422 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 29, 1902. 
— » 
1(1 the Land of the Tin Cow, 
A THICK gloomy evening— the lights of the city fading 
fast in the fog — and we were again on our way in search 
of adventure and the picturesque. The bay looked lone- 
some enough, and a solitary vessel we passed blurred it- 
self into nothingness as we stole bj'-. 
Leaving the boat and boarding the cars, we don't find 
the bags where we expect them, pass on into the next; 
see that isn't the one, and then discover that we have 
locked ourselves out of our car and the train due to start 
any minute ! However, we manage to get back in time, 
and the procession is at liberty to move. 
It is dark; has been for two liours; there are no stars 
and no moon, though both are scheduled to appear, and 
the lights of the village of Point Richmond are a sorry 
substitute as Ave pop out of otir first tunnel on our way 
south. We soon run into hot weather, and when we 
breakfast at Bakersfiekl are in the semi-tropics and far 
from the land of wind and fog. Off again, and it gets 
hotter and hotter as the day grows older, until the heavy 
coat and vest have to be hung uj) and the lightest we have 
donned instead. I have not brought a camera this time, 
and it hardly secnis like traveling, but my want of suc- 
cess in Yellowstone Park last year has discouraged me, 
though Mrs. *** carries a kodak, and the binocular in its 
shabby worn ca.se .stuck on the shelf for the present, is all 
my light impedimenta. 
Kern ! Principally oil and odor. The country is either 
too hot, or too barren, or too something for even jackass 
rabbits and ground squirrels around here, or maybe they 
ddn't like the smell of oil: don't blame them, I don't 
cither, but it has its merits.. There are no cinders from 
the engine, though it does roar abominably, and no dust 
from the roadbed, for that is oiled too for miles. What 
it was before it was oiled, we get a taste of when we 
run over a short stretch of unoiled track, are buried in 
dust before the window can be closed, and half suffocated 
with the heat. 
Near Wade a few ground squirrels show up, but I have 
come to the conclusion that if you really want to raise 
ground squirrels you must feed them well. Up North 
where the wheat grows is where the squirrel waxes "fat 
and sassy." Down here he seems to keep thin skurrying 
around in the hot sun trjHng to find something cool 
enough and soft enough to eat. 
Most of the way we have no smoke from the engine, 
but climbing the steep grades makes even an "oil burner" 
•smoke. Between breakfast and lunch we have to climb 
up and down some pretty steep hills, for from Caliente to 
Tehachepi is only some twenty-seven miles, but there 
are eighteen tunnels to go through, and the attentive 
porter informs us that it is "de greates' engineerin' freak 
in de kentry," We rise over 3.400 feet; then we drop 
1,100 to Mojave, keep on dropping until we get below the 
2^000-foot level somewhere near Hinckley, then rise 
siiarplv to Summit .3.819 feet, and drop as suddenly to 
Barstow, at 2,105 feet, in time for lunch. Sometimes we 
are up with the oaks and then down with the cactus and 
horned toads. (Note by Mrs. ^'t'* : "We didn't see ,a 
single horned toad in the whole trip.") The soil is 
either sandy gravel or gravelly sand: you can take your 
choice; the granite, where it shows, is decomposed, and 
the tops of the hills are all boulders,, as if the soil had 
washed away and left the skull of the hill standing out to 
bleach in the sun. 
Near Basko the inhabitants had moved the beds mto 
the porches, and it was as hot as blazes. The barren 
hillsides and the equally barren plains were dotted about 
with doleful looking "yucca" plants ("which, I believe, its 
other name is Spanish bayonet) , looking like gravestones 
in a deserted soldiers' cemetery. In the intervals it grew 
hotter. At Mojave a pink girl got into the tram, but it 
was too hot to look out of the. window to see which car 
,she got into. She left us after a while, but I forget 
where, because I grew interested in a new order of archi- 
tecture, now first presented to our notice, the "tie house. 
