164 Dr Jo hannes Wa Ither — The North American Deserts. 



Our first acquaintance with a desert-like region Avas made in 

 the " Bad La,nds " of Dakota. When we aAvoke on tlie morning 

 of September 5 our train was on the prairie. A gently undulat- 

 ing plain allowed our eyes to roam to the distant horizon. The 

 gray moraine soil was covered with a dense nap of grass, now 

 sulphur-yellow, now rust-brown. Over it extended, gossamer- 

 like, a silvery gray veil, formed of countless delicate ears of 

 grass. Wherever a depression gave rise to an accumulation of 

 water there appeared a dark-green swamp carpet, overgrown 

 with reeds and rushes, and where the dry prairie grass had been 

 lit by sparks there were seen black bare spots with jagged fire- 

 eaten edges and studded with femall, blackened drift bowlders. 

 Inquisitive prairie-dogs sat upright on their hills, a few butter- 

 flies were on the Aving, one small bird soared in the clear air ; on 

 all the wide plain there Avas nothing else to strike the eye. 



In the afternoon there emerged on the horizon sharply out- 

 lined table mountains, and at Kurtz station Ave found our- 

 selves in a landscape full of " Zeugenberge " and mesas. The 

 Americans call the "Zeugenberge" very appropriately " sentinel 

 buttes ; " and for the blind-pouchlike Avadi valleys penetrating 

 into the table mountains the coAvboys use the expression " rim- 

 rock." The rimrock valleys are of great value to the coAvboys, 

 because they can drive their great herds into them Avithout dan- 

 ger of losing a single head ; for the steep slopes from the gate- 

 way to the innermost recesses of these valleys prevent all possi- 

 bility of escape. Quite similar " sentinel " landscapes Avere seen 

 by us again in Utah, Colorado and Arizona. 



At Ogden, a Mormon toAvn at the northeastern end of Great 

 Salt lake, I left the train in company Avith Professor Krassnoff 

 of Kharkof. We traversed the tree-lined streets of the pleasant 

 little toAvn and ascended the slope of the Wasatch mountains. 

 Fields of Heliantkus covered the plain, Ioav oak brush grcAV along 

 the granite mountains, and scattered opuntias and artemisias pro- 

 claimed the dryness of the clinaate. Finally Ave reached a gravel 

 terrace 100 paces broad, Avhich could be traced as a horizontal 

 band along all the mountain slopes, 120 meters above the bottom 

 of the valley ; this was accompanied by similar parallel lines 

 which might be observed along the rocks to a height of 300 meters. 



A superb picture here offered itself to our gaze. At our feet, 

 surrounded by fertile fields and orchards, lay the toAvn of Ogden. 

 An ingenious system of canals irrigated the land and caused a 



