MESAS AND FOOT-HILLS 



199 



the vast escarpment^ the dome, the clifE, the 

 gorge. It is a more mountainous land than 

 that lying to the south, and it is deeper cut 

 with river-beds and canyons. Yet still you 

 have no trouble in finding even here the flat 

 spaces peculiar to all the desert-bordering ter- 

 ritory. There are grease-wood plains as at the 

 south and great bare benches that seem endless 

 in their sweep. There are, too, spaces covered 

 with lava-blocks and beds of soda and salt. 

 More rain falls here than at the south or west ; 

 and in certain sections the grass grows rank, the 

 yuccas become trees, and higher up toward Ash 

 Fork the hills are covered with a growth of juni- 

 per. Flowers and shrubs are more abundant, 

 birds and animals come and go across your path- 

 way, and there are green valleys with water 

 running upon the surface of the ground. And 

 yet not twenty miles from the green valley you 

 may enter upon the most barren plain imagi- 

 nable — a place like the Painted Desert, perhaps, 

 where in spots not a living thing of any kind is 

 seen, where there is nothing but dry rock in the 

 mountains and dry dust in the valley. These 

 areas of utter desolation are of frequent enough 

 occurrence in all the regions lying immediately 

 to the north and the east of the Mojave to re- 



The Orand 



Canyon 



country. 



Hills 



covered with 

 jv/niper. 



The Painted 

 Desert. 