Time was, when the "noble red man" made the climate 
even warmer than it is now ; but he no longer chases the 
pale face over the plain, nor ornaments his girdle with 
the scalp lock of the unwary settler; he is to a con- 
siderable extent a "good Indian" now, since many of hirn 
are dead, but some of him work as section hands on the 
road. I don't think they work very hard; they don t 
seem to, but they work a mighty sight harder than i 
should want to in that climate; and even an Indian has 
to live somewhere, so somebody (probably not the In- 
dian) devised the plan of utilizing retired railroad ties 
(the'onlv lumber in the country) for houses. Ihe house 
is limited as to its width by the length of two ties, slop- 
ing a little— a very little— and projecting somewhat tor 
eaves: at a guess I should say that twelve feet was the 
width. A shallow trench is dug, the ties planted side by 
ide (like a palisade) and a square, twelve feet by twenty- 
Slue \ IIIXV. a. C4. H i-'t'. VI V- y M. — ■ ~l ' J. "U 
four inclosed This is divided into two tenements by a 
partition across the middle, also of ties.^ Then a_ space, 
probablv regulated by the length of a tie again, is left, 
and two more exactly similar tenements erected. An- 
other space, then two more tenements. A contmuotts 
roof of ties covers the whole affair, and upon this a coat- 
ing of earth, gravel, etc., is spread. There is a door m 
each tenement dose to the partition a window at the 
back, and the stovepipes are stuck up through the roof m 
^^The space between the tenements, open at front and 
back, but covered by the roof, give the only semblance of 
shade for miles around; and when the heat grows too 
great, the inhabitants sleep there. At other times they 
serve as lounging and gossiping places. As the ties even 
Ihough condemned, are from fo* to six inches thick, the 
dwellings must be fairly cool in summer and warm in 
winter ; but how they get the roof tight for wmter, I don t 
tec— perhaps they don't try. . . , , i-, 1 1 „ 
We pass a lake pretty soon-that is, it looks like a lake. 
We can see the birds flying over the water, and the 
bushes on the shore reflected in it; but as it grows larger 
md then smaller, and then larger again as we move swift- 
Ihen we knew less about such things, for even now we 
.^vel- seen It is no wonder that people were fooled by it 
when we 'know less about such things^^for everi now we 
are not sure there is not some water there, unti we ask 
the porter, who assures us "dere ain't no watter dere, 
sah ; it's only a 'myridge'." 
A real desert, and this is a real one, is the deadest 
thing in n.^ture, but the clouds are beautiful. We had 
imagined that in Arizona and this part of California the 
sun shone out of a sky of brass, unbroken by cloud or 
hint of moisture, but that was a mistake, the clouds and 
the hints are there, but there is no moisture. 
I made a sketch near Kramer because I thought it was 
so characteristic of Arizona scenery, and finished it all up 
and labeled it, only to discover that we hadn't got within 
a hundred and fifty miles of Arizona at that time, but it's 
got to stand all the same, for it looks a lot more like 
Arizona tlian it does like anything else. A distant range 
takes on a picturesque outline, and clothes itself in a 
Vi"arm brown ; a rain cloud is discharging its contents 
among the mountain tops, and altogether "there's beauty 
in the desert," rimmed round by mountains as it is on all 
sides. 
We sweep a long curve and draw up at Blake. We 
have traveled a good deal these last few hours, for we 
have passed through Siberia, Bagdad, Klondike, Amboy, 
Bristol and Cadiz, and Java is just ahead. The outline 
of the distant range is so peculiar that I find the best 
way to draw it is to try to draw a straight line slowly 
and let the car do the rest ; and between us we are quite 
successful in getting the characteri.stic. In the middle 
distance, a circle of some five hundred feet or so is occu- 
pied by from six to a dozen whirlwinds, which send tall 
columns of dust high up in the heated air, while they 
chassez and pirouette with each other in a sort of 
witch's minuet. Over in another quarter the sun is set- 
ting behind a rain cloud, sending his beams to us through 
a veil of perpendicular lines. 
The rain comes nearer, or we run into it and with it 
thunder and lightning, until the landscape is lighted up 
like day for more than half the time, and here, for the 
first time, I saw a flash of lightning, not as it is drawn in 
the books, but as the photograph shows it to be, not the 
jagged zigzag of our infancy, no Jovian bolt with clean 
sharp angles, but a crooked, wavy, uncertain line, which 
for a brief season was flashed out in its whole length on 
the face of a cloud. That and one other flash were all 
I could distinguish, the rest were just sheets of flame. 
At Needles we had to scuttle through the rain to din- 
ner, fortunately not far, and somebody told us it was the 
first time it had rained there for a year. We were told 
that we should arrive at Williams (where we change 
cars) at five forty next morning, and asked how much 
time we required to get ourselves and our belongings out 
of the train. Half an hour seemed ample, and so we 
arranged it, turning in pretty early. By and by comes a 
knock on the door, and I say, "Hello !" and "All right," 
and then look at my watch. "Four A. M. ! What the 
blazes?" But I conclude to dress, as long as I am awake. 
