timesserves as a storage space for bedding.That range heats the trailer, too. Anextra heating unit would mean extraweight.We do without electricity and usekerosene lamps. We like the small,squat type because it doesn't tip easily.Most portable light plants are tooheavy for rugged trailer travel. Keep-ing the load's weight down is impor-tant for desert travel. We carry only afew well-chosen, wrinkle-proof clothes.We have only a few housekeeping uten-

sils, but those are used for many pur-poses. I use a medium-sized wirestrainer for a flour sifter, colander and12 T H E D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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dish cover. This stripping down to barenecessities makes gypsying simple anda lot of fun. Deliberately we avoid citytrailer camps with their modern con-veniences and their packed-in parkingareas.We knew the road to remote CoalBasin would be rutted, so we got thetrailer ready for rough travel. Wepacked the ice box so milk and foodswouldn't spill. As an extra precautionwe tied the refrigerator doors tight to-gether. Once, before we learned thistrick, we found a hundred pounds ofice scooting up and down the wholelength of the trailer after a bumpy trip.In the cupboards I laid tea towels onthe plastic dishes to keep them frommoving about. However, there is nevertoo much preparation for travel be-cause everything fits in its place. Wefind cabinet drawers the best place forink and anything else that might tipover.Poncho learned it was importantto keep a well-balanced load, so theheaviest articles such as books andtypewriters go in the center of thetrailer. He never allows too m uchweight at the hitch end. That wouldmean trouble for the rear end of thecar.Rough roads never keep us fromgoing where we want to. Poncho knowshow to ease the car over places with-out too much wear and tear. However,we do try to avoid mud and sand. Ifa road looks threatening Poncho gets

out and inspects it for sand or bogholes.We found Coal Basin hidden behinda mass of rimrock cliffs several milesnorthwest of Gallup. We also foundold Buss, the town's colored caretakerfrom whom we got permission to camp.We always first get permission to stayif the spot is on private property. Andif we stop any length of time on anIndian reservation, we go to the agentfor a permit.This was once an active coal pro-ducing camp. Then flowers grew in the

yards and smoke curled out of chim-neys. Now the only moving thing wasa great tin smokestack swinging andAbove Near By las, Arizona, An-dy old Apache scout stoppedby our trailer for lunch. He wason his way to cut mesquite wood.Center At Manzano, New Mexi-co , the Woods camped for a monthon a pit-house ruin. Here the auth-or's husband finds an arrow shar-

pener in ruins.Below Pleasant campgrounds.Elephant Butte, New Mexico.

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complaining in the wind. The emptystreets were hummocked on both sideswith weathered-down adobe walls. Afew fences stood to protect phantomhouses with steps leading to nowhere.We parked the trailer beside one ofthese houseless sand-choked yards. Weexplored the few remaining houses andwondered about the people who hadlived in them. Who were they? Wherewere they now? What they had leftbehind told us a little about them.Abandoned magazines andempty flow-er pots, cheesecake art and an oldman's cane.

I liked the friendly loneliness of thewind as it whispered through the sageand cedar. "But this ain't no ghosttown," denied Buss, the colored care-taker. "This town's too lonesome forghosts."While we were ghost-towning Pon-cho decided to trailer over to anotherkind of deserted city. This place layon Putney Mesa overlooking the lavabeds southeast of Grants. It was alarge, four-hundred-room pueblo withwalls of excellent masonry. The formeroccupants, too, left story-telling thingsbehind. Turquoise beads, metates andmanos and pottery. And we couldguess who these people were. Acomasand Lagunas whose descendants nowlive in those two modern pueblos notfar away. Pinyon, sage and chamisogrow in rooms and in the big rectang-

ular plaza.Below this prehistoric ghost town isthat awesome sea of cold black lavawhich humps and writhes its way for60 miles to the south and west. In thelava caves you find beautifully deco-rated ollas and other artifacts that werehidden possibly in hurried flight. Eventoday these fantastic and mysteriouslava beds are waiting to be "discover-ed" by a professional archeologist.In Grants we heard about a colorfuldesert character, a horse thief, wholived over in Rodeo, on the NewMexi-co-Arizona border. To Albuquerqueand down the Rio Grande we went.To Hatch, Deming and Lordsburg.The country from Deming to the Mex-ican border and west to the Arizonaline is a vast cactus garden. Nowherein New Mexico is the desert so packedwith cholla, prickly pear, ocotillo andyucca, devil's claw and Christ's thorn,barrel cactus, century plant and a doz-en others. And the mountains! Carvedout of great rough masses of color.Rodeo sprawled at the foot of amagnificent mountain rangethe Chi-ricahuas. It was in these mountainsthat Cochise and his band hid to ha-rass the U. S. army for so long. Here,too, other outlaws disappeared whenposses got too close. In this story-mak-ing background we pulled up to makecamp on the edge of Rodeo.

After a few discreet questions we lo-cated our horse thief. This flesh-and-blood outlaw made fiction charactersseem rather trite. I had expected tofind a tough, hard-oathed individual.Instead he was a mild-mannered gentle-manutterly disarming. Only his eyesshowed a defiant spirit.We had many visitors here. Onemorning the screen door suddenly waspushed open. A long gray face toppedwith two huge ears poked itself in thedoorway. If I hadn't stopped him, aburro would have walked right into thetrailer. To ease his hurt feelings I gavehim some bread. This was a mistake.He deserted the townspeople who gavehim handouts and took up with us. Be-sides being a panhandler, he was aPeeping Tom. He liked to stand atths trailer windows and gaze in at us.The Chiricahua country is real trail-er country. Cave Creek with its bril-liant and sculptured arches and coolrushing water. Curious deer wanderclose to campsites. And one day wewere lucky enough to see a herd ofjavelina.

The animals of the desert have givenus a lot of fun. Take that night in theland of basket-woven houses on thePapago reservation. A big round mooncame rolling up in the east. We sat out-side to watch it silver the saguaro andcholla and ocotillo around the trailer.A lone coyote began his yipping sere-nade. Soon other coyotes joined thelonesome one. Then Poncho gave avery real imitation of a coyote. Froma far-off mesa came a wild reply. AgainPoncho imitated our howling neigh-bors. The nearby pack answered. Athird pack took up the talk. We werelaughing hard now, for we had coyoteshowling in every direction.

