195610 Desert Magazine 1956 October

8/14/2019 195610 Desert Magazine 1956 October

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P r o s p e c t o rNow retired from active pros-pecting, veteran Arizona miner,Dave Gutierrez, now cam ps acrossthe street from themine museumin Jerome, Arizona, and collectssmall fees from tourists for posing

for pictures. Thepicture by L. D.Schooler of Blythe, California,wa s aw ard ed first prize inDesert'sAugust contest. Camera data:Rolleicord camera, f. 16, 1/100second on Plus-X film.

P i c t u r e s o ft h e M o n t h

;iV. !0>~:3piiiK-f\Y.

E l C o y o t eThis desert singer w as photographed byAdrianAtwater of Carson City, Nevada, and is thismonth's second prize winner. Raised from a pupby a local rancher, thecoyote occasionally isusedas a hunting hound. Photograph was taken with a4x5 Speed Graphic, Tri-X film, 1/50second at f. 32.

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D E S E R T C R L E I I D R RSeptember 29-October 7New Mex-ico State Fair, Albuquerque.Early OctoberAnnual Aspen TrailCaravan from Flagstaff, Arizona.October 3-4Ranchos de Taos, NewMexico, Candlelight Procession.October 3-4Feast Day of St. Fran-cis de Assissi, Santa Fe, N. M.October 3-7San Bernardino CountyFair, Victorville, California.October 4Annual Fiesta andDance,Nambe Indian Pueblo, N. M.October 5-6Square Dance Festival,Ogden, Utah.October 7Annual Colorado RiverMarathon, 100 mile boat race,Needles, California.October 9-13Eastern New MexicoState Fair and Rodeo, Roswell.October 10-14Graham County Fair,Safford, Arizona.October 11-14Sixth Annual DesertEmpire Fair, Ridgecrest, Calif.October 11-14 Tri-State Fair andKids' Rodeo, Deming, New Mexico.October 11-14Cotton Carnival, LasCruces, New Mexico.October 12-13Third Annual Colo-rado River Cruise, Blythe, Calif.October 13-14Tri-City Sports CarGymkana, Ely, Nevada.October 14Aspencades from Ala-mogordo, Santa Fe, Taos and otherNew Mexico communities.October 18-21Covered Wagon Dazeand Annual Pegleg Smith Liar'sContest, Borrego Springs, Calif.October 18-21 Old Timers' Days,Hidalgo County Fair and Sheriff'sPosse Rodeo, Lordsburg, N. M.October 20-21 Annual AmericanLegion Helzapoppin Rodeo, Buck-eye, Arizona.October 20-21 Blythe, California,Rodeo.October 21-27 Southwestern CattleFestival, Clovis, New Mexico.October 25-28Pima County Fair,Tucson, Arizona.October 26-2817th Annual Inter-national Desert Cavalcade, Imper-ial, California.October 27'49ers Celebration, So-corro, New Mexico.October 27-28 San Diego CountyRidgerunners' First State JeepCruise from Desert Center to ElCentro, California. This is a neworganization. For further informa-tion write Arthur G. Thomas, 1040N. Magnolia, El Cajon, California.October 31Nevada Day, 1864 Balland Parade, Carson City.October 31Annual Chaves CountyYouth Parade, Roswell. N. M.

V o l u m e 19 O CTO BER, 1956 N u m b e r 10CO VERP H O T O G R A P H YC A L E N D A RPUBLIC LANDLO ST MINEAR TFIELD TRIPH ISTO RYN A T U R ETRUE ORF ALSEN A T U R EPOETRYEXPERIENCEF ICTIO NG A R D E N I N GC O N T E S TLETTERSCLO SE-UP SN E W SM I N I N GU R A N I U MH O BBYLAPIDARYC O M M E N TB O O K SPRE-HISTORY

Sunset among the Organ Pipes of Southern ArizonaBy JOSEF MUENCH

Pictures of the Month 2October events on the desert 3Navy Landgrab in Nevada's Black Rock Country

By NELL MURBARGER 4Lost Jesuit Mine with the Iron Door

By DONALD PAGE 11Desert Christ ParkA Shrine to BrotherhoodBy HOWARD D. CLARK 13Treasure Trails in Old SuperstitionBy HAROLD O. WEIGHT 15Good Springs, NevadaBy WALTER FORD 20Midgets of the Desert World

By EDMUND C. JAEGER 21A test of your desert knowledge 22Wings in Saguaroland

By JOHN L. BLACKFORD 24The Desert Rat and other poems 26I Remember MaggieBy RUBY ROBISON 27Hard Rock Shorty of Death Val ley 28Plans and Plantings in October for Lovely

Flowers in Spring, by RUTH REYNOLDS . . 29Picture-of-the-Month Contest announcement . . 30Comment from Desert's Readers 31About those who write for Desert 32From here and there on the desert 33Current news of desert mines 37Latest developments in the Industry 38Gems and Minerals 40Amateur Gem Cutter, by DR. H. C. DAKE . . . 45Just Between You and Me, by the Editor . . . 46Reviews of Southwestern Literature 47Mesa Verde, by JOHN L. BLACKFORDBack Cover

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 postoffice at Palm Desert,California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No. 358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1956 by the Desert Press, Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, EditorHESS STACY, Business Manager EUGENE L. CONROTTO, Associate EditorKVONNE RIDDELL, Circulation ManagerUnsolicited 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 preceding issue.

SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne Year $4.00 Two Years $7.0(1Canadian Subscriptions 25c Extra, Foreign 50c Extra

Subscriptions to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed in Conformity WithV. O. D. Order No. 19687

Address Correspondence to Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, CaliforniaTOB ER, 1956


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Why isn't it possible for the Army, Navy and Air Force to socoordinate their training maneuvers that they can use the same gunneryand bombing ranges? Why does each branch of the service have itsown private shooting grounds when, if war comes, they will have tooperate as a coordinated unit? These are questions being asked inNevada where theNavy proposes to seize another 2,800,000 acres in theBlack Rock country in addition to the huge areas already reserved foraerial gunnery and bombing practice. The Black Rock landgrab willwork so great an injustice on so many people that Desert Magazineasked Nell Murbarger to visit the area and report her findings. Hereis herstory.By NELL MURBARGERPhotographs by the authorMap by Norton Allen

(T) Black Rock Desert Bombing Range.2) Black Rock Extension.3) Sahwave Gunnery Range.4) Sahwave Gunnery Range Extension.

KEEPUS

B O M B I N Gm

Acreages: (1)Black Rock Desert Bombing range 272,000; (2) Black Rockextension 1,372,160; (3) Sahwave Gunnery range 547,906; (4) Sahwaveextension 654,720. Total 2,846,786 acres.

PUBLIC opinion raisesits voice in protest beforeCon-gress reconvenes in January, theBlack Rock country of northwesternNevada is doomed.When I heard that the Navy wasplanning to convert the Black Rock-Sahwave Mountains region into a 2,-846,786-acre gunnery range, I refusedto believe such a thing could be pos-sible. Previous land seizures by thearmed forces had not affected me toomuch, personallybut this time theshoe really pinched, for theBlack Rockis a land that lies close to myheart!

My liking for this strange, remotearea stems chiefly, I suppose, from thefact that it is still much like the OldWest of pioneer times.It has been cattle country for morethan 100 years, and great herds ofwhite-faced Herefords, and thousandsof sheep, owned by 50 individualranchers, still graze its open range.Its canyons and mile-high valleys stillabound in antelope and deer, and sagechickens, and even a few wild horses.Most important of all, thefolkswholive in the Black Rock still extend thewarm hospitality for which the earlyWest wasfamous. At one time or an-other I have eaten or slept at nearlyevery ranch in northwestern Nevada;and until 1949,when the Navy beganmoving into this region and posting itwith Keep Out signs, I don't recallever having seen a trespass notice inall the 10,000 square miles betweenPyramid Lake and the Oregon line.Hunters, campers, prospectors, rock-houndsany decent person hasalwaysbeen welcome in the Black Rock.

And then to learn that theNavyhadfiled application for withdrawal of thisarea for use as a gunnery range fromwhich all civilians would be excludedexcept at certain prescribed times andunder special permit, was not a pleas-ant prospect for contemplation.DESERT MAGAZINE

Navy Landgrab in Nevada ' sB l a c k R o c k C o u n t r y


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Quaking aspen s of Los t Creek Ca nyon make thi s ade l ight ful oasis which is alway s an inv i tat ion to campe rs. There a re man y scen ic vi s tas in the Black Rock Countryi nc luding spec tacular Mahogany Can yon shown ab ove .Not even in a land as large as the

of persons . How man y would be

Bureau of Land Management, for

Revi ew-Miner .