Mrs. *** thinks that an hour and forty minutes is more 
than she requires, so takes things easy, and about four 
thirtv starts to get up. I am taking things ea.sy, too, with 
my heels hanging over the upper berth, for my bag is 
packed and I am all ready. We begin to slow up— a 
knock on the door. 
"Bags ready, sah?" 
"Ready! No! When do we get to Williams?' 
"This is Williams, sah." 
"The devil ! How long do we stop here?" 
"Five minutes, sah." , . j- 
I flew to the door of the dressing room, and informed 
Mrs. *** that .she had just five minutes to get out of the 
train. 
"But I can't !" 
"But you must!" j , • 
And I proceeded to pack her bag. When I handed it 
to the porter, he was gray with fright. 
How Mrs. managed it I don't know, though she 
has, I believe, explained the matter in detail to some of 
her intimate female friends, but in not much more than 
the allotted five minutes we made our appearance on the 
platform. I heard the porter say, "Dey're comin'," and 
the conductor's reply, "Well, it don't matter now, I ve cut 
out the engine." 
Sure enough, in desperation he had sent the engine on 
to the tank and left the train standing there, and Mrs. 
*** not satisfied with holding up "bars" for their^photo- 
graphs, now holds the record for holding up the 'Over- 
land." , , . , , ^ , 
The trouble was that I hadn't noticed that we changed 
time just before we got to Williams, and my watch was 
consequentlv an hour slow. Having, for the reason that 
I hate getting up earlv. started from home at night, I now 
discovered that I had hung our expedition up at this for- 
saken place for thirteen mortal hours; but we managed 
to get through the time somehow, and it was about 7 
P M when we drew out of the city of Williams, on the 
little jerkwater road that runs about sixty-four miles to 
the Grand Canon of Arizona. There were but few pas- 
sengers, and most of them seemed as unfamiliar with the 
adjustable chair seats as I was, and a good deal ot the 
tedium of the trip was worked off experimenting with 
those articles of car furniture. Approaching the things 
with respect, we found them obdurate; but a brakeman, 
shaking one bv the throat, as it were showed us that it 
was necessary to take a firm grasp of the situation. With 
this example before us, we managed to make them con- 
form to our various needs with no small degree oi suc- 
cess We had passed some time before out of the region 
of oil burners, and made our way now amid a brilliant 
shower of sparks, so continuous and persistent as to raise 
the question in our minds whether there was any coal 
remaining under the boiler, so much went up the stack 
A locomotive headlight mounted on a stand at the sta- 
tion at Grand Canon illuminated the path to the hotel, 
and wre made ourselves as much at home as possible in a 
room in a long barrack-like annex, where an abominable 
wire-woven mattress hung us up as in a hammock, and 
we woke in the morning full of aches and pams. 
canned milk, eggs from Chicago, and bacon that seemed 
to have "been 'round the Horn'' a time or two, was go- 
in- perhaps, a little too far in the other direction. Milk, 
T "suppose it was too much to expect, . for there was 
nothhis that a cow could have lived on m the vicmi y ; 
^jSry droj of water used at the hotel had to be hauled 
a hundred and forty miles; bathrooms, therefore, were 
conspicuous by their absence. The prevailing constituent 
of the "kitchen midden" in most parts of the world, is the 
tomato can, with its brilliant label for the delight of the 
predatory billygoat ; but in this land it is superseded by 
multitudes of small round tins, each with two holes in 
one end, which line the railroads as well, showing that 
"bossy"_ is entirely without standing in the community, 
her duties being performed by the condensed roi^k can. 
For my part, I prefer "bossy." 
After breakfast we watched a party of six or eight get 
ready to make the descent into tlie cailon, deeming it the 
part of wisdom to await the result of their experience, 
and aftei- their departure set ourselves to get an idea of 
this "titanic chasm." The "folder" to which I am in- 
debted for a good deal of my information on the subject, 
calls it "the greatest rift in the earth's crust," and when 
one looks at it, one is glad that it is the greatest; for if 
it were much deeper, I fear that this old orange we live 
on would be in danger of splitting open. From where 
we stood the river was not visible, so we essayed a short 
journey on foot down the trail, where we had seeen our 
companions disappear. The trail is a series of "switch- 
backs," very steep and covered with loose, rolling frag- 
ments of rock from the cliffs above. Notices at various 
points warn visitors not to roll rocks down upon the 
lower stretches, but it is more than difficult to avoid 
starting some of the smaller fragments which are dis- 
placed at every step. 
We descended some distance — about five hundred feet, 
I think — traveling on that journey a half a mile or more, 
and seeing a comparatively comfortable resting place un- 
der a projecting rock, sat ourselves down to take in and 
realize as far as possible, the magnitude of the scene. 