And then there was Liz. Liz was asmall bob-tailed lizard who hungaround and waited for us to kill fliesfor her. She had another amusing traitthat pleased the children of our Papagofriends. She liked to have her chinscratched. When I'd take a stick andscratch her chin she'd lift her tiny,dragon-like head in enjoyment. Theyoungsters would laugh and laugh,but Liz didn't care.

Frances, a Pima friend, told usabout John Rope and Old Andy, twoApache scouts who were with ourarmy hunting Geronimo. Frances madethem sound so rich in living historythat we hooked up and headed for theWhite Mountain Apaches. We parkedbeside a trading post at Bylas, and ina few hours the trailer was full of In-dians.

John Rope was a dignified oldgentleman whose dark red face seemedremarkably young for the decades ofwarring and pursuit he had seen. He

told us the Apache's side of treatymaking and breaking. Of who weregood leaders and who were bad, bothred and white. John Rope was wiseand tolerant and understanding andwore the biggest silver whisker pulleron the reservation.But old Andy was a clown. He waslittle and wrinkled and full of fun evenat 80. He and his burro always showedup at mealtime. If I was slow in start-ing a meal, he'd turn to me and say,"Go head. Cook." Andy spent hourslooking through our magazines hunt-ing for "leg art." Whenever he'd comeacross a picture of a girl, he'd pointand exclaim, "Oooo, pretty girl!"Andy's women relatives joined theother Apache women in a mesquitethicket where they met for a dailygambling session. One afternoon hisniece stopped in on her way to thegame."You come with me," she pointedwith her lips in the direction of themesquite. "You play fan-tan with us."She eyed my red dress with enviouscontemplation."I don't have time today," 1 toldher. "I don't know how to play fan-tan, either.""We show you," she said, still eye-ing my dress."Another time, maybe.""Then you lend me two dollars?""How about selling me that old wat-

er jug you were carrying yesterday?"She thought a minute. "All right."She sent her little boy to get the oldbasket-woven jug.While we waited to complete thedeal she asked, "You going to StoneLake?""No. Where's that?""With the Jicarillas at Dulce. Wego there to trade our baskets on Sep-tember 15th. All Indians go there totrade."By the time the child was back withthe jug and the deal was finished wewere planning to go to Stone Lake overin New Mexico.There we unhitched the traileramong old-time Ute teepees and mod-ern army tents on the shores of StoneLake. We watched the Jemez bringin fruit from the Rio Grande. Weheard Navajos haggle with Domingosover the price of jewelry. EverywhereIndians traded with Indians in theirquiet way. For three days there wasfeasting and dancing according to an-cient custom. Races and a rodeo. Anda huge round dance at night.On our second visit there Poncho

was "taken into the brush kiva andmade a member of the Ollero clan.So , each year we go back and stay withhis clan during the three-day cere-mony.But Indian reservations and ghostTHE DESERT M AG AZ I NE


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Jicarilla Apache girls quietly watch gathering of their tribe for annual fiesta. Wecame e arly, parked our trailer in the encam pmen t in a site of our choice. (O verwhite foreground tent, right.)towns aren't the only places we've en-joyed trailering to on the desert. Tuck-ed back in a mountain valley of NewMexico are the Cities That Died ofFear, a little chain of native settle-ments whose names are musical andbewildering to spell. Early Spanishways of life still go on in Chilili, Ta-jique, Torreon and Manzano, four ofthe living legendary cities. The otherthree, Abo, Gran Quivira and Quarrihave only the dead ruins of missionchurches to show where padres workedto bring a new God to the pueblo In-dians. These seven villages were oncethe homes of the Tigua Indians whofarmed the rich valley fields. But theApaches raided the villages, one byone. Fear caused the people to aban-don their homes and flee to other NewMexico pueblos. Later, some of themreturned to resettle the towns, manyof which big-name explorers of the16th and 17th centuries mention intheir chronicles.

We found old and picturesque Man-zano, the place of the ancient appleorchards, the most fascinating. It lies

in the low, cedar-furred hills of theManzano mountains. Here the adobehouses wear their narrow porches likebalconies which open into flower-filled patios. Carved deep-set doors andcorner fireplaces tell you change is notwelcome here.With water from Manzano's creek-size spring the people cultivate abun-dant corn and bean crops. It waters,too, the apple orchards the padres aresaid to have planted 200 years ago.On fall days we watched familiesthresh beans in clean-swept yards.Many of the people here use the oldmethod of threshingthat of ridinga horse over the pods to tramp outthe frijoles. This tedious way of win-ter preparation goes well with thegentle and courteous manner of lifehere. Manzanoans live close to thesoil and close to the church. A mellow-toned mission bell marks their timeof day, morning, noon and nightmany more times on saint 's days andSundays. It was du ring the piny on har-vest that this bell became importantto us. Every sunset we'd wait for its

last melancholy notes to drift away.Then out of canyoncitos and deeparroyos came whole families and theirpinyon loaded burros. Everybodygrownups and childrencarried bulg-ing nut-filled sacks. It was like thesatisfactory ending of a play a kindof humble pageantry with harvestersgoing home. And soon the odor ofpinyons roasting hung over the vil-lage like incense at an altar.We like dropping back to the oldSpanish ways of these kind people. Toshare a marriage letter. To attend achristening or a gran baile.We think our trailer life on the des-ert is one of the richest experienceswe can ever have. Just to marvel atits wonders all the way from Chihua-hua up to where it stops and cools offin Colorado. The Salton Sea and NewMexico's White Sands. The Papago'sprimit ive Rabb it-Ear country. The M o-javes and their desert. Old towns likeFt. Sumner, Lincoln and Trampas.These places and a mapful more helpus to know and understand the desert 'speople, its bigness and its freeness.

