Wealth of the world's waste places, and Oceania

Preface

Although the term ''Waste Places" carries an implied meaning of ''worthless," yet, interpreted in the light of Nature's methods, each region described, useless as it may apparently seem, possesses a definite relation to the rest of the world, and therefore to the well-being of man. The Sahara is the track of the winds whose moisture fertilizes the flood-plains of the Nile. The Himalaya Mountains condense the rain that gives Hfe to India. From the inhospitable polar regions come the winds and currents that temper the heat of the tropics.

Nature has secreted many of her most useful treasures in most forbidding places. The nitrates which fertihze so much of Europe are drawn from the fiercest of South American deserts, and the gold which measures American commerce is mined in the arctic wilds of Alaska or in the almost inaccessible scarps of the western highlands. The description of these regions and the portrayal of their relation to the rest of the world is the purpose of Part I of this book.

Part II of the book deals with Oceania — more especially with our island possessions in the Pacific Ocean. It pre-

vii viii

PREFACE sents the salient features of the ocean grand division in the Hght of most recent knowledge.

The author wishes to give credit to Mr. Jacques W. Redway, F.R.G.S., for suggesting the subject of Part I and for the inspiration he received from the distinguished geographer in developing the subject.

J. C. G.

Oakland, California, December 25, 191 2.

Part I— Wealth Of The World's Waste Places Page

Introduction i

CHAPTER

II. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado ... 27

III. Yellowstone Park 35

IV. Two Prehistoric Cemeteries — Giant Reptiles

AND Giant Trees 51

V. Death Valley 58

VI. The Mineral Wealth of the Andes ... 67

VII. The Czar's Greater Domain ...... 82

VIIL The Mystic Highlands of Asia 97

IX. The Primal Home of the Saracen .... 105

X. The Sahara 115

XI. Polar Regions — The Conquest of the Arctic 128

XII. Polar Regions — Antarctica 147

XIII. Iceland, The Maid of the North .... 160

XIV. Greenland .170

XV. Where the Two Great Oceans Meet . , . 175

XVI. Reclaimable Swamp Regions 183

ix

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVII. Strange Rock Formations — Natural Bridges 190

XVIII. Strange Rock Formations— Table Mountain

OF California * 195

XIX. Strange Rock Formations — Gibraltar . . .199

XX. The Baku Oil Fields 206

XXI. The South African Diamond Fields . . . 211

Part Ii— Oceania

XXII. The Islands of the Pacific 226

XXIIL Australia 233

XXIV. The Great Barrier Reef 244

XXV. The Gold Fields of Australia 250

XXVI. Tasmania 258

XXVII. New Zealand 262

XXVIII. Samoa and Fiji .270

XXIX. The Hawaiian Islands . 277

XXX. Guam . 285

XXXI. The Philippine Islands , . 289

XXXII. The Dutch East Indies — Java ...... 301

XXXIII. The Dutch East Indies — Sumatra and Celebes 311

XXXIV. Borneo and Papua 319

ILLUSTRATIONS

The great Rainbow natural bridge of southern Utah . . . Frontispiece

PAGE

Map of Islands of the Pacific Facing i

Mohave Desert, California. Buzzards' Roost 6

Gila monsters 9

A giant cactus in Arizona 12

The Roosevelt Dam, Arizona, showing south bridge and spillway . . 17

Shoshone Project, Wyoming 25

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado 29

Grand View Trail -. . . 33

The Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, looking down canyon

from Grand Point 37

The Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Mammoth Hot Springs,

Summit Pools 45

The Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Beehive Geyser ... 47

The Brontosaurus 53

The Allosaurus 55

Twenty-mule borax team 61

The Oroya Railroad, Peru, showing four sections of the road ... 73

Llamas resting 77

Silver-smelting works at Cassapalca, on the Oroya Railroad, Peru,

13,600 feet high 79

Fishing for sturgeon through the ice of the Ural River. Catching the

material for caviare 83

Gathering salt at the mouth of the Ural River 87

Driving over the tundra in winter 91

Train on the steppes of Russia 95

xi xii ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Khaibar Pass, the gateway to India . . . „ 107

