THE STORY OF A STRANGE LAND. 447 



THE STORY OF A STRANGE LAND. 



By DAVID STAER JORDAN. 



PEESIDEirr OF THE LEI^ND BTiVSFOT.T) JUNIOE XTNIVEESITY. 



" In one strange land, 

 And a long way from home, 

 I heard a mighty rumbling, and I couldn't tell where." 



— Negro Melody. 



IT happened a long time ago, it may "be fifty thousand years in 

 round numbers, or it may have been twice as many, that a 

 strange thing took place in the heart of the Great Mountains. It 

 was in the middle of the Pliocene epoch, a long, dull time that 

 seemed as if it would never come to an end. There was then on the 

 east side of the Great Divide a deep, rocky basin surrounded by 

 high walls of granite gashed to the base by the wash of many 

 streams. In this basin, we know not how — for the records all are 

 burned or buried — the crust of the earth was broken, and a great 

 outflow of melted lava surged up from below. This was no ordi- 

 nary eruption, but a mighty outbreak of the earth's imprisoned 

 forces. The steady stream of lava filled the whole mountain basin 

 and ran out over its sides, covering the country all around so deep- 

 ly that it has never been seen since. More than four thousand 

 square miles of land lay buried under melted rock. No one can 

 tell how deep the lava is, for no one has ever seen the bottom. 

 Within its bed are deep clefts whose ragged walls descend to the 

 depth of twelve hundred feet, and yet give no glimpse of the 

 granite below, while at their side are mountains of lava whose 

 crags tower a mile above the bottom of the ravines. 



At last, after many years or centuries — time does not count for 

 much in these Tertiary days — the flow of melted lava ceased. Its 

 surface cooled, leaving a high, uneven plain, black and desolate, 

 a hard, cold crust over a fiery and smoldering interior. About 

 the crater lay great ropes and rolls of the slowly hardening lava, 

 looking like knots and tangles of gigantic reptiles of some horri- 

 ble extinct sort. There was neither grass nor trees, no life of any 

 sort. Nothing could grow in the coarse, black stone. The rivers 

 and brooks had long since vanished in steam, the fishes were all 

 dead, and the birds had flown away. The whole region wore the 

 desolation of death. 



But to let land go to waste is no part of Mother Nature's plan. 

 So even this far-off corner of her domain was made ready for 

 settlement. In the winter she sifted snow on the cold black plain, 

 and in the summer the snow melted into a multitude of brooks 

 and springs. The brooks gradually wore paths and furrows down 

 the large bed, and the sands which they washed from one place 