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Swampers'G o l d . .By JAY ELLIS RANSOM

afternoon lay shimmeringover the desert. All day thesun had sweated the backs ofmules and skinners as they hauled thefreight wagons out of Mexico towardthe City of Angels. They had comeup from Sonora and Chihuahua ,plodding along day after day as theyhad been doing for Charlie Brooks forlonger than some of the swamperswanted to remember.The Vallecito desert lay several daysahead, and the great sink that is nowthe Salton Sea. Yu m a lay east, or

north, andweeks back they hadpassedthrough Nogales. Charlie Brooks con-sidered his freighting a profitable busi-ness, but tough on a man.

Now, as the creaking wagons drewnear their night's camp at a fresh waterspring that must have been createdespecially for prospectors and freight-ers, Charlie could hear the men shout-ing to each other. The chuck wagonstood unhitched, gleaming white a-gainst the blackness of a high saw-toothed butte. Charlie did not knowexactly where the Mexican border layperhaps a few miles north yet. Or

Maggie Baker he r grand-father threw gold nuggetsat the mules that pulled thefreight wagons across thedesert.

Charlie Brooks passed a w a yin 1929, butbefore his death hetold his granddaughter about theheavy black rocks which he andswampers of the old Chihua-h u a - t o - L o s A n g e l e s f r e i g h twagons once threw at theirmu les rocks which 40 y ea rsla ter were assayed as gold.Maggie Baker, the granddaugh-ter, believ es therocks were fromPegleg Smith's long lost depositof black nuggets. Here are newclues for the desert prospectorswho ha v e lo ng so ug ht thelegendary Pegleg mine.

his wagons mayhave already crossedit . It really didn't matter.When the last dusty wagon hadgroaned to a stop, the swampers un-hitched the mules and turned themloose for the night. Charlie went withhis men to the chuck wagon and helpedhimself. They ate hungrily, the waymen will who are dog-tired and wantonly to roll up in their soogans.

A good place to cam p ; in fact thebest water south of thesink. The buttemade a fine lookout for spying strayedmules in themorning. Also, there weremany heavy black throwing rocks thesize of walnuts, strangely shaped. Eachtrip his men filled their pockets withthem to heave against the laggardmules in the dreary stretch ahead. Hehimself had kept two of the oddestpebbles for years. No particular rea-son, only he liked them . . . .

Had Charlie Brooks realized then,back in the '70s, that the heavy stoneshis swampers used to speed up theirteams were actually the mysterious"rocks" known today as the Peglegnuggets, he might have shown moreinterest in the location of that saw-toothed butte. But it was 40years be -fore a passing geologist identified thecurious stones for him. Meanwhile,wagon freighting passed with thecoming of railroads and highways.Charlie Brooks is long dead. Butbefore his passing in 1929, he had achance to marvel at the words of thestranger who held the shiny, glazedrocks in his hand ."You must have thrown several for-tunes away," the man said glumlywhen Charlie finished his story.Charlie was 92 then. The old eyesgleamed with interest. "I could findit again," he chuckled, turning towardhis grown granddaughter, Maggie Jack-son. "But wedon't need gold now, do

we Maggie?""I don't guess we do, Grandpa ."The year was 1928, booming high,wide and fancy.Then , a few months before Wall16 THE DESERT MAGAZINE


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Pinyon Mountains, one of the most conspicu ous of the buttes along the old Butter-Held stage route in southern California the route where Maggie Baker's search forthe Lost Pegleg gold will be centered.beef, Charlie Brooks decided

nd Mexican sheepherders. One or twohat covered in an hour what had tak-

It was from a graded highway, thatsummer of 1929, that old Charlieointed out the Pegleg butte to Mag-gie. It stood 9 or 10 miles distant, butis keen blue eyes made out everydetail as he described it to her. "Weused to camp at its base every trip,"he said. "The swampers found someonderful throwing rocks up on thatbutte." He chuckled. "I guess thatfeller that called my stones the Peg-

leg nuggets would like to be alongnow!"Again the day was hot. Maggiewanted to humor her grandfather. Sherealized he had little time left. So shesmiled, nodded her head, and let hereyes return to the highway ahead. Anold man's memories rightly belonged

to the past.It wasn't until 17 years later whenHenry E. W. Wilson's article, LostPegleg Gold is not a Myth, came out inthe November, 1946, issue of DesertMagazine that Maggie (Jackson) Bak-er first learned of the furor over thosefabulous nuggets. Her grandfather hadtold her about "swampers' gold." Whenshe'd read the article through, sheknew, with rising excitement, that shecould go forthwith and lay her handssquarely on the Pegleg fortune.She and her new husband, RileyBaker, were running the Badger Creekservice station four miles southwestof Marble Canyon lodge on U. S.Highway 89. The depression had done

its worst. Money was still scarce. Mag-gie thought ruefully of those fat yearswhen she'd been too rich in cattle towant to bother her head about a fewgold nuggets and an old man's mem-ories. Well, lucky for her, she and Rileywould sally forth and stake the Peg-leg gold!That summer she and Riley exploredthe whole Borrego desert region andthe regions east to Yuma. Before theygave up the search for lack of funds,they had made four trips without suc-cess. They searched the Salton Sea onboth sides. They followed the old But-terfield stage route from Sonora toLos Angeles because it, too, had beenone of Charlie's hard-won trails.Maggie and Riley hunted both sidesof the old Bradshaw road. They madesorties on every byway that mighthave been used for freighting. But 17years can do a lot to a desert road.In planning an intensive new searchnext year, this enterprising Arizonapioneer woman believes now that theblack gold nuggets will not be found

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in the Vallecito area. Except for theButterfield stage route, none of theold jerkline trails passed that way. Itis Maggie's honest opinion that thePegleg gold will be found near Yuma,perhaps in the Chocolate Mountains,but perhaps, too, south of the Inter-national Boundary.Charlie Brooks' usual route lay east

of Yuma along the Gila river to AguaCaliente. By either of two routes, hetraveled to and from his shipping pointin Chihuahua through what is now theOrgan Pipe Cactus National Monu-ment, or via Nogales. The trails rannorth out of Chihuahua, turning west-ward both above and below the Mexi-can line. The country was everywhere