From these several sources I learned

Included among those who had gone

the chambers of commerce of

Farm Bureau, Nevada-California Land-owners Association, Nevada State Min-ing Council, The Western MiningCouncil , Nevada Fish and Game Com-mission, sportsmen's clubs in the threeaffected counties and California, Gov-ernor Charles F. Russell, Nevada Statelegislature, and both of Nevada'sUnited States senators.By this time I was convinced thatthe Navy's impending grab was as un-popular with the average Nevadan aswith myself. But I still didn't knowthe most important thing of all.What did the people most affectedthink about itthe ones who wereslated to lose their ranches and mines,their homes? There was only one wayto find out.Putting a can of water and somecamping gear in my car, I headed forthe Black Rock.One hundred miles northeast ofReno, the oiled portion of State Route34 trickles to a stop in the gypsum-mining town of Gerlach, population200 . This is the taking-off point forthe condemned area. From here toDenio, on the Nevada-Oregon line176 miles by way of Routes 34 and8-Athere is not one mile of pave-ment, one postoffice, or gasoline sta-

tion; yet this is far from being waste-land. Spread over all this remote areaare cattle and sheep ranches rangingin size from 200 to 19 ,495 acres. One

of these ranches is owned by myfriends, Dave and Bernice Iveson, andit was at their home that I made myfirst stop on this journey of inquiry.Dave and Bernice have a w ell-tendedranch of 1000 acres of fenced anddeeded land, in addition to their rangerights on the public domain. No t oneacre of that ranch was handed to themon a silver platter, nor improved withmoney that came easily. Everythingthey have done to enhance the value oftheir property has been accomplishedthe hard way with long hours oflabor, and honest human sweat.Included among these improvementshas been the clearing, leveling andbringing under irrigation of 220 acresof land from which, each year, theyharvest bountiful yields of alfalfa,wheat, barley and rye.The Ivesons have stout barns andoutbuildings, and a comfortable homeset in a grove of big cottonwoods.Across one corner of their front yardripples a small but perpetual streamof water, from which they irrigateflowers and shrubbery, an immensevegetable garden, and an orchard ofapricots, apples, pears, peaches, plums,currants, and other fruits suited tothis high elevation and northerly lati-tude . Th e stream also irrigates theircalf pasture, which supports about asmany wild deer as it does domesticanimals, Almost any morn ing, winter

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fill

. . .

77z Soldier Meadows ranch home of Mr. and Mrs. Wesley Fick, was bui l tto harmon ize with the original bui ldings er ected on the ranch in thel860s.Poplar s shad ing the house were plan t ed 85 year s ag o.or summer, it is possible to see deergrazing less than 100 yards from thefront door of their house.Dave was at the "lower" ranch har-vesting hay but Bernice made me wel-come. Our talk, for awhile, concernedeveryday affairsthe school progressand health of their two boys and twogirls, condition of the range, and mild-ness of the winter past. An d then Ibrought the conversation around tothe subject of the landgrab.

"What do you hear about it?" askedBernice, her face suddenly reflectingworry and strain. "C an they reallymak e us leave here? This is our hom ewe wouldn't know where to go if wehad to leave here. We've just nevergiven any thought to living anywherebut in the Black Rock country . . ."I knew wha t she mean t. I knew thather grandparents had settled in the

Black Rock 80 years ago; that hermother had been born there, and thatBernice, herself, had been born at thesouth end of the Black Rock . I alsoknew that Dave's father had settled inthis vicinity in 1906, and that Dave,too, had been bora here and had livedhere all his life."We hadn't heard anything aboutlosing our ranch until one day a Renoreal estate man and a Navy man droveinto our lower ranch in a pickup andsat in the seat for a couple of minutes,glancing around, and then drove out,"said Bernice. "Nex t, they came uphere, to our home place, and did thesame thing. When they started to]eave here, without saying anything, I

intercepted them and asked if theywere looking for Dave." 'We're appraising your prop erty, 'said the Reno man. 'The Navy's goingto take it. ' Th at was all the informa-tion he would give. When I asked ifhe didn't want to talk to Dave andlearn about our water rights, and graz-ing rights, and things of that sort, hesaid, 'No.'"We still don't have any idea whatappraisal he put on our ranch, norwhat we can expect. . ."

Later that afternoon I talked withDave Iveson. When I remarked thatthey had a fine looking ranch, Daveagreed. "It looks all right, now," hesaid. "Bu t if you don't keep workingat it everlastingly, a ranch soon beginsto run down. Th at's what is going tohap pen he re. I don 't feel justified inputting any more expense on the place,only to have the Navy take it awayfrom us . . . so I find myself failing tofix the fences, postponing repairs onthe house and barns. I intended toclear more land this year and put it incrop; but with this threat hanging overus, I'm completely at sea. I do n't knowwhat to do . . ."

From the Iveson ranch I drove upthe draw five miles to John Welch's.John is an elderly bachelor, soft-spok en, and scholarly. He lives in aneat, two-bedroom dwelling, and runsabout 125 head of stock."The Navy hasn't even contactedme," he said. "Of course, I'm only asmall operator, but this is my homeand my only source of livelihood; so

I feel that their representatives at leastshould have come to see me . . ."John is well informed on the sub-ject of Nevada history, and it wasn'tlong before our conversation driftedaround to pioneer times in the BlackRock."Men have been fighting to win thisland for 100 years," said John Welch."First, they had to fight bands of rene-gade Indians who periodically wenton rampages, killed settlers and burnedtheir hom es. For years, there was theever-present spectre of drouth andalways there was the problem of inac-cessibility. Even as late as the 1 920s,many roads in the Black Rock wereso bad it was impossible to get evena truck over them, and it was still nec-essary for us to haul our supplies withfreight wagons and 16-mule teams."But, eventually, we got a good,graveled, all-weather road through thearea. We built dam s and drilled wells

so we didn't have to worry about dryyears. We cleared land so we couldraise our own winter feed; and finallywe got our land fenced, and got somedecent quarters built . . . And now,they say we're going to lose it all."What'll become of us old fellows?We're too old to start from scratchsomewhere elsewhere will we go?"It was a proper question, but notone that I could answer.On the morning of the second day,I continued on north toward the oldmining camp of Leadville.It seemed to me that in all the yearsI had known this land, I had neverseen it so beautiful. The air was clearand cool, every hill and canyon wasas sharply defined as if it were etchedwith a knife. Th e sage that blank etedthese mile-high valleys was all aglowwith bright new growth. Turkey m ul-lein was sending its yellow stalks aloftfrom the soft dust at the roadside, andall the slopes were smudged with theblue and red and gold of wild flowers.A flock of 16 sage chickens spranginto flight from beside the road; a cot-

tontail hopped across in front of mycar.Then as I topped the hill and startedacross the flat near the head of Lead-ville Canyona band of 14 antelopesfeeding peacefully not more than 100yards from my road! There were threefawns in the bunchthe others weremainly does whose young were prob-ably still hid-out in the covering sage.The trim little animals didn't movefor several moments after I stoppedthe car to watch them; and when theyfinally took their departure, it was atan unhurried trot, with frequent haltsto turn and stare back at me.My way led past the pertified sequoiaforest set aside last year by NevadaD E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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preservation as a state park . In-

(Deser t Mag-July, 195 1.) I wondered how

I passed the turn-off road to Lostanyon , where a delightful grovef water. This and Grass Val-

After traveling for nearly 70 miles

Soldier Meadows is a fine old ranchplanted 85 years ago, sets a greatand pole corrals. These buildings,

hes of the far-flung Miller & Lu xOne of the old Fort McGarry build-

beef-"I didn't want to come here, at

nd I was terrified by the prospect of

here we could obtain more than thebare essentials of life. It wasn 't easygrowing accustomed to this sort ofisolation, but, in time, I came to ac-cept it. A nd , finally, I grew to love it!

Dave and Bernice Iveson, s econd and thi rd genera t ion ranchers i n theBlack Rock country, and three of their four chi ldren, Lesl ie , Zelma, andDean . A n older g i r l was awa y a t Bibl e school , in Reno.Now, when I have to go to the city forsome reason, I can't get back here fastenough! All the while I'm away, I'mthinking about Soldier Meadowsitspeace and quiet, and the clear, crispair, and the hills . . ."

The Ficks are the largest residentoperators in the Black Rock country.They have 1000 acres cleared, underirrigation and in crop, and this yearwill cut and bale around 1500 tons ofhay. ("Yo u should have seen our firstcutting of alfalfa, this year," said Mrs.Fick. "I t stood breast-high to a tallman . . .") At one time the Fickswere offered $450,000 for their ranch,but did not sell."So far." said Mrs. Fick, "we have

put back into the ranch every pennywe have taken outand more, too.And now, just as it was beginning tolook as if we might realize some return

from our investment, the Navy saysthey are going to take it for a gunneryrange.I remained overnight at SoldierMeadows, and early next morningsmarted down the valley toward theranch owned by Vern and Ruth Par-man. I was traveling, now, through aland rich in historic memories.

As at other ranches in the BlackRock country, I found men of theParman ranch busy with their summerhaying. Driving into the yard, I hadbarely halted my car in the shade ofa honey-locust tree when a gray-hairedwoman called a hearty greeting fromthe open barn door.Ruth was born in the Black Rock

country. Vern Parm an came to thisarea about 30 years ago and Ruth andVern were married in middle life. To -gether they acquired a run-down ranchO C T O B E R , 1 9 5 6


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and were building it up and were get-ting it in good condition when theDepression struck. With ewes drop-ping from $12.50 to $1.25each, theParmans went broke, lost the ranch,took a deficiency jud gm ent, andwalkedoff the place with little more thanthe clothes on their backs.But theBlack Rock breeds a strongrace of menand womenand Vern

and Ruth Parman started all overagain, living in a tent, doing all theirown ranch work, and slowly buildingup another flock of sheep."We're doing all right now," saidthe gray-haired Ruth . "Ou r long yearsof work are beginning to pay off. Butif the Navy takes our place whatthen? Wh ere will we go? We're tooold to start again from scratchclear-ing sagebrush and drilling wells, andbuilding barns, and fencing. We can' tdo it at our age . . . and even if wewere young enough to start over andbuild up another ranch, what assur-

ance would we have that in 10 or 20years the Navy, or some other branchof the military, wouldn't come andtake that ranch, too? Where is it allgoing to end?"I couldn't tell her.Nine miles south of the Parmanhome is the ranch operated by agingGrover Jackson and his son, Andrew.Grover Jackson is a short, wiry man,with gray hair, a dusty white stubble ofbeard half-masking a wind-weatheredface, andeyes that are still bright andvitally alive. He and his forebearshave lived in theWest for thepast 107years ."There's four generations of Jack-sons buried in the old graveyard atPortola," said Grover. "And now Ihear they're figuring to build a bigdam on the Feather River that willflood the cemetery . . . Seems as if thegovernment's bound to get us Jacksonsif not one way, then another!"

