SPOUT AM) SCIENCE ON THE 



upon the hiiul, without the help of stores from 

 Euri^pe or Anieriean eaiuied jroods ? What more 

 natural than that the unknown places in this 

 land of mystery should beckon to me, and that I 

 should hear that voice rintrina its " interminable 

 changes .... something hidden. Go and find 

 it. . . . " ? 



I cannot claim with Kipling's Explorer to have 

 found country unknown to man ; but I can say 

 that I have been the first white man to tread 

 many a forest and wild mountain, many a sandy 

 waste and boulder-strewn wilderness, many a rich 

 pasture and fertile valley. I, too, have seen the 

 promise of future prosperity in *'the big fat 

 marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains," in the 

 '* nameless timber," and " illimitable plains." 



\Vill others go up and occupy ? Will my coun- 

 trymen aid in developing that potential wealth ? 

 I hope so. 



Strange though it may seem it has not been 

 the solemn grandeur of the great back ranges, 

 nor the mysterious silence and gloom of the virgin 

 forests, nor yet the smiling fatness of the valleys 

 and plains that have appealed to me most. It 

 is the sun-baked, barren ridges, the shifting, 

 windswept sand-dunes and the saline, brackish 

 swamps of the Ordos Desert that have cast upon 

 me the strongest spell. 



Even as a boy I had been fascinated by what 

 I had heard of that howling wilderness, that 



4 