D e s e r t Q u i z Here's another lesson for Desert Magazine'smonthly class in desertology. All the answershave appeared in previous issues of the maga-zine. They include the subjects of geography, history, mineralogy, botany,literature and the general lore of the Southwest. Twelve to 14 correctanswers is fair, 15 or 16 is good, 17 or 18 is excellent. If you get more thanthat you are an S. D. S.Sand Dune Sage. Answers are on page 37.1Stove Pipe wells is a historic watering place inSouthern Nevada Painted Desert Death Valley OnButterfield stage route2Jerky, an important food item for the desert pioneer, is made bydrying brine-soaked meatOver an open fire In the sun In an oven In a smokehouse3To reach Roosevelt dam you would takeCoronado Trail highway Sunkist Trail Apache TrailBroadway of America4The major mineral mined in the area of Gallup, New Mexico, isCoal Silver Lead Tungsten5Among the Navajo a chinde isA medicine man Tool used in making sand paintings Cer-tain type of headdress A devil or evil spirit6San Xavier del Bac Mission is located nearSanta Fe Tucson Casa Grande El Paso7The predominating minerals in granite generally areMalachite and azurite Calcite and lepidolite Manganeseand apatite Quartz and feldspar

8The book, The Romance of the Colorado, was written byDellenbaugh Powell Kolb Freeman9Palo Verde Valley of California is irrigated by water from theMojave River Deep wells The Colorado River Moun-tain reservoirs10Camino is a Spanish word in common use in the Southwest, meaningOxcart River Gold mine Road or highway11The blossom of filaree isPurple White Red Yellow12The buttes known as The Bear's Ears are located inMonument Valley Zion National Park Along the road toNatural Bridges National Monument Tuba City, Arizona13According to Hopi legend the home of the Kachinas is in theUnderworld Grand Canyon San Francisco Peaks TheSun14The Chuckawalla Valley in California is named for a species ofSnake Lizard Bird Stinging insect15If you went to the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona thetribesmen you would find there would beApaches Pimas Papagos Maricopas16Father Garces was killed by the Indians atNeedles Tubac Tucson Yuma17Desert tortoise eggs are laid and hatchedIn the sun In a crevice in the rocks In holes dug by lizardsand rodents Underneath the sand where they are laid and cov-ered by the mother18Major farm crop raised by prehistoric Indians in the Southwest wasCotton Tobacco Corn Beans19Virgin Valley of Nevada is famed among mineral collectors for itsTurquoise Thundereggs Onyx Opals20Geronimo was a famous chieftain of theNavajos Yumas Hopis Apaches

rough, water scarce. The area in whichthe black nuggets were found may befairly large, for Charlie had said thatthe heavy stones were sometimespicked up along a considerable dis-tance of trail.Maggie has tried to determine anaverage day's travel made by the fron-tier freighters. "Some of the old timerssay they made 15 miles a day," sheexplained. "Others brag on 30. I doknow that Grandpa had to carry waterin barrels on the sides of his wagonsalong part of the trail past the Pegleggold. There was one night when theyhad to make a dry camp."Clues to the gold-strewn trail! Mag-gie thinks the Borrego Springs locationas mapped by Norton Allen for Wil-son's article is too far west. In herown mind, she believes that Charlieshowed her the butte somewhere alongthe lower road west of Yuma, and/orsouth."If one could find an old map show-ing the trails, perhaps even the oldPadres' trails," she said thoughtfully,"he might track it down. Perhaps,from a modern topographic map onecould study out the most likely routesthe jerkline skinners would have takenon their way up from Sonora."In the early days Nogales was a logi-cal crossing of the Border. The routesthen were mostly just horse trails, wid-ened here and there as heavy wagonslumbered across the desert wastes. In-dians met along the way would never

tell the location of any gold when theyrecognized it. For some reason theyheld the yellow metal in superstitiousawe. Pegleg himself probably stumb-led onto the black nuggets whilesearching for his own burros yearsbefore the freighters came to use hisspring, and recognized them becauseprospecting was his business.In any case, the existence of the goldnuggets, blackened by desert varnish,is known beyond doubt. Maggie in-tends to find them. She hopes to sellout her Houserock Valley carnotiteclaim (Desert Magazine, August,1949), and plans a full scale searchafter Charlie's ancient trails, water-holes and camps. She is willing toshare her present knowledge withreaders of Desert Magazine, but theywill have to draw their own maps andmake their own deductions.Around the Pegleg butte lies onlyraw desertrough, dry, inhospitable.The ragged knob itself stands clearlyvisible from a modern, well-traveledroad that today may be paved, square-ly on an old trailway that probablycrosses the modern highway in the

vicinity. There, where fresh waterslaked the thirst of his mules and skin-ners, Charlie Brooks and his Mexicanswampers camped so long ago.18 THE DESERT MA GA Z I NE


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Unusual prizes for the rock hunter are these Wonderstone pebbles found alongthe shores of Lake Lahonton, whose waters vanished from northwest Nevadathousands of years ago.W onder Pebblesof Lake LahontonBy HAROLD O. WEIGHTPhotographs by the authorMap by Norton Al len

At some period in the prehistoric past, the waters of an inland seawhich covered parts of Utah and Nevada were creating fantastic rockforms along its shores. The sea has long since disappeared but th erocks are still there. Lucile and Harold Weight recently mapped a trailinto this area which will interest all those who seek new desert regionsto explore.