The Jacksons have a good payingranch, with an abundance of artesianwaterthe three wells they have drilledflowing 2200 gallons a minute."It 's a good ranch," said Mr. Jack-son. "Yet, strangely enough, I'll feelalmost as bad about leaving thesemountains as I will losing my ranch!O ne of my greatest pleasures in lifehas been prowling over these oldhills,"he went on. "I'veprospected for min-eral, andhunted deer, and agates, andfossils, and Indian relics. I've tracedout all the old covered wagon trails,and located emigrant campsites . . .and emigrant graves."The old man's eyes had been fast-ened hungrily on the rocky Calicosbordering his ranch on the west; andnow he turned to the color-blotchedHarlequin hills lying across a narrow

arm of the Black Rock desert, to theeast."I do n' t quite know what I'll dowithmyself if they take these mountainsaway from me . . ."With a view toward checkmatingopposition to their projected "grab,"spokesmen for the Navy have pointedout repeatedly that their intended gun-nery practice will not interfere withcattle grazing in the Black Rock-Sah-wave area.

In my tour of the threatened area,however, I asked each rancher, in turn,if he thought it would be feasible tocontinue ranging cattle under condi-tions laid down by the Navy.From each rancher, in turn, I re-ceived the same answer: "No!"In its original proposal to stockmen,

Grover Jackson , p ionee r r ancher ofthe Black Rock Country .the Navy offered to desist firing for aweek in thespring andanother week inthe fall so that ranchers might puttheir cattle on therange andtake themoff. Later, in response to a flood ofprotests, thegrace period was increasedto a month each in the spring and fall,with Saturdays and Sundays availablefor inspection of forage and water re-sources, resupplying salt, brandingcalves, and caring for such other mat-ters as might arise. But, despite thesemore liberalized terms, I found residentstockmen of the area agreed that cattleranching, under such conditions, wouldbe impractical if not completely im-possible."They seem to think all a man hasto do is to turn a bull and some cowson the range and wait for the calvesto grow into beefsteaks," said DaveIveson. "Maybe it can be done thatway in the Pentagon . . . but it's notso simple under desert conditions, innorthwestern Nevada!"F or one thing, the Navy says we

won't be permitted to enter the areato harvest crops, sowhere are we sup-posed to get our hay? With alfalfaselling for $35 a ton, plus freight, wecan't afford to buy i tand at this ele-vation andlatitude, livestock can't sur-vive thewinters without being fed." No ," he declared. "I won't evenattempt to range cattle under Navyrestrictions . . ."With myfour-day tour of the BlackRock ranches completed, I returnedto Gerlach, refilled my gasoline tankand water can, and headed for theSahwavesite of a majority of the1751 mining claims including 142 pat-ented claims, included within the land-grab.This was a different proposition thanthe Black Rock, since the 1,202,626acres embraced within the Sahwavearea had already been granted to theNavy by the Senate Armed ServicesCommittee on June 28, 1956. Butalthough that date was nearly two

weeks in the past at time of my visit,I found everyone still in a state ofcomplete confusion."We understand we're not includedin the 'grab' ," said L. C. Donnelly,caretaker for the Double-0 Timberand Mining company property at theold placer gold camp of Rabbithole."But, of course," he added, "we don' tknow for sure . . . "The same uncertainty wasexpressedby Bob Chandler, lifelong miner andresident in the Rosebud Canyon areasince 1947."I haven't been able tolearn whethermy property is inside or outside theboundaries," said Bob. "I own 10placer gold claims here, and havecheck stubs to show that I've spentmore than $10,000 developing them.I also have four claims of rutile orecarrying 3.95 per cent ti tanium4,-000,000 tons of it, engineers estimate.But I'm not inproduction, and I'm toldthat theNavy won't pay for anyminesnot actually operating . . . So I don' tknow where I stand!""We took $3500 worth of concen-

trates from our tungsten property inonly 26 days, recentlyyet the Navyrefuses to recognize it as a workingmine," said E. K. Farnham, who, withMrs . Farnham, has spent thepast sev-eral years building a comfortable campand developing a scheelite mine atPorter Springs, near the west base ofthe Seven Troug hs range. They'veeven built a small mill, which the twoof them operate without other help."We thought we were working to-ward a good thing, here," said Mrs.Farnham. "Now, we don' t know whatto expect . . ."I wandered on over the Sahwave,talking to mine owners and leasers in

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When the N av y proposed to ceas e f ire for two months inthe year so thai cattlemen could take their s tock on andoff the rang e , one o f the rancher s r ema rked: "They s e emto think that all a man has to do is turn a bull and. somecows on the rang e an d wait for them to grow into beef-s teaks ." Actually , the na tural ra ng e of the Black Rock

produces s leek well- fed Here fords in summe r, but whenwin te r comes i t i s nece s sa r y to have g r ea t s tacks o f hayon hand for f e ed when the g round i s cove r ed wi th snow.The Na vy has no t made c lea r how th is k ind o f r anchingcan be car r ied on in two months out of the y ear .

I vis ited Cow Creek,1,000,000 tons ofcopper-silver-tin ore assaying $30 aton at 1950 pricessince which timethe price of copper has tripled. In ad -dition, a geologist of the AEC has as-sertedly named this deposit as one ofthe four most promising uranium prop-erties in Nevada.Thus, in addition to the human fac-tors I had been Consideringthe dis-ruption of lives, and thwarting of hopesand plansI was becoming increas-ingly aware that there was anotherimp ortant factor involved: Tha t ofplain dollars and cents.

Even though the Navy were to paygenerously for private property con-fiscated, there is no reimbursement tolocal governments; no means of com-pensating a community for banishingits people and removing from the taxrolls their real and personal propertynor can there be any adequate com-pensation to a state for the locking-upof its proven or potential resources.No better expression of this thought ispossible than that embraced in onesentence included in the report on themilitary landgrab hearings conducted

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i s a lways a probl em on the Black Rock, but Rancher Grover Jack-son is fortunate in having three artesian wel l s which f low 2200 gal lonsa minute.before the Committee on Interior andInsular Affairs of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives.

Forming the closing paragraph ofthat report is this succinct observation:"The program for the de f e n s e of ournat ion ' s human and natural r e sourcesshould not and mus t no t b e so con-ducted as to des t roy the very r e sourcesit is aimed at preserv i ng ."The people of northwestern Nevadaar e not Communists nor pacifists;nor are they prejudiced against theUnited States Navy, as an officer ofthe Fallon Naval Auxiliary Air Stationsuggested in a public address. Theyare good, plain, hardworking Ameri-cans, whobelieve in God and freedom,and the American way of life; and ifthe defense of our country demandsthat they sacrifice their homes and theproperties they have worked years todevelop, they are perfectly willing tomake such sacrifice.

Butbefore they do sothey wantto know for certain that the sacrificethey are making is necessary.They want to know that capacityuse is being made of the 24,000,000acres of Western land now held in thegrasp of the military; and they wantto know that there is absolute needfo r the 9,000,000-odd acres of addi-tional land sought by the armed forcesduring the past year.Especially, they want to know whythe Navy cannot make joint use ofthe nearly 4,000,000-acre Las Vegas-Tonopah Bombing and Gunnery range,in south-central Nevadaa tract thatmeasures, in its extreme distances, 75by 85 miles, and is the largest militarybase in the United States. Althougha major portion of this immense re-serve has not been fully used by themilitary for more than 13 years, it isstill closed against civilian entry, andchances are it will never be returnedto such economic uses as mining, graz-

ing, home and recreation sites, orhomestead entrythis due to the as-serted fact that most of this land isbadly contaminated by unexplodedmines and missiles, and that estimatedcosts of decontamination would befrom $12 to $18 per acre.But, although such contaminationmay preclude other usage, it wouldnot, presumably, interfere with the suc-

cessful operation of an air-to-air gun-nery range. As a consequence, manyNevadans feel that before the Navyor any other branch of the military ispermitted to gobble still more millionsof acres to be ravaged and cast aside,it should be forced to give serious con-sideration to the joint use of this im-mense area of idle, unproductive, tax-free, and now-useless land.Among those subscribing to this be-lief are Nevada's senators, Geo. W.Malone and Alan F. Bible. Followingapproval of the Sahwave-Black RockRanges by the Senate Armed Servicescommittee in the closing days of the2nd session, 84th Congress, SenatorsMalone and Bible forced an amend-ment on the senate floor by which theBlack Rock area was removed fromthat bill of approval until such time asthe Navy proves its complete inabilityto utilize the Tonopah range in con-junction with the Air Force and the

Atomic Energy Commission. Not un-til Congress reconvenes next Januarymay that required proof be submittedand passed upon.Meanwhile, the fate of the BlackRock countryand all its peoplehangs in the balance.

REP O RT REVEALS AMAZING EXTENT OF L A N D G R A B SDuring the 2nd session of the 84th Congress, Representative ClaireEngle of Red Bluff, California, introduced H.R. 12185 which wouldforbid any further withdrawal of public lands for military and navalpurposes without authority from Congress. Twelve other similar reso-

lutions were introduced by other congressmen.In a report accompanying his resolution, Congressman Engle pre-sented the following facts.In 1937, the land owned or controlled by the Defense agenciestotaledincluding civil functions land3.1 million acres.In 1940, on the eve of World War II, the figure stood at 4.3 millionacres.On June 30, 1945, the Defense withdrawals had increased to 25.1million acres.On June 30, 1953, at the close of the Korean War the figure haddropped to 21.1 million acres, including 3.9 million acres for civilfunctions.On June 30, 1955, the withdrawals had climbed again to 25.4million acres, with applications on file from various Defense agenciesfor an additional eight million acres.In other words, the Defense agencies have now posted No Trespasssigns on a domain greater than the combined areas of Connecticut,New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and RhodeIsland, and are seeking additional lands amounting to nearly the areaof Maryland.Congressman Engle, and Senator Malone of Nevada are makinga vigorous fight not only to block further withdrawals of public landby the military, but also to force the various armed forces to coordinatetheir training operations so that a considerable portion of the with-drawn lands may be restored to the public domain.If you are one of those who share the view that the Defense

agencies have gone too far in their encroachment upon the publicdomain, you can help correct the situation by writing your protest toyour representatives in congress.

