158 The West American Scientist, 



Zoar, althoLig-h outsiders may join if they can pass satisfactorily 

 the year's probation which is demanded. Yet this quiet, secluded 

 life does not seem to accord with the desires of most men and 

 women, although the Zoarites profess to be perfectly satisfied. 



The Salt Mountains of the Colorado. — Upon a tributary 

 of the Colorado River, the Virgin, are situated the salt mountains 

 which are destined to be the source of great wealth to someone. 

 They cover a stretch of about twenty-five miles on both sides of 

 the Virgin River, seven miles up from the Colorado. The salt 

 they contain is pure and white, and clearer than glass, and it is 

 said that a piece of it seven or eight inches thick is sometimes 

 clear enough to see through to read a newspaper. Over the salt 

 is a layer of sandstone from two to eight feet thick, and when 

 this is torn away the salt appears like a huge snowdrift. How 

 deep it is has not yet been ascertained; but a single blast of giant 

 powder will blow out tons of it. Under the cap-rock have been 

 discovered charred wood and charcoal, and matting made of 

 cedar bark, which the salt had preserved, evidently the camp be- 

 longings of prehistoric men. The rocks toward the salt moun- 

 tains are painted and carved with hieroglyphics, the meaning of 

 which is known only to the Mojave, Yuma, Piute and other In- 

 dians. From the reports of recent explorers it seems that there 

 are stretches of hundreds of miles on the Colorado River as lit- 

 tle known as the heart of Central Africa. The walls of the El 

 Dorado Canyon, where the river is three hundred and fifty feet 

 wide, are so high that neither the sun nor the moon can shine in. 

 The Colorado is the greatest field for explorers on the North 

 American Continent beside the Arctic regions, and the wonders 

 yet to be unearthed there will probably much more richly re- 

 ward the attention of the scientist than even the unknown spaces 

 of the frigid North. 



The Cable Circuit of Africa. — The report of the United 

 States Vice-Consul to St. Paul de Loando, concerning the dis- 

 trict of Mossamedes, on the West Coast of Africa, practically an 

 unknown country to Americans, includes the important informa- 

 tion that a cable has just been laid between the Cape of Good 

 Hope and Mossamedes, touching at Port Nolluth, and contin- 

 ued from Mossamedes to Loando, completing the telegraphic 

 circuit of Africa. It is expected, since the completion of this new 

 line, that a message can be sent via the West Coast more expe- 

 ditiously than by the old route to the Cape via the Red Sea 

 and Zanzibar. The district of Mossamedes, of which a consider- 

 able portion of territory has been lately ceded by Portugal to 

 Germany, is situated between 13° 50' and 17° 25' south latitude. 

 The principal port and town is called Mossamedes. It has an- 

 chorage for any number of vessels, and good pier facilities. Its 

 commerce chiefly consists of the exchange of cattle, dried and 

 salted fish, dried beef, and agricultural products lor goods and 

 provisions that come from Europe. A line ol railway from Mos- 