EASING wearily back in the sad-dle, I. C. Russell searched thebarren hills ahead. His trainedeyes found an endless shallow shelfoutlined by dark roc k. Ab ove it was asecond terrace, then others still higher.Northward along the shelves he saw abluff topped with fantastic greyish tufaform ations. As if his expec tations hadbeen fulfilled, Russell nodded and rodeon across the sterile flats.Through the windy spring of 1881,

the mirage-haunted summer and warmearly fall, Russell zigzagged acrossnorthwestern Nevada and parts of Cal-ifornia and Oregon. Seven months3500 miles in the saddlehe followedhis strange quest. He was an enigmato the wandering Paiutes, for he wasn'tprospecting or hunting game or look-ing for land with water and pasturage.Rather, he sought the most desolatewastelands and followed the most alka-line valleys.They would have felt confirmed intheir belief most white men were crazy

had they known he was tracing out theshorelines of ghostly lakes which hadbeen transmuted to windblown playadust before their ancestors came toM A Y , 1 9 5 0 19


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the desert; that when he studied thenarrow benches he was peering backthrough unknown centuries to see rest-less waves wash pebbles toand froon aforgotten shore; when he lookedat grey tufa precipitated on battlementsof cliffs, hewas seeing wind-harriedbillows roar infrom a vanished seato smash against the rock.Russell was mapping Quaternarylakes of the Great Basin for the UnitedStates Geological Survey. Nevada'sphantom Lake Lahonton, part ofwhose basin is occupied today by Wal-ker, Pyramid and Winnemucca lakes,absorbed most ofhis attention. At itspeak, in the last glacial epoch, Lahon-ton was less than half the size of itsneighbor Lake Bonneville, then flood-ing much of Utah, but itcovered 8922square miles, more than 26 times thepresent area ofLake Tahoe. Its jag-gedly irregular basin, shaped by faulttrough valleys, extended from Oregonsouthward more than 250 miles.No rock-collector, Russell was inter-ested in the region's stones only iftheyhelped him understand the vanishedlake. But Lahonton will reward rock-hound visitors. In atleast one placeits waters quarried a deposit ofthefascinatingly colored andpatternedrock called Nevada Wonderstone androlled the rough pieces into smoothpebbles ready forpolishing.Lucile and I heard ofthe Wonder-stone pebble field when we visited theFarm House, operated by Alfred andHallie Jones atthe junction ofHigh-ways 50and 95, nine miles westofFallon. The Joneses, once members ofthe LosAngeles Lapidary society,

came to Nevada in 1947 to hunt petri-fied wood. The hunting was good andthey thought how pleasant it wouldbe to earn one's living right in collec-ting country. A year later they openedtheir restaurant at the junction.Alfred Jones was not athome, butHallie showed ustheir collection ofrocks and sun-purpled bottles, and toldus oftheir plan toset up a lapidaryshop behind the restaurant. Among therocks were some beautiful specimensof Wonderstone pebbles. They camefrom gravel pits east ofFallon, sheexplained.Back at Fallon, following her direc-tions, we zeroed the speedometer atthe Churchill county courthouse andfollowed Highway 50's erratic coursesouth and east through the town. Thesite ofFallon was under hundreds offeet of water when Lake Lahonton wasfull. Today irrigation has made ittheheart of arich farming, ranching anddairy district, noted for its cantaloupesand bronze turkeys. It also is the homeof the Nevada state fair and of the Fal-lon Rock and Gem club, one ofthemost active societies inNevada.A t 11.5 miles east ofFallon, High-way 50 curves southeast to round bar-ren hills and enter the great chemicalflat which stretches between Salt Wellsand Sand Springs. We turned left fromthe highway onto adirt road at11.6miles, crossed anabandoned stretchof old highway, then kept left past aseries of Y's to round the hills on theirnorth side.

The gentle curve along which wedrove was astrand ofvanished LakeLahonton. Thegrotesque tufa-spattered

little range on our right once had beenan island or apromontory. Its mush-roomed domes andcolumns andsponge-like protuberances proclaimedthe great height towhich thelakewaters once flung their lime-saturatedfoam. But for thousands of years onlythe wind-made ghost sound ofthosewaters had whispered upon this shoreto die, echoing hollowly, inthe cav-erns ofthe lake wall.Our road was good enough now,but hardened clay ruts gave evidenceit would be slippery and treacherousin wet weather. We crossed what evi-dently had been ashallow bay, follow-ed thecurving road southeast andstopped atthe edge of the gravel pits,13.8 miles from Fallon. Asmall coni-cal hill of gravel marked the spot.We found that Hallie Jones had notexaggerated when she spoke of tonsof the pebbles. Although not all ofthem were worth collecting, there wasplenty ofterritory inwhich tohunt.We traced the pebbles along the an-cient shoreline to the north and west,and far up the bay slope to the south.They did, however, seem confined tocertain levels.Some ofthe pebbles were no largerthan peas, yet their designs were com-plete. Many were two inches or morein diameter. They reminded us of thePinto rock popular with collectors whoventure across the Mexican bordertoPinto Mountain inthe Yuha desert,and the Rainbow rock of the SantaRosa Mountains edging Coachella Val-ley. However, those stones were sup-posed to be silicified sandstone, whileNevada Wonderstone has been called

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


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1JPetrified flying saucers? No, these odd stones mushroom from the terrace abovethe Wonderstones, are dendritic tufa deposited around the rocks which oncela y in the shallow waters of Lake Lahonton.

for the Wonder peb-but if they are a silicified sedi-it must be a claystone.Their predominating colorsmahog-y red, red-brown, purple-red, darkand lavenderaren convoluted lines, in the parallelands of an Indian rug, in marbledpatterns. They are curved like the con-tour lines of a map , whorled in concen-tric circles like grotesque eyes, scrawl-ed like the phantasmal creat ions of an"expressionist" painter or encircledwith rhythmic parallel lines that lookedlike the very terraces of the shores wefollowed.These pat terns and colors are themain attractions of the Wonder peb-

bles, and wetting brings both outbrightly. You can conserve your "lick-ing power" in warm weather by usinga can of water to dunk them in. Andyo u can select stones so smooth that

the only polishing needed to makethem attractive cabinet specimens isa vigorous rubbing with waxed breadpaper. We were frankly incredulouswhen Hallie Jones told us she had fin-ished her pebbles that way. But weexperimented in the field and foundpaper-polishing easy and satisfactory.Along with the Wonder pebbles, wefound the tiny pieces of translucentchalcedony andagate which H allie hadcalled moonstones. But the strangestspecimens were those I located as Ihiked up the long gradual slopes todetermine the limits of the Wonderpebble field. They were fat grey disks,singly and in groups, which rangedfrom a few inches to several feet indiameter andwere convex on one side,concave on the other. I hoisted one tomy shoulder and called to Lucile:"Look , I've found a petrified flyingsaucer!"That started her toward my upper