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San ta Catal ina Mountains of Arizona . Somewher e in this rugg ed mass the Jesui t sar e sa id to hav e exploi ted a fabulous gold mine. Photogra ph by John L. Blackford.

Los t Jesu i t Mine wi th theWhen the Jesuits were expelled from the New World they are saidto have sealed off a fabulous gold mine north of Tucson with an irondoor and th en obliterated all trails leadin g to it. The story of thatmine and of its rediscovery over 100 years later makes up one of themost fascinating chapters of Southwestern lore.

By DONALD PAGEMEWHERE IN the fastness ofArizona's Santa Catal ina Moun-tains a few miles north of Tuc-

Tucson's pioneers heard the tale

Pimer ia Aha, or what is nowAccording to the original story the

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Spanish mining camp that lies on amesa in a nearly inaccessible part ofthe mountains. Both mine and campbelonged to the Jesuit fathers and atthe latter they built a church whosebells were cast in gold taken from theminea mine so rich, native metal waschopped from its walls with hatchets.This Golconda of the New Worldwas worked by the fathers until theirexpulsion from this continent in 1767.

Before their departure,they sealed theportal of the workings with a greatiron door and then 'destroyed the trailto the settlemen t. They did this for

two very obvious reasons: first, theyhad. hopes of returning to the NewWorld; and secondly, they were re-luctant that their successors, the Fran-ciscans, should find this place.But why had not the Mexicans re-located it? Surely the secret of such afabulous bonanza could not have beenso closely guarded that it escaped allexcept the obedient slaves who workedthe mine. Why were not the SantaCatalinas swarming with gold-hungrymen after the iron door was locked andthe trail destroyed?The reason was simple: Apa ches.For years the menace of these sav-ages had grown until it became neces-sary to forbid women and children to

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go beyond musket-shot of the presidio'swalls. Even as late as 1850 Tucsonwas besieged by a war party of 300braves. Nor did the danger end withthe American occupation of the vil-lage in 1856. In the following summerMajor Enoch Steen's dragoons movedto Fort Buchanan and with Tucsonunguarded, the Apaches became sobold that one Sunday morning in thesummer of 1862 or 63 a Mexican waschased into the pueblo, slain andscalped in the Plaza de la Mesilla. HisIndian attacker escaped unharmed,waving his bloody trophy overhead.Under these conditions the only menwho left the presidio were Mexicantroops, generally too few in numberto explore the locale about which thisstory centers.

The tale appears to be the out-growth of an early and long forgottenSpanish gold discovery in the C a n a d ade l Oro, a wide, shallow canyon run-ning southward along the abrupt west-ern base of the mo untains. A groupof mysterious ruins that lie on a smallmesa east of the lower end of thecanyon may be a link to the lost mine.Their history has been lost along withmost of the local records of thattroubled period. This silent mementoof bygone mining activities is a mere17 miles north of Tucson's city hall.The first known record of gold dis-covery in the C a n a d a took place onJune 29, 1843. On that day ColonelAntonio P. Narbona, commanding astrong military expedition against theApaches, camped at a water-hole nearthe northern end of the lower reachesof the canyon. The re his trooperswashed ou t a little gold. In 1858 afew American miners worked therefor a short time, but fear of the Indianscaused them to leave. In May, 1870,most of the men and boys of Tucsonwere hard at work at the same spot,each panning between $12 and $30 aday, when the Apaches killed severalof their number and the diggings againwere abandoned. With this as a pro -logue, the first American version of theold tale appeared a decade later in1880.Solomon M. Allis , who later becameUnited States Deputy Mineral Sur-veyor, wrote from Martin and Welden'sOracle camp high on the northwesternend of the Santa Catalinas that twoAmerican prospectors had stoppedovernight and told him a story that,unknown to him, was destined to be-come the prototype of the future talesconcerning the mine with the iron door.

According to the prospectors, in thefall of the preceding year they had beenworking in the Mexican state of Sonora.One night they took lodging near thetown of Caborca with an old Mexicanand his wife. The ir host asked them

for mining news of Arizona, and think-ing to amaze him they told the storyof Tombstone's recently discoveredsilver bona nza. Instead of marvelingat this, the old man asked if they hadever heard of the mine with the irondoor. To their reply that they had butplaced no credence in it, the Mexicansaid that he did, for he possessed adiary kept by his grandfather who hadlived in the old Spanish camp and hadactually worked in the mine! TheAmericans asked to see the book, sev-eral hundred parchment pages of muchfaded writing.They studied it intently and founda passage describing the fabled settle-ment and directions to it and the mine.The Americans became greatly excited,but even more so after reading thisentry: "To day I worked with 10 othermen, and we took out 400 marcos ofgold." This was equal to 200 pounds $ 3 8 , 0 0 0 !The old Mexican refused to partwith his book, the last heirloom of hisfamily, but he gave his guests permis-sion to copy any part of it they wished.Several days were spent making trans-lations and then they departed forArizon a. Arriving at Florence theyreplenished their outfit, but one ofthem became ill and it was not untilJanuary 10 that they were able to leavefor the Canad a d e l Oro , which, accord-ing to the diary, was the starting pointfor the mine.Leaving their horses and burros toshift for themselves, the men hiked

eastward up what they described asthe "middle canyon" which became sonarrow in places that the tops of itswalls seemed to meet above them.That evening they camped near aspring and the following day, after fivemiles of hard climbing, reached a pointwhere the canyon divided. Followingtheir explicit directions, they took theright branch and in half a mile cameto a cul-de-sac with precipitous wallson three sides.The men found a flight of nearlyobliterated steps cut in the left cliff-face and climbed to a shelving rockledge where the steps ended at thenarrow entrance to a cave.Lighting candles and unslingingtheir Henry rifles, the prospectors en-tered the bat-infested cave which wid-ened into a large vaulted chamber andagain narrowed until there was barelyroom to pass.They were beginning to doubt thevalidity of their directions when theysaw the Latin blessing Dominus vohis-cu m graven in one of the walls. Thisgave them new hope and they pushedon. Presently they saw light aheadand at the end of the passage foundthemselves on the face of a sheer cliffoverlooking a valley 200 feet below.

Finding no easy way to descend, themen spliced together their pack-ropesand roped down to the floor. Theycontinued eastward for 20 minutes toa stream teeming with trout. It waslate afternoon so they decided to makecamp here. After catching trout forsupper they sat on the bank cleaningthe fish when they noticed shiny par-ticles in the stream's sandy bottom.With their dough pan they panned outa few dollars in gold.At daybreak they were on their way,still moving eastward. Soon they cameto the ruins of the ancient mining set-tlement. A short distance away agranite building was reposing in a fairstate of preservation. It resembled thechurch at Cocospora, Sonora, and theprospectors scrambled over the ruinssearching for the golden bells and thetreasure store that the diary said wasburied in the temple. But a quicksearch only turned up several stonesbearing Latin inscriptions.The search for the mine was re-sumedand here the details are lostfrom the story. Ho wev er, it is saidthat three days later its entrance waslocated.The ancient iron door had rustedaway and the bars that once securedit lay on the ground at the mouth ofthe tunnel. They found the 10-inchwide vein carried in what seemed tobe a talc-like quartz gangue. The driftfollowed this for 400 feet. Th e air be -came very foul deep within the mine,but the men searched on. They found

some ancient iron picks lying on thefloor of the drift where the Spanishminers dropped them for the last time.With these crude implements theAmericans did a little work on the oldbreast. To their amazement eachstroke of the old tools brought frag-ments of native gold tumbling to thefloor.The men put up location noticesand were on their way to register theirclaims when they stopped for the nightat Oracle and told Allis their story andshowed him the hundred pounds ofnuggets in their back packs.In his letter, Sol Allis prefixed thestory by saying that prospectors some-times exaggerate. But, this was thefirst time he had heard of anyone ex-ploring that part of the mountains, andon the strength of the tale, backed bythe gold, he and several partners werepreparing to leave Oracle the next dayto find the hidden valley and locateplacer claimsbut nothing further isknown of the ventureor of the twomen who made the rediscovery.Early in March of that year, Dr. T.S. Hitchcock of Tucson, displayed anexceptionally rich sample of gold, sil-ver and galena ore that he said camefrom the Mine with the Iron Door.Yl DESERT MAGAZINE


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D e se r t C h r ist P a r k. . A SHRINE TO BROTHERHOOD

Here is the inspiring story of two men whose deep-felt convictionthat it is within the power of man to end hatred and warfare, has ledthem to give visual expression to the teachings of Christ along theselines. With the desert above Yucca Valley, California, as their back-ground, Ed Garver and Antone M artin ha ve recreated in concrete m anyof the New Testament's familiar scenes.

By HOWARD D. CLARKPhotographs by the authorwith peace rather than war. There ha dto be a way to introduce leaven intothe mass thinking of mankindsomeforceful reminder that a more mercifulway of solving problems than throughbloodshed had long existed but wastoo little used."I was afraid of an atomic war,"recalled the sculpto r. "Politician s ofall nations have failed to prevent wars.The only solution is in the hands ofthe people of the world's great religions.I personally am not interested in whatthese creeds areI am satisfied toknow that none of them teach the kill-ing of one's fellow man.

