STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 411 



California. The passenger on the Southern Pacific Railroad, by glancing out of the north 

 side of the car at Indio, can see these giant sentinels keeping silent vigil over the plains 

 beneath them. 



t> At Salton, on the Southern Pacific Railroad, the surface of the earth for nearly ten 

 miles square is covered with a crust of salt from four inches to a foot thick. I stopped 

 there in midsummer, and went out on this great white field about noon. The mercury 

 indicated 105 degrees Fahrenheit in the house, but out in the sunshine, with the dazzling 

 reflection from the glistening surface that extended for miles on each side, the tempera- 

 ture was probably 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The workmen out in this peculiar harvest field 

 were as cheerful as any set of men I ever saw, and there was far less exhibition of suffer- 

 ing from heat than is to be seen, ordinarily, in July in the wheat fields of the Mississippi 

 Valley. The low relative humidity explains the total absence of sunstroke here. The 

 atmosphere in this region, adulterated by the chlorine gases emanating from the salt beds, 

 must be nearly aseptic. There are extensive mills here for grinding the salt. It is not 

 put through any system of purification, but, after grinding, proves to be excellent for 

 table use. Several hundred tons are thus prepared every month, and shipped away. 



A few miles east of here are the famous mud volcanoes, which are equal in wonder 

 to the geysers of this State. Owing to the treacherous character of the ground around 

 them they have never been thoroughly examined. Professor Hanks, the State Mineral- 

 ogist, undertook it, but, breaking throc.gh the crust, he was so severely burned that he 

 was compelled to abandon his investigations. Here is an extensive, almost unexplored 

 field for some adventurous scientist. 



Indio is the place to stop and make headquarters for tours through this interesting 

 country. It is the principal station in the valley, and is near the northern rim of the 

 basin, being only twenty feet below sea level. The sandy plains around Indio were for- 

 merly considered a hopeless barren waste, but the advent of the railroad has made great 

 changes. Good water is supplied by surface wells; but in order to have water for irriga- 

 tion, artesian wells have been bored. There is one, two and three fourths miles east of 

 Indio, that is now flowing one thousand gallons per hour. This flowing water was reached 

 at a depth of only one hundred and fifteen feet, after boring through layers of sand, clay, 

 sand, tough blue clay, clay, coarse gravel, clay, and sand. Oranges and various other 

 kinds of fruit are being grown here, and melons, tomatoes, and berries ripen several 

 weeks earlier than at Los Angeles and other places near the coast. There are in this 

 vicinity about forty thousand acres of excellent land. The visitor here, on witnessing the 

 water flowing from the artesian wells, the grass growing, the melons ripening, and the 

 peach trees blooming, can fitly say with Isaiah: "The Lord shall comfort all the waste 

 places. He will make the desert like the garden, and the desert shall rejoice, and bloom 

 as the rose. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. 

 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water." 



In this valley live about four hundred of the Cohuilla Indians. This is an interesting 

 tribe. Dr. Stephen Bowers, in a paper read before the Ventura County Society of Natural 

 History, March 5, 1888, said that he believed them to be of Aztec origin. They are sun 

 and fire worshipers, and believe in the transmigration of souls, and that their departed 

 friends sometimes enter into coyotes, and thus linger about their former habitation. They 

 practice cremation. Their principal article of food is the mesquit bean, which they trit- 

 urate in mortars of wood or stone, after which the meal is sifted and the coarser portion 

 is used as food for their horses and cattle, and the finer is made into cakes for family use. 



The agave, or century plant, which is indigenous here, is also much used for food. The 

 roots, roasted, taste like stewed turnips, while the stem, roasted, is said to taste like baked 

 sweet potatoes. From this plant they also make the Mexican beverage, pulque, which has 

 about the same alcoholic strength as beer. The ethnologist can, by gaining their confi- 

 dence, get much interesting information from these very peaceable Indians. 



I found at Salton and Indio asthmatics, rheumatics, and consumptives, all of whom 

 reported wonderful recoveries. Some of these stories I accepted cum grano satis, which 

 quotation is, by the way, especially applicable to the salt fields. These asthmatics and 

 consumptives claim that the further they get below the sea level and the drier the atmos- 

 phere, the easier they breathe. The rheumatics claim that the heat and dryness improves 

 the circulation, and thus relieves them. 



Among other places below sea level, Lindley notes the sink of the Amor- 

 gosa (Arroyo del Muerto), in eastern California, two hundred and twenty- 

 five feet below sea level. The Caspian Sea, eighty-five feet below sea level. 

 Lake Assal, east of Abyssinia, in the Afar country, eight miles long and 

 four miles wide, is about seven hundred and sixty feet below sea level. Its 

 shores are covered with a crust of salt about a foot thick. 