terrace, but soon her progress becamea series of zigzags. When she finallyarrived, her distractions proved tohave been large dark boulders embroi-dered with the mustard, blue-grey andorange of lichens. She hadbeen search-ing for pieces small enough to takehome for arrangements and decorativegarden rocks.The objects I had found did lookmore like a newspaper artist 's sketchof a flying saucer than any propermember of the mineral kingdom. Butcloser inspection showed that appar-ently they hadformed about small rockcenters, having a curious branchingstructure underneath, and we decidedthey must be some kind of tufa. Laterreading of Russell 's Geological Historyof Lake Lahonton, published by theGeological Survey in 1885,convincedus we were right. He wrote that threetypes of tufalithoid, thinolitic, anddendritichad been deposited by the

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lake, andpictured our "saucers" asone sample of thedenditric kind.Russell was not thefirst scientistto recognize thevestiges of the oldlake. Captain James H. Simpson en-tered its basin near Sand Springs,southeast of theWonder pebble field,in 1859 while exploring for a wagonroad between Camp Floyd in theSaltLake Valley and Genoa, Nevada.Henry Engelmann, geologist of theexpedition, noted thewaterlines andlake deposits in hisreport. ClarenceKing's report of thegeology of theFortieth Parallel surveys carried thefirst considerable discussion of La-honton, andKing named it.

But it isRussell, rider of those longghost trails, who will be rememberedas thegodfather of Lake Lahonton.His report stands asthe most completeinvestigation of thelake. It is difficultto imagine aperiod socold the SierraNevadas andUtah's Wasatch Moun-tains were buried under icewhile gla-ciers crowned mountains in centralNevada. But in such a time, Russellbelieved, Lahonton rose to its awe-some bulk, fedprincipally bymeltingsnows and glaciers ofthe Sierras. Thatwas theperiod called Pleistocene, theGlacial agewhich opened ourQuat-ernary era, when cold from thepolarcaps spread four times toward theequator, driving living things beforeit. Lahonton's two high stages, accord-ing toRussell, coincided with thelasttw o iceages inNorth America .

This part of Nevada probably wasat least as arid before the icecameas it istoday. Asthe winters lengthen-ed and thesnow-pack deepened, great

Hallie Jones and her husbandAlfred are such enthusiastic rockcollectors they established a newbusiness inNevada so they couldlive inthe heart of arock hunter'sparadise. Mrs. Jones exhibits afew of the Lahonton Wonder-stones in her collection.streams drained into thebasin. Manylakes rose, crept through valleys andpasses andjoined. Walker andPyra-mid and Winnemucca and Honey lakesbecame one and theflooded CarsonSink and Black Rock desert were con-nected bynarrow straits.The great lake remained at thatlevel with only minor fluctuations for

a long period. Then theinflow drib-bled away and thebasin dried. An-other cold age eventually brought thelake 30feet higher than itsfirst rise.Then thewater retired slowly untilit evaporated completely andmost ofits sediments were buried under newerosion. But thebeach lines, the ter-races where it hesitated for varyingperiods, thetufa formations, remainedalmost unchanged by thearid climateuntil Russell came tochart them out.

The saucers arescattered over theirparticular level in sufficient quantityfor allcollectors who want one. Theyare interesting mineralogical curiosi-ties. There are plenty ofWonderstonepebbles, too. But there is more funin selecting than accumulating in thisfield, and a small sack should holdall you want. Ifyou start alittle beachshrine, those youdiscard may bejustthe ones someone else wants. Or toone physically handicapped forpros-pecting the old shorelines, your monu-ment maybecome a happy huntingground.

When turning over the saucers, keepan eyeopen for scorpions. Alsoyoumay see friendlier inhabitants. Alittlemottled lizard took up hisperch ona nearby rock while wewere havinglunch andstudied usintently. Usuallythese small reptiles are shy butwhenthis one saw hehad caught ouratten-tion, he pattered to within twofeetof me, in themanner of a friendlypuppy, and stared even more intently.Suddenly hemade straight forLucile,stopping even closer toher."Maybe it's his lunchtime," she sug-gested. I tossed him a bit of canned

These gravel pits southeast ofFallon are in thecenter of theWonderstone pebbledeposit. Dark lines on thehill (right) mark some of the oldshoreline terraces ofLahonton.

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22 THE DESERT MAGAZINE


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ish. He dashed wildly for it, but oncontact let us know that it didn't pleasehim. Lucile threw a bit of whole wheatbread. He pounced on that , but thefirst bite decided him against it . Hesimply ignored a dessert of raisins. Soyou too may face the problem of theproper diet for a friendly lizard onWonder Pebble beach.Hallie told us that March, April,May, September and October are thebest months for collecting in the Fal-lon region. The September day wewere there was ideal. The sun wasstill high, the air pleasant, when westarted back toward the highway withall the pebbles we wanted.The cliffy little range to the southreminded us that there were Indiancaves in the Fallon area, and when alittle track branched toward the hillswe followed it almost to the base ofth e bluff. Hiking over the rough and

MOTORLOG00.0 Churchill county courthouse,Fallon. Follow highway 50south and then east throughFallon and toward Austin.11.5 Highway swings so ut he a staround range of hills.11.6 Tu rn left, leaving highway fordirt road. Cross section of oldhighway and continue north ofeast to keep north of rangeof hills. Many roads cut tothe right from this dirt roadbut keep left to:13.8 Grave l pits. Park car and huntfor wonderstone pebbles, tufa"saucers" and small agates onsurrounding slopes and flats.broken slope to the cliff, we came uponwhat at first appeared to be only ahigh, shallow open cave. But at theback a low opening entered the cliff,and a flashlight beam showed it contin-ued some distance. Lying flat on my

stomach, I could just wiggle through,and in a moment I stood up in an innercave. It was not large, but the ceilingwas high and a crude stick ladder ofmodern design suggested there mightbe an extension higher up.I was fascinated by the glisteningblack of the limestone walls. If theblack was caused by smoke, many anancient fire must have burned there.Modern visitors had left many traces,but there was no other visible evidenceof early inhabitants until I crawledback to daylight. There Lucile pointedout faded red pictographs on the opencave roof. Later on the slope below,we found a scraper and chippings ofthe Wonderstone we had been collec-ting.Such an ideal refuge against stormand cold must have been occupiedearly. Ma n is known to have livedclose to the ice sheets in Europe, but

This monumen t to Gold Rush im migrants alon g the old Overland trail 8.1 m ileswest of Fallon on Highway 50-95, marks the western end of the dread FortyMile desert, one of the arid basins of vanished Lake Lahonton .