"Politicians deal in power attainedby inciting age-old hatreds and jeal-ousies. If the massed millions of theworld demand an end to killing, ag-gression, hatreds that breed conflict,to oppression of those of different skinor belief, they would have the powerto prevent war. There are enough of

THE small Californiadesert community of YuccaValley is a five-acre jackrabbit

Here too is a little chapel ma deproj-This is Desert Christ Park, growing

culptor.It all began in 1947 when Garver,

in Los Angeles, brought his family torowing Yucca Valley.He organized church services andafter a year of hard work by him andhis congregation, the community hada hom e - ma de non - denom inationalhouse of worship. During these monthsGarver filed on a jackrabbit homesteadwhich he intended to use as a perman-

ent setting for Easter Sunrise Services.Then he learned of a sculptor whowas looking for a place to locate a10-foot, four-ton statue of Christwhich was at that time monopolizingthe driveway of his Inglewood home.Garver visited the artist, Antone Mar-tin, and told him about Yucca Valley.Patternmaker at an aircraft plantnear Los Angeles, Martin worked oninstruments of war with the scientistswho created them. This occupationtroubled him for he had had a life-time of sensitive awareness of the vio-lence of man against man in thoughtas well as in deed, and it was his ar-dent desire to dedicate the remainderof his life to work and tools associated

Antone Martinthese people and their religion teachesthem precisely those things. But, som e-where along the line there has beenfailure. The masses have joined incondemnation and bloodshed on everyoccasion . To o often enemies will prayto the same god to destroy one an-other."

How could he influence as manypeople as possible to return to Christ'sbasic teachings? He thought of writ-ing. Martin is a tolerant, good hu-mored , quiet man. He is by no stretchof the imagination a religious crank.His thoughts crowd into fluent, pun-gent speechthe language of an as-

Ma rtin ' s f ir s t s tatue of Chris t now over looks Yucca Valley . I t is 10 feethigh an d weighs four tons .

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"Suffer little children to come unto Me."suredly literate thinking man. But, thestruggle toward writing for publicationwas long and complicated, so he ruledit out.

But, there was another medium leftto him sculpturing. Without formaltraining in that art, Martin neverthe-less had long modeled finely executedprehistoric animals and human figuresin concr ete. An d, after all, few writ-ten or spoken words of our time enjoyas long a life as the hard material ofreinforced concrete image. With hishands he would symbolize the conceptsof peace on earth, goodwill towardmen.Martin's first statue of Christ, the10-foot one, was made without priorplans for placem ent. Vario us religiousdenominations offered to accept it some even to buy it. But Martin wasfirmly opposed to inferences of sector creed or to restrictions of any kindin the approach to his work.Eddie, the desert pastor, knew of

these restrictions, but had a solutionhis five-acre claim. He invited M artinto look it over and when the sculptorsaw it, nestled against the south slopesof the mountains with a commandingview of the expansive, home-dottedvalley below, he agreed that here wasan ideal home for his statue.It was his determined^ requirementthat the place remain dedicated to allhum anity without discrimination. "M ystatue could not be the property ofany institution. N o visitor here needfeel that he is conforming to any man-

ma de dogm a. He is free to scoff?and you would be surprised at somewho do churchmen among them,"Martin said.

For permanent protection of thestatue, the non-profit Desert ChristPark Corporation was formed withGarver deeding his five acres to it.Consequently, the company maintainsand operates the park as a public serv-ice. Martin took up a jackrabbit home-stead adjoining the park and will deedit over when requirements for title arecompleted. Ano ther adjacent five acreshas been promised by Fred A. Storey,one of the founders of the townsite.The original statue was set in placejust in time for the Easter services of1951. Two years later Martin quit hisjob in Los Angeles and moved toYucca Valley to dedicate the remainderof his life to creating in enduring visualform as many of Christ's teachings ashe will be able to make.His productions emphasize Christ 'slessons of compassion, mercy and un-derstanding which believers and un-believers alike must learn and put intopractice if divergent peoples of theworld are to live together without con-flict. He is stressing the hopeful, con-structive side of religion rather thanits saddening phases.Martin receives no pay for his toils.In fact his first four figures, represent-ing 24 tons of material, were madeat his own expense and donated to thepark . At 68 years of age, he is main-tained by social security benefits andlives in a small trailer on the parkgrounds until he feels he can sparesome time to erect a home on his tract.Meanwhile, Garver handles the finan-1 cial, public relations and business endof the project. Non -sectarian by in-clination and practice, he agrees thatthe park theme transcends such divi-

sions. His chief interest always hasbeen in pioneering groups for worshipand then turning them over to otherswhen they reach a going basis. Ther e-fore, he resigned from the local com-munity church last year and organizeda new group at neighboring Pioneer-town.To the original statue has beenadded 15 characters in a scene depict-ing the Sermon on the M ount. Theseare impressively larger than life size,the 12 apostles each identified by name.At a distance across the grounds,Christ and the woman of Samaria atthe well are in normal scale while theisolated group of Christ in prayer atGethsemane and the sleeping Peter,James and John nearby are again inlarger proport ion.

In an appealing group, Christ facesnine parents and children in the scene:"Suffer little children to come untoM e."Currently underway is the most am-bitious production to date, the massiveset for The Last Supp er. It will take125 tons of cement and a year's work.The 13 figures will show on the scaleof nine feet tall at a table 30 feet long.The entire scene, cut in bas-relief inthe face of a wall, is over three storieshigh.Future projects include an emptytomb and the three women who belongto that scene as a backdrop for Easterservices. After that Christ and therich young ruler are planned.The chapel was designed by FrankGarske and built by him and Garver.It seats 16 persons and provides a raresetting for weddings . Its blue plasticroof is convertible and is removed dur-ing Easter services so the people onthe heights above may look into thechurch, and the organ music can reachout to them. Easter morning attend-ance has passed the 3000 mark.Desert Christ Park's visiting hoursare all hou rs, all days. Grad ed pa rk-ing space, picnic facilities, water andrest room use are free. There are n o

fences on the property line."If playful children want to climbup on the lap of the seated Christ, byall means let them," says Martin, "theyhave always been welcome there."Guide service is beyond the meansavailable, but Martin, seldom absent,cheerfully provides answers and ex-planations. During weekends a volun-teer organist usually is on hand tosupply music.A conspicuous signboard on theTwentynine Palms highway one blockeast of the post office in Yucca Valleypoints the way to the park . Fro m thisintersection it is a half mile straightnorth over an unpaved but well-traveled road.

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Superst it ion Mountain, the low, san dy ridg e at lef t center of the horizon Thisphotogra ph was mad e f rom the hear t of the Borreg o Badlan ds looking southea stinto the Imperial Valley of California.Tr e a s u r e Tr a il s inO l d Su pe r s t it io n ...

By HAROLD O. WEIGHTP ho tog raphs by the au tho rMap by Nor ton AllenLD S U P ERS TITIO N M oun ta inon the western edge of the Colo-rado Desert in Imperial Valley,

Mo re than one prospector paid

T O B E R , 1 9 5 6

his fabulous black gold nuggets some-where among those desolate buttes andgulches in 1830. And hundreds of mensince that time suffered and thirstedand burned without solving the moun-tain's secretif it has a secret.Most everyone knows at least oneversion of the Pegleg legendof howa peglegged trapper, crossing the Colo-rado Desert between Yuma and coastalCalifornia, came upon three black hillsor three buttes or three rises on aridge, with the slopes of one of themfairly covered with black-coated gold

With a sinister reputation farmore impressive than its low.mysterious form, the sand-coveredgranite mass on the west s ide ofCalifornia's Imperial Va lley Su-perstit ion Mountain has beenvisited by more lost mine huntersper square yard of twisted surfacethan any other desert area.Strangely enough, the promise ofdiscovery still remains high withthe fortune hunting fraternityfarout of proportion to the niggardlyand often tragic rewards these m enhave received from Old Supersti-tion.

nuggets. Hunting the Pegleg wasa popular and laudable occupationamong both seasoned desert rats andfoolhardy tenderfeet in the '80s, '90sand 1900s. Many of the searcherstook at least one close look at Super-stition Mountain.

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Why was this low sandy rise so at-tractive? Fo r one thing, it was rightbeside one of the two principal ancientIndian trails across Imperial Valleyfrom Yuma to the coastal mountains,a logical route for Pegleg to take. Andthe country and the distances fitted inwell with some of the Pegleg accounts.But most luring of all to lost minehunters, I believe, was Superstition

Mountain 's mysterious and evil repu-tation. Fr om th e days of the firstwhite explorers, the Indians warnedthat old Superstition should be avoidedand from their admonitions came itsname. The mountain made strangenoises and gave off evil odors, theysaid, and sometimes it quivered andshook. An d it was the home of anenormous serpent that relished humanflesh.The early prospectors not only ac-cepted most of the Indian legends, butadded some of their own for the dry(no water has ever been found on it) ,hot and deadly mountainit changedits shape frequently, and even its loca-tion, leading unsuspecting prospectorson to their deaths.With such a villainous character,how could anyone doubt that old Su-perstition concealed a fabulous treas-ure?Furthermore the mountain harborsthe ghosts of other lost bona nzas. Lu -cile and I were attempting to trace outone of these when we first visited Su-perstition. We were following the

waybill to Hank Brandt's gold, as setforth in Philip A. Bailey's fascinatingGolden Mirages , published in 1941and a classic of the Colorado Desertcountry.Brandt, according to Bailey's infor-mants, struck it rich on old Supersti-tion many years ago. Every spring foreight years he returned and took outabout $4000. When he died he left

