MAKING GEOGEAPHY WHILE YOU WAIT 333 



MAKING GEOGRAPHY WHILE YOU WAIT 



BY THOMAS H. MACBRIDE, 

 UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 



HHHOSE who read the daily newspaper, and the number of such is 

 -*- confessedly great, have no doubt been more than once of late 

 mildly excited by certain sensational despatches from California, des- 

 patches intimating that certain large portions of that much-adver- 

 tised commonwealth are actually rapidly disappearing from the sight 

 and touch of men. It is reported that a large valley in the southern- 

 most portion of the state is vanishing; has been assaulted by the sea; 

 volcanoes are breaking up the solid ground beneath and the gray ocean 

 is coming in to cover up the universal ruin. 



Now something might be said in apology for the real-estate men of 

 California who let go their holding in presence of assaults like these; 

 and if it can be shown that any considerable bit of realty is actually 

 disappearing and escaping, the violence of the natural agency respon- 

 sible becomes a matter of probability, at least. 



But it must be admitted that for the sensational stories referred 

 to there is a certain basis of fact. In the Salton desert of southern 

 California, where less than two years ago the traveler on the Southern 

 Pacific railway saw only a wide vista of drifting sand, he now may 

 skim along for miles beside a spreading sea, a sea that deepens from 

 day to day and widens every moment. Within less than two years over 

 many square miles, the whole face of the country has been changed. 

 Eailroads have been whelmed, stations and houses and factories lost in 

 one encroaching flood; gulls and cranes run along a level beach where 

 but a few months since the sage-hen nested, or the wild rabbits hid in 

 sandy burrows. Surely, whether Neptune and Vulcan are busy or not, 

 something has happened, and the passing traveler would like to know. 



If we consult a map of the region in question and at the same 

 time study the levels of the country, even as cited in the railway folder, 

 though these are inexact, we shall speedily discover that the old 

 Salton desert is indeed a basin, a basin of remarkable depth for its ex- 

 panse, and wonderful in many ways. To make the case as simple as 

 possible, the altitudes of points on the accompanying map are indicated. 

 It appears, for instance, that the altitude of the station at Yuma, just 

 east of the basin, is one hundred and thirty-seven feet. While the 

 height of Salton station, about the middle of the valley, now whelmed, 