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until recently anthropologists question-ed such a possibility in America. LakeLahonton certainly would have attract-ed any humans that existed nearby,but the cave would have been underwater at the lake's height. Materialfound in the excavation of Lovelockcavea similar cave residence nearLake Lahonton has been identifiedas belonging to a primitive Basket-Maker type, estimated to have livedthere first about 1000 B. C.We climbed a steep faint trail to thecliff-top above the cave. Looking outover part of the vast Lahonton basin,we could see the old water lines sharp-

ly clear against the raw hills and touchthe strange tufa formations which thespray of lost centuries had deposited.Heated air rising from the basin floorblurred its outline until the flats rippledand shone like distant waters. Shallowghost waters, only a reminder of theinland sea which rolled here whenmastodon and primitive camel andsloth and nightmare-toothed tiger fedand hunted along its coasts, and distanticefields chilled the air.The lake which was the only realityto them is a fantastic mirage to us. Weaccept climate as a relatively unchang-ing background to our existence. We

O F D E A T H V A L L E YA dust-covered coupe rolledto a stop in front of the Infernostore and two men got out andsauntered over to the benchwhere Hard Rock Shorty wasdozing in the mid-winter sun."We're from Davenport, Iowa,"one of the strangers explained."Finished harvestin' the corntwo weeks ago and decided tocome out and see the West."Hard Rock grunted an ac-knowledgment of the introductionand reached for his corncob pipe."Guess this pipe musta comefrom Ioway, too," he remarked.Shorty pulled down the brim ofhis hat and closed his eyes. Theconversation was ended as far ashe was concerned. But the strang-ers wanted to talk."Too bad all this land goin'to waste," one of them said."Won't nothin' grow here?""Growin'est place you eversaw," replied Shorty. "All it

needs is water."The tourist looked out overthe barren floor of Death Valley.Obviously he was skeptical."D'yuh ever see corn grow 30feet high?" Shorty asked. Then,before the stranger could replyhe went on."Well, it grows bigger'n thatover around the spring in Hay-field canyon on th' other sideo' the valley. That's where mypartner Pisgah Bill tried farmin'a few years ago."Bill planted sweet corn. Hewuz developin' a lead mine near

there and figgered he jes as wellgrow some o' his own grub. Butby the time the corn wuz ripethe stalks wuz so high he hadto use a stepladder to bring theears down. He planted pole beansalong with the corn, and the onlyway he could get the beans wuzto shoot 'em down with a .22rifle. Ladder wuzn't long enough."Bill didn't like that kindafarmin'. Too much work. So nextyear he planted potatoes. Butthem taters got so big theycrowded each other right out o'the ground. Bill lived all summeron one hill o' spuds. They wuztoo big to pack out on the bur-ros, so most of 'em went towaste."Next year Bill planted mostof his patch to alfalfa. 'The bur-ros'll have a good feast this year,'he explained."Worked fine 'til hot weathercame. All the burros in DeathValley flocked in here to feed inBill's alfalfa field. Then one daythe temperature went up to 120degrees and the alfalfa startedgrowin' so fast the burros could-n't keep up with it."When Bill come down thetrail from his mine that evenin'about sundown there wuz 17 bur-ros all tangled up in the tops ofthem alfalfa stalks 22 feet abovethe ground. They wuz brayin'and kickin'. Took Bill two daysan' a night and he broke threeaxe handles choppin' down thealfalfa stalks to keep them bur-ros from dyin' o' thirst."

praise it or complain about itbut weexpect our desert to remain desert.But will it? J. C . Jones of the Univer-sity of Nevada, studying Lahontonmany years ago, estimated that adoubled annual rainfall would fill thegreat lake againand what can weknow of tomorrow's weather? Perhapssome day instead of making giganticefforts to conserve water in the West,the nation will be fighting against itsabundance.The dead lakes of the West alreadyhave influenced our national past. Ifyou will stop by the south side of High-way 50 and 95, 8.1 miles west of thecourthouse in Fallon, you will see abeautifully appropriate little monumentwith this inscription: "Ragtown Cross-ing. Dedicated to those pioneers whosedetermination brought them across theForty Mile desert to this spot andsweet water."The dread Forty Mile desert waspart of the arid bed of Lake Lahonton.Possibly you cannot find the site ofRagtown itself, today, but early v isitorstell of a burial ground there with 200graves, many those of women, andmore of children. They were brokenby the toil of the barren trail, by badwater, starvation, disease. You cansay, justly, that they died becausecenturies before a lake had died andleft its stripped skeleton across theirpath. The Donners reached the Sierraslate and perished in the snow becausethey had been slowed by the salt des-erts of Lake Lahonton and Bonneville.

Today Lahonton seems a peacefulghost. You will come to no harm ifyou visit it prepared against ordinarydesert dangers. The beautiful pebbles,mementos of the land's strange past,will repay your visit. But to many thereward will be the thrill of standing onan ancient beachline in the silent, sun-lit desert when a sudden rush of windrecreates the pulse of rolling waters.When far above you see terraces wavesonce cut and, with new windows open-ing, your mind gropes towards a com-prehension of myriad wonders and in-credible antiquity of the world we pre-tend is ours.S O C I E T Y M A Y E X C A V A T ETHREE ARIZ ONA SITESArizona's Yavapai County Archeo-logical society is awaiting permissionfrom Washington before starting ex-cavation of three sites located in theGroom Creek area. Application forpermission to excavate was made byH. R. Crittendon of the group's sur-vey committee. Acting Director E. B.Sayles of the Arizona State Museum,Tucson, is assisting the society by pro-viding information on methods of mak-ing an archeological survey.