$16,000 in raw and minted gold to aman who had befriended him, togetherwith various directions for finding hismine. Because these directions are sodetailed and in a country we knew sowellwith clues we thought we couldinterpretit seemed impossible to usthat anyone who followed them care-fully and intelligently would not endup with a gold mine. It still seemsthat way, though so far we haven'tfound the mineor, at least, I don'tthink we have.Nonetheless the search has been re-

warding in many other ways. Old Su-perstition is rich in interest to anyonewho loves wild desert. We found thesandstone and claystone outliers of themain mass of Superstition loaded withwonderful concretions, as fantastic andbeautiful as any the gods of world-building ever put together in playfulor creative mood.Superstition Mountain is 15 to 20airline miles northwest of El CentreAlthough often it looks like one greatdune of sand"like a cloud of smoke,"as J. S. Brown described it in his 1923

USGS report, The Sal ton Sea Regionit actually is a ridge of granite aboutfive miles long and one mile wide, run-ning from northwest to southeast.Brown noted that: "It is supposed bymany to be an old volcano and attimes is said to give off fumes, noisesand mysterious signs." But, hikingseveral miles along its crest in thewinter of 1917-18, he found that withthe exception of one bed of vesicularlava and one of tuff, both about 200feet thick and interbedded with theTertiary sandstone at the northernedge of the mountain, old Superstitionwas composed entirely of uniformgray biotite granite.Superstition, it is believed, once waspart of Fish Creek Mountain whichlies four miles due west, but now Car-rizo Creek, with its great wash andintermittent stream, runs between them.It is certain that Superstition was anisland in a pre-human seaprobablyin Tertiary ages, when the sandstonewas laid down to its north and east.And it is possible that it became insu-lar again in primitive times, when In-dians were making their house ringsat water level along Fish Creek Moun-tain.The exceedingly fine quartz sandwhich almost buries Superstition'ssouthwestern face lies in dunes alongits crest and encroaches upon its north-eastern slope. It is believed to havecome from some of those lost seashores. The dunes, like other features

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creasingly rough and with a couple ofsoft spots, is still a good one for adriver with desert experience.To follow Brandt's trail, one muststart from the sou th: "thr ee miles eastof Coyote Wells on Highway 80, turnnorth and cross the washes to a placewhere jade may be found. From herehead for a certain dark-appearing cutin the Superstitions. The cou rse leadsnortheastward across the old Butter-field rou te. If you are on the co rrectroute, you will find a place where there

are several petrified palm trees and apile of old whalebones. Continuingon this course, your next landmarksare two dry lakes. The larger one, atthe south, has two big ironwoods onits no rthe rn edge. This dry lake isknown as Dos Mesquites Lake."Cross the lake near the trees insuch a way that the course is parallelto an imaginary line into the Supersti-tions. When you have found the cor-rect entrance to the mountain (thedark cut no longer is visible as such

Fantast ic shapes of some of the big concret ions in this part of the desert have ledman y people to insi s t that they are the skeletons of prehistoric anima ls . The authorbe l ieve s some such concret ions ma y hav e be en the "pi le of whaleb one s" whichmar ked the t rai l to Bran dt 's gold mine.

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from the drylakes), follow thecanyonupward unti l it reaches a small mesa,and then look for another canyon lead-ing down the eastern front of themounta in. The walls of this secondcanyon are reddish-brown sandstone.In this canyon a petrified ship will befound. A deep notch where the bowof theship lay can be seen. Sandstonehas formed around the ancient ship,an d at present all that remains is thecurving line of the ship's beam andsome petrified pieces of what wasoncea very fine-grained wood planking.

"Having located the canyon of theship, follow it down to its mouth onthe eastern front and then turn northalong a wall of purple talc betweensome small hills. After passing thetalc stratum, you will find a canyonsimilar to that containing the ship.This canyon is filled with low, stubbymesquite bushes. Youthen will cometo a high bank out of which a big rockprotrudes. Turn the corner of thisrock sharply, and you will see a bigocotillo stalk set in the rocks. Themine is above in a hidden gully."

The "jade" was theeasy part. Bailey,in Golden Mirages , says there is nojade on the desert "in the commonlyaccepted form of a green stone capableof a fine polish." But we long beforehad found a green rock of varyingshades and texture scattered over thedesert below Highway 80 that lookedso much like China's favorite stonethat we called it Yuha Jade . And Imight add that a friend recently cutand cabochoned a piece and it hadseveral of the cutting, sanding andfinishing qualities of true jade, and didtake a good polish. Fo und in a goodcolor and without pits, it makes anunusual addition to any rockhound'scollection.

The trouble isthat while I have seenit nowhere in quantity, it is widelyscattered through this country. Wefound some in theapproximate locationof Brandt's first clue, butwhether thiswas thepart icular jade Brandt had inmind there is noway ofknowing. Fromit we saw a dark opening into Super-stition Mountain. But here the oldmountain's uncanny ability to changeshape and appearance under varia-tions of heat , sun, clouds and wind-blown sand plagued us. At first wesaw half a dozen dark canyons. Then,while we debated themost likely one,they all faded from view.

The next t ime around, we saw onenear thesoutheastern end of the ridge,in the right compass direction, underwhat seemed normal viewing condi-tions, and set out for it. We didn'tfind the petrified palmsthough wedid pick uppieces of dark, fine-grainedpetrified wood, which can be found

scantily in many parts of this desert.As for the whalebonesI have heardmore than one person insist that cer-tain concretions are skeletons of pre-historic animals, and we didcome uponsome which we likened to whalebones.But wedidn't make thedark canyonthat first trip, since old Superstitiongave us a taste of the badluck she hadawarded many an earlier lost mineseeker. Wewere climbing to themoun-tain's base when the engine startedmissing badly. We immediately re-turned to El C e n t r eThe difficulty proved to be onegrain

The man with a hole in his head asand concre t ion .of fine Superstition Mountain sand thathad gotten through to a vital valve inthe carburetor. Thenext day weagainset out for Superstition. This time,since we knew the approximate pointwe wanted to reachwhich, fortun-ately, waswithin a few hundred yardsof the gravel quarry roadwe tookanother route to the mountain, goingin through the clay and sandstonebuttes that string southeasterly fromSuperstition's tip.

That was our undoing, so far aslost mine hunting was concerned. Thebuttes, ridges and gulches were richwith fantastic and beautiful concre-tions, and most of the day was spentwandering through them in four-wheel-drive, selecting prize specimens. Itwas late afternoon when we reachedthe area of the dark cut. I located areddish sandstone canyon with whatI judged were theremains of thepetri-fied shipa deep notch in the side ofthe canyon where the bow had rested,

a curved area in the sandstone whichmight mark the beam, and a few finegrained chunks of petrified wood, oneof which even looked a bit like plank-ing.But I could not find the wall ofpurple talc. And since it was so nearsundown, I took a short cut, climbingto the top of Superstition's ridge. Per-haps, I reasoned, I would be able toidentify some of the remaining land-marks from above. It waslike travel-ing through a dream world, wanderingthrough those dunes and pockets ofthe sand world atop themountain.Butwhen I reached the far edge, dusk al-ready wassettling below and thewhip-ping wind, bringing sand over themountain crest, was hazing the scenestill more.I turned back by a different routeand suddenly, in the slope of thegullywall on my left, came upon what ob-viously had been the dump from an

excavation, almost buried by sand.Higher up the gully slope, I saw theoutlines of a tunnel which had beenfilled almost level with sand. It wasso nearly obliterated, that at a casualglance it would have gone unnoticed.I walked toward the dump to make acloser examination, and a dry rustlingalmost at myfeet brought me up short.There, lying half under a rock, a side-winder was pulled back into fightingstance.It wasvery dark now. I was a milefrom the car with no flashlight, and I

knew that more of the little hornedrattlers probably soon would be outforaging. So I returned to the jeep.W e had to be home thenext day, andit was already too late in the year tothink of staying for anylength of timeat Superstition.This country is not one which issafe even for experienced desert peoplein summer. Its heat and dryness can-not be judged by ordinary standards.J. Smeaton Chase, who made a horse-back trip to Superstition Mountain inmidsummer nearly 40 years ago,esti-

mated the heat in the sun at 150 de-grees and the canyon he entered likea furnace. "The glare from theground," he said, "wasmore intoler-able than thedirect blast, and theheatwas intensified by the scarifying dry-ness. The effect upon the eyes wasacutely painful."Not having any desire to become apermanent inhabitant of Superstition,I knew that any additional checkingof the tunnel I had found must waituntil fall. Besides, I had no way ofknowing that this was not just another

worthless prospect hole of thesort thatis scattered over thedeserts. Thethingto do was again to follow Bailey's di-rect ionsboth backward and forward18 DESERT MAGAZINE


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A corner of the concret ion f ield near the quarry road. This area special izes insausag es , sna kes , brea d s t icks an d s imilar sha pes .

So far I have been unable even tothis terrain. Perh aps the sand hasIt is in a po si-I must admit, however, that mymight have been. Alm ost every

concretion hunt. They are not

Later he comm ented again

These are good descriptions, butWe saw snak es, sausages and

button mushrooms, napkin rings,

medallions, rhythmic sculptures, weirdand wonderful animals such as adouble-eared wahoo and small-wingedwuk.These concretions are spread overa wide area east and south of oldSuperstition, with different shapes indifferent spots. Many of the exposurescan be reached only with four-wheel-drive or on foot. How ever, on ourmost recent trip we visited several closeto the rock quarry road . One especi-ally fine field lies less than a half mileoff this road.A word of caution is necessary re-garding the hills southwest of Super-stition near the Navy base. When wewent through there, the Navy was con-centrating its bombing at the mouth ofthe Carrizo on the old Butterfield road,in what is supposed to be a part ofAnza State Park, and farther north-west near Borrego. At present itsactivity has expanded and there seemsto be some bombing or target shoot-ing closer to the base. Th ere even istalk in the valley of a new range whichwill take the southeastern tip of Super-stition Mountain and thus effectively

bar civilians from all of it. How ever,on our recent trip we saw no sign orwarning along the whole length of therock quarry road or along either sideof it, or anywhere in the concretionfield we mapped.Along with its lost mines, there isanother mystery of Superstitionper-haps its principal onewhich we hopesomeday to solve. Tha t is, the reasonfor its namin g. We did not see anygiant serpents, nor feel the mountainmove nor hear it make a sound.But Ed Stevens, oldtimer of thiscountry who hunted through it withIndian boys when he was a youth, toldus: "Some of the old miners claim tohave heard it, or felt it, and I believeit is true . Yo u know , there is a faultrunning through there, and if you'relying on it at night after a hot day youcan hear it groan and creak - andsometimes you can feel it quiver."So if old Superstition should startto move or grumble some night whenyou are camped there, we'll appreciateit if you'll stay around long enoughto find out the reason, and let usknow.T O B E R , 1 9 5 6 19


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C ne oj tHe or ig inal spr ing s a t Good Spr ing s . Lowere d wat er l eve l in ar ea nowmakes pumping neces sary .

