^1 



The Collared Lizard, one of the commoner dent 

 arid Great Basin area, often basics on rocks. 



of the 



suction-pressure, enables very tall plants to raise water to great 

 heights. The roots of these plants are absorbent, their tops porous. 

 In desert plants, on the other hand, conditions are reversed, in 

 that evaporation from the plant above ground is neither needed 

 nor possible if the plant is to survive in such dry air. Therefore 

 all desert plants are encased in tough waterproof skins, often 

 coated with impervious wax layers, and they have little use for 

 leaves. But they need water just as much as do other plants, and 

 it also has to be lifted up into the head of the plant. If there is 

 no breathing-suction apparatus above to do this, how is it accom- 

 plished? This is where the spikes seemingly come in. 



Plants growing in intensely dry areas, isolated from each 

 other as here and with roots in soil that is desiccated most of the 

 time, build up a considerable electrical potential over and above 

 the normal prevailing between the air and the ground. The parts 

 of these plants in the air are. as we have said, often coated with 

 wax. a highly efficient nonconductor, whereas their roots are 

 designed to extract every last molecule of water from the soil. 

 This moisture does rise to the heads of the plants, and in the 

 process these become highly charged with static electricity, 

 having received free ions from the roots below. Now electric 

 overpotential is most readily discharged from fine points or 

 spikes, as in lightning rods. It seems that these plants have 

 developed spikes for just this purpose, and this proves to be 

 another way of "pumping" fluids up to points above tliat to 

 which capillary attraction and atmospheric pressure will force 

 them. There are many references to strange crackling sounds in 

 very dry scrub that are otherwise unexplained, and at least one 

 traveler in southern Arabia speaks of bushes sparkling at night. 



The effects are the same as those produced by combing your hair 

 in the dry atmosphere of an artificially heated room. 



.AN AZURE PARADISE 



The existing permanent lakes of this strange world have a quality 

 all their own. Their waters look as cold as those of man- 

 made reservoirs, which for some reason I always feel look colder 

 than any natural body of water, yet they are warm and brightly 

 colored, seeming to reflect even a pallid sky with great vividness 

 and intensity, and moving all the reflected light toward the blue 

 band of the spectrum. This coloration is in marked contrast to 

 the surrounding hills, which are always of subdued shades and 

 often pallid or glaring white. Visibility is here high, so that the 

 white gulls and pelicans that invariably wheel above or bob on 

 the surfaces of these lakes stand out like glaring beacons even 

 when seen from great distances. Then very often these lakes are 

 either wholly or partly rimmed by vivid green sedges and water 

 grasses. 



One of the most beautiful and typical is Lake Walker, a 

 remnant of old Lake Lahontan. The present shore of this lake is 

 ringed above by several pronounced and large platforms due to 

 past lake levels — one at a height of over five hundred feet — and 

 below by line after line of curious tiny strands of puce-colored 

 vegetation due to recent minor changes in water level. The lake 

 itself is of considerable extent and slightly saline. It usually 

 reflects dark blue of a hard, gem-like hue. Seen under a blazing, 

 cloudless sky, backed on one side by tangled crags and on the 

 other by a fairly wide, gently sloping, brown plain leading up 

 to subdued brown mountains, it has a slightly out-of-this-world 

 quality. Water of any kind in the dry immensity of the Great 

 Basin is always a shock. 



Walker Lake provides the naturalist with a number of most 

 pertinent questions. Upon its sapphire surface quite a number of 

 pelicans may be seen bobbing up and down on the small, choppy 

 waves. There are also many gulls floating along its shores or 

 idly flapping over its waters. For miles around there is nothing 

 but rock. heat. dust, and miserable little clumps of spiny scrub. 

 The birds have to eat something. The question is. what? The 

 obvious answer is fish. What then do the fish eat? A visit to the 

 lake's edge will reveal the answer to this. First, the shore all 

 around supports a fringe of vivid green water plants of a slimy 

 and stringy consistency. These sprout from everything right to 

 the upper limit of the lapping waters. The beach immediately 

 above the waters appears utterly sterile, and it is; but if you turn 

 over the boulders at the water's edge and look closely, you will 

 see an astonishing profusion of small life. The most prominent 

 are crustaceous creatures known as amphipods; these swarm 

 everywhere. They are aquatic animals that lie on their sides and 

 progress by jerks; on seashores we call them "sandhoppers." 

 Then there are countless small white worms wriggling among 

 the water vegetation and hosts of larvae of various insects. 

 Curiously, there are also innumerable small spiders and little 

 beetles, both of which we normally presume to be purely land- 

 living forms. Yet here they dwell under water. 



In other words, a vast amount of fish food can be found in 

 these lakes, and enormous numbers of fish. Upon these the 

 pelicans, gulls, and other birds feed—so well that some of them, 

 like the pelicans, take the trouble to fly all the way from the 

 Gulf of Mexico to these isolated, desert-locked waters each year 

 to breed and fatten. The Great Salt Lake is renowned for its 

 massed flocks of White Pelicans, and its gulls have become pro- 

 verbial Almost everybody knows the part they played in the 