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Pittune* *t tieW inner of first prize in Desert's M arch photo con-test is Andrew Crofut, Reno, Nevada, with thishappy portrait of Indian papoose and mother.

Picture was taken with a 3V4 x 414 Model BGraflex with Agfa Super Pan portrait film pack,1/50 sec. at f.ll.

6*ieadOn the Papago reservationof southern A rizona the crudetools of the ancients grad-

ually are giving way to thelabor-saving inventions ofthe white man. It wa s simpleand inexpensive to replacethe stone metate with thehandmill for grinding grain.But threshing machines aremore costly, and the Papagowoman below is shelling herbeans as did her ancestorswith a flail. The lower pic-ture, taken by Carson V. Ry-an of Sells, Arizona, wasawarded second prize inMarch contest. Taken with aRollieflex before noon, f.ll.


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Morgan Will Appreciate This . . .Santa Fe, New MexicoDesert:When may Desert readers expect an-other of those fine stories by MorganMonroe?I have just finished reading "Broth-ers in an Ancient Faith" in your Aprilmagazine. It is by far the best andmost absorbing story you have pub-lished this year. The same was truelast year with two stories by this samewriter. I cannot recall the titles butone described a trip through the Navajocountry and the other was the besthistorical analysis of radioactive min-eral prospecting and mining in theSouthwest I have ever seen in a popu-lar magazine. I felt they were yourtwo top stories of 1949.Many of us knew Mr. Monroe whenhe was managing editor of the DurangoHerald-Democrat, and when I was for-merly located over in the San JuanBasin country of New Mexico and Col-orado we waited impatiently for hisexcellent Sunday feature stories in that

newspaper. His penchant for accuracyin his work always commanded ourrespect. Coupled with his ability tomake any subject interesting and ab-sorbing this, in my opinion, makes arare combination in times when slip-shod writing is seen in some of ourlargest newspapers and magazines.Now, when may we expect anotherstory by Mr. Monroe in Desert? Can't

you arrange for him to write for youmonthly? Let's have more of them.By the way, where is he these days?Haven't seen him in two years.W. R. JAMESMorgan is now manager of theGallup, New Mexico, chamber ofcommerce. It is a busy job, buthe has promised to spend his off-duty hours preparing more stories_for Desert readers. R. H. Credit to Dr. Colton . . .Altadena, CaliforniaDesert:Thanks for printing the report ofthe Wetherill Memorial Committee.It was very generous of Dr. Coltonto list the full committee but I wouldlike to state that full credit for theproject should go to Dr. Colton. Hereally did practically all the work. .HARRY C. JAMES

Pictures of the M onth . . .Again in May, Desert Magazine staff invites all photographers

to participate in a competitive contest for the best pictures of themonth. The contest is limited to desert photographs, but covers a widerange of subjectslandscapes, wildlife, rock formations, mining andprospectors, human interest, Indians, or any phase of life on the desertor natural landscape. Following are the rules governing the contest:Entries for the May contest must be in the Desert Magazineoffice. Palm Desert, California, by May 20, and the winning printswill appear in the July issue. Pictures which arrive too late for onemonth's contest are held over for the next month. First prize is $10;second prize $5.00. For non-winning pictures accepted for publication$3.00 each will be paid.

HERE ARE THE RULES1Prints for monthly contest must be black and white. 5x7 or larger, printedon glossy paper.2Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as to subject, time andplace. Also technical data: camera, shutter speed, hour of day, etc.3PRINTS WILL BE RETURNED WHEN RETURN POSTAGE IS ENCLOSED.4All entries must be in the Desert Magazine office by the 20th of the contestmonth.5Contests are open to both amateur and professional photographers. DesertMagazine requires first publication rights only of prize winning pictures.6Time and place of photograph are immaterial, except that it must be from thedesert Southwest.7Judges will be selected from Desert's editorial staff, and awards will be madeimmediately after the close of the contest each month.

Address All Entries to Photo Editor^edent 79Cafaft*te PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIADesert's Annual Cover Contest Wil l Be In June

26

The Destroyers . . .Las Vegas, NevadaDesert:I am enclosing some snap shotsshowing the manner in which Nevada'sValley of Fire is being neglected andmutilated. It often happens that Joshuatrees and other yuccas are cut downto decorate the store windows in town,and then hauled off to the dump. It ishard to understand the short-sighted-ness of so-called businessmen who dothis kind of thing to a landscape whichis their biggest business asset.

CLAUDE HAGGERTYAnyway, the Meaning is Clear . . .Los Angeles, CaliforniaDesert:In your April issue of Desert youquoted the camping motto of my son,Everett, "Where I go I leave no sign."If you will check back on the originalpublication from Everett's writings Ithink you will find the quotation prop-erly should be, "When I go I leave notrace."

You suggested this may have beenof Indian origin. I am inclined to be-lieve it is of Boy Scout origin, but sofar I have been unable to confirm thisconclusion.CHRISTOPHER RUESSLubbock, TexasDesert:In your story about the AnnualLiar's contest you quoted C. E. Utt'sstory about coyotes catching fish withtheir "tales." Do they also gather for aLiar's Contest? This would surely bean amazing feat!LILLIE L. DEIMLERAnything can happen at a Liar'sContest.R. H.

INDIANS EMPLOYED TOHELP TAKE CENSUSFor the first time, Indians themselvesare taking the census on reservationlands. In a joint announcement, theBureau of the Census and the Bureauof Indian Affairs said trained Indiansare among the 150,000 enumeratorsand crew leaders who on April 1 be-gan the 17th decennial census of theUnited States. Of the estimated 150,-000,000 people in this country, some400,000 are counted

Documents

195005 Desert Magazine 1950 May