HISTORIC DESERT WATERHOLES VG O O D S P R I N G S , N E V A D AON G BEFORE Highway 91 wasestablished, two sandy rutsknown as the Arrowhead Trai l ,but often referred to as the Silver Lakecut-off, linked the towns of Las Vegas,Nevada, and Barstow, California, viaGo od Springs. The trail was used byadventurous travelers less concerned

with their own safety than they werewith the saving of 65 miles that thecut-off made possible.When David C. Thompson wrotehis Water Supply Paper 490-B in 1920he was aware of the hazards involvedin following the Silver Lake route andrecommended the longer road viaSearchlight and Goffs which followedthe railroad most of the way and fromwhich help could be obtained in caseof serious trouble.For west-bound travelers on theTrail, Good Springs was the last point

where food, gas and oil could be ob-tained before Silver Lake was reached60 miles distant. W alter C. Men-denhall, while compiling a list of desertwatering places in 1909 for his WaterSupply Paper 224, wrote:"Good Springs are on the road toSandy postoffice, about six miles westof the Jean station. There are largemines in operation near by, and asettlement has grown up around them.The supply of water is large and itsquality is indicated by the name."The water at Good Springs undoubt-

edly was of excellent quality, but con-trary to the generally accepted belief,the springs did not acquire their namefrom the superiority of the water. O.

Around the surface water atGood Springs, Nevada, a com-munity has entered the cycle ofboom and bust a dozen times inthe last half century. An d the old-timers there are hoping that thecombination of water and mineralwealth again wil l swing the pen-dulum upw ard for them.

By WALTER FORDPhotograph by the authorJ. Fisk, now a resident of San Bernar-dino, told me the name was derivedfrom an early prospector named Good.Fisk was in Good Springs in 1892,when there was little more there thana watering trough where the hotel nowstands. Later he operated the YellowPine and Boss mines, both of whichwere large prod ucers. From 1908 to1916 Fisk was Justice of the Peace,and recalling that in its heyday GoodSprings was a typical western miningcamp, with all the attending diversions,I asked Fisk to cite some of the moreimportant cases that came before hiscourt.

"Well," he answered with a laugh,"you will hardly believe this, but mymost serious case involved a fellowwho was arrested for wife beating.Then, to top it off, they went backtogether as soon as he was released."I visited Good Springs recently andthere met Otto Schwartz, another old-timer who has lived there since 1912.He has seen the town pass through 12

different boom periods in his 44 yearsin Goo d Springs. Schwartz told me thatat the height of its prosperity the townhad a newspaper, the Good Spr ingsGazet te, and seven saloons.Holiday celebrations were so ex-tensive most of the residents of LasVegas would journey to Good Springsfor the fun. A t one time the town hada Federal building in which the post-office was housed, but it has vanishedfrom the scene. The present postofficeis in a very small cubicle, but und oub t-edly large enough to serve the remain-ing population.During its early days Good Springs'water supply was obtained from surfacesprings and artesian wells, but accord-ing to Schwartz the water level hasdropped 18 feet making it necessary topum p the water to the surface. Wind -mills and electric pumps have been

installed in several of the larger springs.When mining operations were attheir height, much lead, zinc and plati-num were produced here. At presentmining operations are at a standstill,but many of the older residents arehoping for another comeback. Schwartzexplained their optimism this way:"I've seen this old camp go through adozen slumps and she always has comeout of it. This one is the worst I haveever seen, but we may see prosperityagain from other sources. Cotton isbeing grown north of Good Springsand a huge deposit of picture flagstone,which is being shipped out of the statein increasing quantities, was recentlydiscovered near here."

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DESERT TRAILS WITH A NATURALIST - X X X

Cany on Ba t

Don't despise the tiny four-footed denizens of the desert worldbecause they are cal led mice. ToDr. Edmund Jaeger these little wild-lings of the land of rock and sandare creatures of diligence, agilityand courage and while they donot always respect the propertyrights of those who invade theirdomain, they may prove to bevery entertaining neighbors.

By EDMUND C. JAEGER, D.Sc.Curator of PlantsRivers ide Municipal MuseumIN HIS PhilosophicalDictionary alludes to the uni-versal fable of the huge moun-

ccomplishment, for small as the mouse

bored that indefinable, complex andbeautiful thing called life.Not in fable but in reality the des-rts of the world have brought forth,unlike the mountain of legend, not onemouse but many kinds of mice andmouse-like animals, some of them sosmall and secretive in habit that theyare scarcely known to any but the mostcareful or lucky observers; yet each ofthese creatures plays its small but im-portant part in the great scheme ofthings, and each is an astonishing andprofoundly intricate living machinewell worth knowing and meriting themost careful study.By far the smallest and probablyleast known of all desert mammals isthe Desert Shrew (Sorex crawfordi) .Although it looks very much like a tiny

mouse, its primitive dentination andinsatiable carnivorous appetite, amongother things, tell us that the shrew is in

reality a member of that very primitivegroup of mammals called Insectivores.The Desert Shrew's diminutive, pale,ashy-gray body is scarcely more thantwo inches long, to which is addedabout an inch-long, smooth, mouse-liketail. Like all shrews, it has a longpointed snout, but unlike most others,this species has prominent eyes andears, giving it an even more mouse-likeappea rance. It is a fierce beast andduring its waking hours does little elsethan hunt for food (insects, larvae, andsmall rodents) among the grasses andleaves around and under shrubs andtrees of its low desert habitat.George Olin, in his Animals of theSouthwest Deser ts , describes the Des-ert Shrew as ". . . an appetite on fourlegs, guided by a keen nose and aidedby small but formidable claws andteeth." A successful hunter this fero-cious animal-midget must always be,for to be without food for more thansix or seven hours means that it mustmiserably perish. I have seen a DesertShrew but once in all my wide travelsand then only for a fleeting but mostexciting moment. This was some yearsago while camping among some iron-wood trees in a wash to the east of theColorado R iver. It was late in theevening and the shrew darted into asmall hole from among a litter ofleaves.So little is known about this tiniestof all the desert's mammals that a fewparagraphs are adequate for a full de-scription of all its known hab its. Anyobservations that you or I may havemade or might make in the future willbe a valuable contribution to theknowledge of this rare and certainlyunique animal.

Among the true mice of our deserts,which are all grouped into one largeanimal order called Rodentia, one ofthe most friendly is the Spiny PocketMo use. It may be distinguished by itssmall, near smoky-gray, walnut-sizedhunched body, with longer coarse hairsamong the shorter fur of the back(superficially looking like spines, henceits na m e) . Oth er clues are its longtail ending in a brush of hairs and theanimal's amusing habit of stuffing, withthe aid of its fore-paws, quantities ofseeds or other food particles into thetwo fur-lined pockets opening just out-side the lips on both sides of themou th. Pocket Mice are agile jumpe rsand when surprised I have seen themleap, by means of their strong rearlegs, three feet with the greatest ease,using the long tail for balance.

Often have I had Spiny Pocket Micecome in around my evening fire, espe-cially when I have camped near rocks.Sometimes they actually came so nearthat I could have touched them withmy hand were I not fearful of frighten-ing them . I find it is a most rewardingpractice to scatter grain, food crumbs,or oatmeal on the ground about thecamp before dark, for these friendlypocket mice, if at all present in thearea, are then almost certain to maketheir appearance soon after dusk andstuff their cheek-pouches, often ridicu-lously full, with the tidbits I have pro-vided. As soon as the pouches arefilled to capacity, away they scamperin jerky mechanical motions to storethis food in their burrows or in care-fully hidden caches, often several hun-dred feet distan t. The n in a fewminutes back they appear, often ap-proaching by diverse routes as if to

Deser t Shrew

O C T O B E R , 1 9 5

Midgets of theDesert World


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better hide anyclue as to the locationof the food caches. The pockets , nomatter howwell crammed, arequicklyemptied by sweeping forward move-ments of the "hands ."These small-eared mice are, as arule, active only at night. The daysare spent in rather shallow burrowsmade inloose soil, usually under a pro -tective bush, and it is their habit toplug the entrance openings with earthas a defense against such enemies assnakes, and also perhaps to keep theair within from becoming too dry.Because of the shallowness of theirburrows, which are used as daytimehide-outs , we must conclude that theyare able to withstand greater summerheat than many of the other desertrodents, such as thekangaroo rats and

small ground squirrels, which seekshelter in tunnels much deeper andoften far more extensive.These gentle, inoffensive andunsus-picious animal hermits are often dugfrom their burrows or seized in theopen by kit foxes, coyotes, badgers,skunks, weasels, snakes and owls. Ionce saw a badger dig in after one;th e job wascompleted in less than halfa minute! It is fortunate that pocketmice have fairly large litters of young(from three to six) andthat they breedat least twice a year, otherwise theirchances for survival against so manyenemies would be small, indeed.There is another desert-dwellingpocket mouse, called Baird's Perog-nathus (Perognathus j lavus) , which islittle more than four inches in total

