252 



Bulletin 38. 



ity, when feed was short, the cattle began to perish from starv- 

 ation, devouring in their desperate struggle for existence, almost 

 everv vestige of growth upon the plains. Being compelled in 

 their wanderings back and forth between the higher and lower 

 grounds, to take twenty steps for a mouthful of food where for- 

 merlv but one was necessary, they deepened their paths from place 



'<$$< 



Fig. 2 THE RUIN OF A VALLEY— Wash five miles south of Solomon ville 



in Sau Simon valley; formed in the last eight years, twenty feet 



deep and fifty feet wide, where was formerly a level plain. 



to place ; the prevailing winds blew the dust from these paths until 

 they lay inches below the general surface, and then, upon a coun- 

 try prepared for destruction, came the rains. The water, collect- 

 ing in the trails from the bared and devastated surface of the coun- 

 try, fell swiftly to lower levels, gullying the trails as it ran and 

 gathering in destructive freshets in the larger valleys. The bunch 



