THE COLORADO DESERT 



685 



ually until eventually the lake became 

 dry. When questioned as to the date of 

 this event they state that it occurred as 

 long ago as the lives of four or five very 

 old men, say three or four centuries ago 

 at the most. It is not probable that their 

 statements are at all accurate as to time, 

 but by combining them with the evidence 

 furnished by physical conditions it is 

 possible to say that the lake may have 

 disappeared and left the desert, as we 

 have known it in historic time, 600 or 

 800 years ago. 



With the establishment of routes across 

 the continent, as a result of the discovery 

 of gold in California in 1849, the west- 

 ward-faring emigrant who selected the 

 southern route regarded the Colorado 

 Desert as the last and most difficult of 

 the areas to be crossed before the prom- 

 ised land was reached. Its summer heat 

 is extreme and its aridity is such that 

 sometimes a year or more passes without 

 a drop of rain, and the average for many 

 seasons is less than 3 inches annually — ■ 

 much less in twelve months than in New 

 York city in one month. The native 

 vegetation includes such curious and dis- 

 torted forms as the ocatilla, the spiny 

 barrel cactus, the dreaded cholla, the leaf- 

 less palo verde, the ironwood, whose 

 fiber is so dense that the dry trunk will 

 sink in water, and here and there clumps 

 of greasewood or gray sagebrush. 



Many legends have been related of the 

 desert and the tragedies enacted within 

 it, and among these one of the most in- 

 teresting appeared in a magazine of wide 

 circulation in September, 1891. This 

 article was a graphic account of the find- 

 ing of the hulk of an old Spanish galleon 

 in the playa which at that time formed 

 the lowest part of the desert. 



The story was reported to have been 

 told to the writer of the article by a 

 prospector who, leaving the groups of 

 springs in the vicinity of what is now 

 the Toro Indian Reservation, attempted 

 to cross the 100 miles of waterless desert 

 that separates these springs from the old 

 Butterfield stage line far to the south 

 near the Mexican line. The narrator 

 states that while riding down the western 



edge of the basin his attention was at- 

 tracted by a curious object within the 

 lowest part of the sink. He attempted 

 to ride to it, but when still some distance 

 away his horse broke through the salt 

 crust of the saline marsh and was so 

 injured that it had to be killed. The 

 rider then tried to approach the hulk on 

 foot, but the marsh was too treacherous 

 and he was not able to reach it. He 

 states, however, that it was distinctly 

 visible; that it was clearly the hull of a 

 vessel of antique type, with high prow 

 and stern and stumps of broken masts. 



After his attempt he retraced his steps 

 to the western border of the desert and 

 continued his journey to the south on 

 foot, but long before getting to his ob- 

 jective point, Carrizo Station, the water 

 that he carried in his canteen was con- 

 sumed and he was in danger of death. 

 He wandered on in delirium across the 

 sandy wastes and through the bad lands, 

 losing consciousness and reviving again 

 and again, and was finally found barely 

 in time to save his life by the keeper of 

 the station. The tale is graphic and 

 picturesque enough to be its own excuse, 

 but it bears the earmarks of belonging 

 to the type with which the imaginative 

 and sardonic western plainsman is wont 

 to beguile the tenderfoot. 



No later explorer has found a trace of 

 the old Spanish galleon, although many 

 have visited the Saltan Sink, and before 

 its inundation by the Colorado River salt 

 mining was carried out on a commercial 

 scale within it for many years, so that 

 it was intimately known. Further- 

 more, it must have been inherently im- 

 possible for any of the earlier Spanish 

 explorers who passed up the west coast 

 of North America and into the Gulf of 

 California to penetrate to the Saltan 

 Sea, even had it existed at the time of 

 their explorations, because so nearly did 

 evaporation balance inflow from the 

 Colorado that the stream connecting the 

 lake and the gulf must have been too 

 small for navigation and, if we may 

 judge from present grades, too swift for 

 ships of the old galleon type to make 

 headway against the current. But even 



