THE SANTA FE ROUTE, 
153 
between Bengal and Amboy, at an elevation of 613 feet, a descent of 
1,975 feet from the divide east of Goffs. 
The origin of this basin has 
not been fully ascertained, but as the depression is completely sur- 
rounded by a rock rim it can not be due entirely to erosion and pro 
ably has resulted from sore, i a portion of an old stream valley. 
The bottom of the general 
asin consists of a series of broad saucer- 
like hollows or playas ' in which lakes usually form when the rainfall 
is sufficiently heavy. Because evaporation is fawly rapid and the 
precipitation meager, these lakes soon dry, leaving their dissolved 
salts, such as sodium chloride and calcium sulphate, together — 
more or less fine sediment. 
These 
accumulations have been 
rogress for a long time, and there is now a thick body of aati 
forming the floor of the basin. 
Sodium chloride (common salt) 
These 
exists in large amount, and there is also considerable gypsum 
deposits are quarried extensively east of Amboy. At Saltus siding, 
near milepost 657, there is a salt refinery a short distance south of 
the railway, which ordinarily produces a car or two of salt a day. 
e salt is mined 4 miles farther south, in the lowest part of the 
basin, and brought by the company’s railway to the works, where 
it is refined for market. 
The mining is done by open pits. The salt 
is covered by a few feet of sand, under which the nearly white rock 
salt forms a pavement of wide extent. 
It is in several layers, sepa- 
rated by thin deposits of silt, and from 5 to 7 feet of it is taken out 
at most places. 
he gypsum occurs in irregular bodies, one of which crops a 
along the railway from milepost 657 nearly to Amboy. 
It forms 
white crusty surface with protruding lumps of harder masses of the 
mineral. A short distance north of the track, as well as at Amboy, 
it is covered by wash from the mountain slopes. Just south of mile- 
laya is a shallow, flat-floored de- 
pression, characteristic of valleys having 
no regular drainage to the sea, in which 
storm waters collect and evaporate. It 
may be a shallow lake or a salt-incrusted 
mud flat. 
In his description of the ancient Sal 
Lahontan, in Nevada, Russell write: 
“The scenery on the larger Pati is 
peculiar and is usually desolate in the 
extreme but is not without its charm. 
In crossing these wastes the traveler may 
ride for miles over a perfectly level floor, 
with an unbroken sky line before him 
OA Hat ors Hhiaht tn cioht tn cant 6 shadow 
on the ocean-like expanse. Mirages, 
which may be seen almost every day on 
these heated deserts, give strange fam fanciful 
forms to the mountains and sometimes 
transfigure them beyond recognition. A 
pack train crossing the desert a few miles 
shallow lake, 4 shores of which advance 
as one rides away. The monotony of 
midday on ee desert is thus broken by 
a forms that are ever changing and 
est a thousand fancies which divert 
is attention from the fatigues of ee 
ersenss The codl evenings and morn- 
i n these arid regions, when the saibis 
Pia of distant mountains are wn 
across the plain, have a charm that is 
unknown beneath more humid skies, 
and the profound stillness of the might i in 
these solitudes is always impressive.’ 
