ii RECLAIMING THE DESERT 19 



this way produces inside the cactus barrel a large 

 amount of watery fluid, which he finds very good, 

 for desert travellers must not be too particular. 

 Then we have giant yuccas, the creosote plant, the 

 name of which suggests its taste, and acres and 

 acres of sage-brush, which is a plant related to our 

 wormwood. There are rushes and grasses, too, 

 something like the sand-reed of our dunes, and 

 many other peculiar plants. 



One other curious feature about the desert we 

 must also mention ; this is that in many places there 

 are great deposits of salt on the surface and also of 

 " alkalis," that is, chemical substances like washing- 

 soda. It is this which makes the water so bitter 

 and so unwholesome for man and beast, and it is 

 because only some plants can bear salt and alkali 

 that the desert plants have such strange forms. Our 

 ordinary everyday plants cannot tolerate them at 

 all, as we should soon find if we watered our gardens 

 with washing-soda dissolved in water. 



Sand, alkali, and cactuses, then, these are the 

 three great features of the desert. No water to drink, 

 no grass for the animals it does not sound very 

 hopeful, does it ? But our American cousins have 

 courage. Here is a picture (Fig. 5) made from a 

 photograph, remember of a courageous party build- 

 ing a house in the middle of the desert. We can 

 see the sand, the desert plants, and we can easily 