That part of the journey which we had accomplished, 
seemed so small in comparison with the part to be done, 
yet would prove so arduous an undertaking on the return 
that we gave up the idea of any further progress on foot 
in that direction. 
The scene before us and about us was one most diffi- 
cult of description, and, truth to tell, rather disappoint- 
ing, the brilliancy of color that we had been led to ex- 
pect was not there, nor the variety of form. The over- 
powering magnitude and wonder of the scene grow on 
one in time, it is true, but it is somber and depressing in 
its effect; and all about is the barrenness of desolation. 
The sides of the cafion are a series of steps cut into 
fantastic alcoves and projecting bastions, and descending 
from a height, at the hotel plateau (not the highest 
point), is 6,866 feet above the level of the sea, to a sort 
of sloping plateau 4,430 feet lower. From here the de- 
scent is gradual for a couple of miles^ then grows so 
steep that the horses have to be left behind, and the goal 
is reached at a further depth of nearly 2,000 feet to the 
river, which is 840 feet above sea level. The canon at this 
point, therefore, is over a mile deep, and is about ten 
miles wide. 
These dimensions are in no way appreciable; the eye, 
uneducated to such vastnesses, utterly fails to compre- 
hend them ; the marvelous purity of the atmosphere adds 
to the difficulty, and it is only after frequent trials arid 
tests that any true idea is gained. Two pieces of paper in 
a patch of grass a little below us, resolved themselves 
with the aid of the binocular into two good-sized tents 
amid a grove of willows, and a moving ant or something 
was a man. There was nothing else to gauge by, not an 
animal, wild or domestic, appeared on the scene, not a 
house or tree broke the somber desolation; there was not 
even a bear for Mrs. ^=** to kodak. Near us were a few 
trees of fair size, but the distances were so immense, the 
drop from where we stood so sudden, that if there were 
any trees below us, they could not be distinguished from 
shrubs. We waited a long time for the party to appear 
on the trail, but failed to see them, either because they 
had alreadv reached the grove and were resting there, or 
because we had miscalculated the difficulties, and they 
were still working the switchbacks of the trail. 
If one were tolittempt to convey to one who had .seen 
nothing like it, the general plan of the cation, I can think 
of no better w^ay than to imagine that I am limited in my 
choice of material to an assortment of maple leaves. 
W'ith these, then, we lay out the ordinary winding course 
of a river, increasing the size of the leaves for a space 
and then diminishing it again, This makes the main 
body of the canon, and at frequent intervals we builtvin 
laterals of the leaves joining the main stream from both 
sides. These laterals again have feeders, and these again 
others, still using the maple leaf plan. Now, if one were 
to start at one end of the canon and descend the river, he 
would travel, supposing he lived to get through, about 
two hundred miles, or a little more; but if he were to 
select the safer and more prosaic road along the edge of 
the canon, he would travel probably between three and 
four thousand. So much for a birdseye view, except that 
while the cafion is about ten jniles wide on the surface 
of the land, it narrows by successive steps and stages to 
the bare width of the river from two hundred to two hun- 
and fifty feet. , . . ^ j. • 
The geologists tell Us that this is the most striking pic- 
ture of the effects of erosion to be found in the world, 
but when one looks at it, the erosion idea seems difficult 
to reconcile with the thing as you see it In the first 
place the rocks are hard as flint.?, full of quartz and agates 
and that sort of thing, and they stand up m walls that 
show small sign of elemental wear. These walls do not 
rise in sheer "cliffs exactly as one would expect if the 
river had worn them away, but in successive steps. These 
steps again vary in size or depth, for while there are, so 
to speak, seven great steps in the mile rise from the river 
to the top step, the "treads" of these steps are broken up 
by a secondary series of steps, and over this and stretch- 
ino- half way up the "risers" of the big main .steps, is a 
sloping mass of softer stuff which by contrast with the 
dark maroon rocks of the walls, looks almost like lodged 
snow. Erosion, however, seemed a little easier to under- 
stand when a mining engineer explained to me that there 
Avere three general series of veins in Arizona, one series 
running about east and Avest, one northeast and south- 
west, and southeast and nortliAvest. These veins lie at 
different levels, and consist of decomposed and com- 
paratively soft rock, bounded by walls of granite and the 
like. The river, finding its way into this soft stuff, worked 
down from one level to another, eating out a part of one 
vein and then a part of another, until over an area of 
thousands of square miles it had excavated and removed 
pretty much everything soft enough to be acted on by 