T R U E O R F A L S E It is the time of the month torelax, get a sharp pencil, settledown in an overstuffed chairand start making crosses after the questions below. The law of averagesshould give you 10 correct answers even if youhave never seen the GreatAmerican Desert. Butyou'll probably dobetter than that. A smart desertrat will average about 15, and that is a good score. If he gets 18 correcthe isentitled to sign S.D.S. after hisnameSand Dune Sage. The answersare onpage 30.1You can tell the age of a rattlesnake by the number of buttons in itsrattle. True False2Water in the Great Salt Lake has a higher salt content than oceanwater. True False3T ortoises found in thedesert country arehatched from eggs. TrueFalse4The blossom of the Ocotillo is always red. True False5Pinyon nuts grow underground like peanuts . True False6Elwood Mead, for whom Lake Mead was named, was former com-missioner of the U. S.Bureau of Reclamation. True False7Roosevelt dam is in the Gila River. True False8Malachite andAzurite often areassociated in thesame ore. TrueFalse9Tallest native tree of the desert southwest is the palm. TrueFalse10The foliage of the juniper tree turns yellow when the frost comes inthe fall. Tru e False11Land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase was bought from France.True False12Brigham Young brought the first Mormon colonists to Utah beforethe Civil war. True False13An arras t re was a tool used by the Spaniards for recovering gold.True False14W innemucca, Nevada, wasnamed for a famous Apache Indian chief.True False15-According to Indian legend Sipapu is the name of the opening in theearth through which the first tribesmen emerged from theunderworld.True False16Publisher of theDesert Rat Scrap Book is Har ry Oliver. Tru eFalse17The Bandel ier Nat ional Monument is in New Mexico. TrueFalse18Ajo, Arizona, is famous for its silver mining industry. TrueFalse19Asbestos is derived from a species of tree which grows on the desert.True False

20Furnace Creek Inn is located in Nevada's Valley of Fire . True ._ .False

length and almost half of that is tail.I t has thedistinction of being rated thesmallest rodent in the southwesterndesert area, perhaps the smallest inAmerica. Its weight is less than halfan ounce, butwhat a marvelous quan-tu m of good life is packed into thatmite of flesh!"Few small mammals," says VernonBailey, "aremore beautiful than these

silky, bright-eyed mice. They aretimidand when caught in the hands willstruggle toescape, butmake noattemptto bite or scratch. If held gently theysoon become quiet and they may bestroked as they sit in the open hand."The Dwarf Kangaroo Mouse, orGnome Mouse (Microdipodops) , sosmall that it fits neatly into the cuppedpalm of the hand, looks much like aPocket Mouse except for size, it beingslightly larger. It is a rather rarelyseen mammal, confined to certain lim-ited sagebrush areas of the far westernportions of the arid Great Basin. Isaw my first Gnome Mice by aid of aflashlight in the sandy parts of FishLake Valley inwestern Nevada. Iden-tification was easy because of thismammal's unusual peculiarity of havinga tail which is noticeably thicker at themiddle. The burrows were made insand under the roots of spreadingbushes as a protection against preda-tors. Like those of the Pocket Mousethey are plugged with earth duringdaylight hours. A Gnome Mouse bur-row that wedug into had a total lengthof little more than four feet and at noplace did it extend more than teninches beneath the ground surface.

There still is much to be learnedabout the behavior and adaptations ofthe small, seed-eating, arid-land GnomeMouse. When next you go into thesandy sagebrush deserts of northeasternCalifornia and adjacent Nevada andOregon, plan to camp in Microdip-odops territory and be on the lookoutfor them . P erhaps you can add a bitof information concerning their elusivehabits .Another gentle, small-sized mousedenizen of the desert well worth fa-miliar acquaintance is called CactusMouse (Peromyscus eremicus) be-cause its most preferred habitat is anyarea covered with cactus; however, italso may be found in many other en-vironments . The specific name "ere-micus" means "of dry lonely places."Mice of the genus Peromyscus aresometimes popularly called Deer Mice,perhaps because of their prominent

Sketches of Deser t Shrew and Can-y on Bat by Lloyd Mason Smith .Sketches of Baird ' s Pocket Mouseand Dese r t Whi te Footed Mouse byEdith J. Johnson .

y . 7 . DESERT MAGAZINE


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black eyes, unusually large ears, andbuffy gray fur of the upper body. Sincethe underparts as well as the feet ofthese mice are covered with beautifulwhite fur, they often are called White-footed Mice.Sooner or later the Jackrabbit H om e-steaders almost are certain to havethe inquisitive and often mischievousWhite-footed Mouse as a fellow-dwel-ler in their small cabins and no doubta frequent raider of their food supplies.Look upon this little mouse as afriendly guest rather than as a totalnuisance and you will be rewarded bysome most unusual and highly interest-ing experiences. Like their relatives,the Pocket Mice, the White-footedMice have cheek pouches (their gen-er ic name means "pouched mouse") .They also are adept pilferers of break-fast foods and seeds of all kinds whichthey carry away to augment their wildfood stores. It should not come as asurprise if they do, as they once didfor melay up neat hoards of seedsbetween the folds of blank ets. Severaltimes they have made their snug semi-globular nests in my closet; once, evenin my bureau drawer, and I was nottoo angered when I later found themraiding my cotton comforter for nest-lining. Often I saw them at dusk asthey scampered along the upper sidesof my desert house rafters and afterdark I sometimes faintly heard theirnumerous perambulations about thefloor underneath my cot as theyscanned the place for crumbs.

One very windy night a lad whowas camping with me laid his sleep-ing bag snugly up under a big bladder-pod bush which grew next to a highclay embankment to secure some shel-ter from the strong gusts. I warnedhim that he might have rodent visitorsduring the night. Sure enough, thatnight he awoke when a White-footedMouse bit him on the nose, perhapsrecognizing there a tasty bit of flesh fora mid night snac k. His story I at firstdoubted, but there were clear tooth-ma rks to be seen next morn ing. Theinteresting and surprising thing is thatthis experience had a sequel, an exactrepeat just a week afterwards when asecond lad made his bed under thatsame wind-protecting bush, and wasbitten during the night, again on thenose, probably by the very same mouse!Both boys became fully convinced that

Dese rt White-Footed or Dee r Mouse.

Baird ' sPocket Mouse

meat must be a part of the bill-of-fareof this Deer Mouse, at least.Some evening at sundown or justafter, you may notice a small bat swing-ing about above your camp in erraticflight as it goes forth from some rockhide-out in the nearby cliffs or rockyhills while engaging in its evening for-agings for insect food. This is theWestern Pipstrellid, or Canyon Bat,sometimes also called the Pygmy Bat.Of course bats are not rodents; theybelong to the special mammalian order,Chiroptera, but their bodies, exclusiveof the membranous wings, do certainlyresemble those of mice. Because of itssmall size and early evening appear-ance, the Canyon Bat is very easy toidentify; most other desert bats do notappear until it is quite dark and theyare generally much larger in size. Eve non evenings of quite cold days thislittle bat occasionally may be seenabroad.

The late Dr. Joseph Grinnell tellsof one occasion when he saw a CanyonBat appea r in flight in the glaring noon-day sunshine. He noticed it as he wasboating down the Colorado River."The bat," he wrote, "dipped down tothe surface of the water where ittouched and thence flitted back to acrevice in a nearby cliff."The Canyon Bat is found through-out most of the arid country of theWest. Once you recognize it you will

always welcome its appearance aboveyour cam p. T o scientists it is knownas Pipis tre llus hesperus . Pipistrellus isa New Latin word derived from theFrench word "pipistrelle," meaning"bat"; "hesperus" is the Latin wordfor "evening."If you have become curious aboutthese little desert denizens I have de-scribed and if now you desire to ob-serve them at first hand on your nexttrips desertward, then I will have beenwell rewarded. To me the desert miceand bats are as interesting as any ofthe more spectacular and larger animalinhabitants. On many nights when Ihave camped in some strange far-away

spot I have always felt welcome andthere came to me a sense of belongingto the fascinating world of the wildwhen a pocket mouse, a bat or othersmall animal came to my cam p. I nowcould no longer feel lonesome and asI saw my new neighbor never did I failto marvel and admire the diligence,agility and courage of these "childrenbrought forth by the mountain," asthe fable has it.P U BL IC W A R N E D O F N E W ~DESERT LAND SCHEM ESSeveral new angles are being usedby desert land locators to bilk the un-wary and inexperienced city dwellerwho wants to own some of the federalgovernment's vast desert holdings, Rep-resentative Cliff Young of Nevadawarned. He said the FBI is investi-gating the new schemes which appearto have become widespread.The new racket is more elaboratethan those recently employed whichconsisted almost entirely of advertisedassertions that the government waseager to transfer unlimited acres of averitable Garden of Eden at $1.25each.Emphasis in the new racket still isplaced on the $ 1.25 an a cre cost, b utthe carefully prepared brochures andother forms of advertising omit thefact that the government requires anapplicant for government land to havepersonally inspected it before filing.

The promoters are eager to relievethe applicant of that and other detailsand for a fee of $10 an acre$3200for a 320-acre applicationthey willlocate the land, prepare the applica-tion, including the state water permit,irrigation plan and all other materialto be submitted to the land office.To the man in the city, who usuallydoes not have a clear conception ofwhat a desert claim is, $3200 for 320acres, with all the described servicesincluded, sounds like a very attractiveproposal, but he has no realization ofall the stumbling blocks that lie in hispath from that point on, Young de-clared. Ree se Rive r Reve i l leO C T O B E R , 1 9 5 6 23


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Saguaroland, Pima County, Arizona. In the background are the Santa CatalinaMountains. Photograph by the a

Documents

195610 Desert Magazine 1956 October