On the sands of the desert 117

The yak not only serves as a beast of burden, but furnishes milk,

butter, and meat 103

A group of Arabs with their dromedaries iii

A caravan crossing the desert on the road to Jaffa 125

Peary's ship, the Roosevelt 137

Commander Robert E. Peary and three of his Eskimo dogs on the

Roosevelt 141

Musk ox 144

An antarctic summer scene 149

The penguin defies the cold 153

Street in Reykjavik, Iceland 163

North Cape, Iceland 167

Stone igloos on the bleak coast of Greenland 171

A large iceberg 173

A group of Eskimos in south Greenland 174

The Straits of Magellan. Cape Pilar is the extreme western end . . 177

Fuegians " 179

The Everglades of Florida 184

Group of Seminole Indians in the Everglades of Florida 187

The Devil's Slide, Weber Canyon, Utah 191

Witch Rocks, near Echo Canyon, Utah 193

This strong and impregnable place is the Rock of Gibraltar, and the

city nestling at its base, Gibraltar . 201

Landing-place for commerce on the Caspian Sea 209

Open workings of the diamond mine, Kimberley 219

Sorting gravel for diamonds in the Kimberley mine 223

A Malay girl 229

A Malay boy 231

A giant fig-tree, 140 feet in circumference 235

ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

PAGE

A mother kangaroo with a young kangaroo in her pocket .... 237

An Australian emeu 239

Homestead and station in Young district, Australia 243

The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the most remarkable animal

structure in the world 247

Melbourne is the largest city of Australia and contains nearly half a

million people 257

Maori pa, or village 263

The Petrifying Geyser, New Zealand 265

Native canoe, Fiji Islands 275

General view of Volcano House, Kilauea, Hawaii 279

A lake of white-hot molten lava. The volcano of Mauna-Loa, Hawaii 281

Native ploughing in rice-field, Guam. One may find rice-farms as

skilfully cultivated as those of Japan or China 287

The carabao, harnessed to a dray or wagon, shuffles along . . . . 291

The harbor of the city. Scene on the Pasig River, Manila .... 295

Extracting indigo in Ilocos Province, Philippine Islands 297

Manila hemp as it is brought in from the country 299

A breadfruit tree in Java 303

Coffee-drying in Java „ 309

Natives in the jungle, Sumatra 313

A jungle, scene in Sumatra 316

AND

PART I

Introduction

There is a great wealth of literature about what we call the world's productive lands — that is, the densely peopled lands that yield grain, meat, sugar, fruit, and all the various foodstuffs. In any well-equipped library we may find great numbers of useful books that will tell us all about the places where cotton, wool, and silk are grown, or where coal and iron are mined. All these lands are the dwelling places of many people. Networks of railways connect the various cities and villages, and probably a majority of the people living in them have travelled in and about much of the area of these lands.

A large part of the earth's surface is commonly called ''unproductive." As a rule this is only another way of saying that such parts of the world produce little foodstuffs. We must not take the word "unproductive" either too literally or too seriously, however, for Dame Nature has a way of secreting some of her choice treasures in places so forbidding and so desolate that only the most resolute and daring men even search for them. For instance, the mineral once much used by the makers of carbonated or ''soda" water comes from a part of Greenland that is so bleak, cold, and inhospitable that no human beings can long exist there unless food and fuel are brought them from afar off. The famous "nitrates" of Chile are obtained in the fiercest part of the Andean desert. Not only the food but the water consumed must be carried to the miners, who are but little better than slaves. Most of the gold and silver is obtained in regions that are unfit for human habitation. The largest diam.ond fields in the world are in a region that will not produce even grass without irrigation— a region that would not be inhabited were there no diamonds. From the most inhospitable highlands of Asia comes a very considerable part of the precious mineral, jade. Death Valley, in the southern part of the JJnited States, on account of its terrific heat, is perhaps the most unhabitable region in the world, but the borax which it produces is used in every civilized country. And so we might name regions by the score that are practically unhabitable, which nevertheless produce things necessary to civilized man.

We call them "waste places," but this is far from true. For the greater part they are quite as necessary as the places we call fertile. Of foodstuffs, for instance, the greater part of the Rocky Mountain highland, produces not much more than the State of New York. Yet the presence of this great mountain wall diverts the moist warm air from the Gulf of Mexico northward, making the Mississippi basin one of the foremost granaries of the world. The absence of rain in the west slope of the Peruvian Andes makes much of the western part of Chile and Peru a desert. But that same absence of rain makes the nitrate beds possible; for had there been yearly rains, the nitrates long since would have been leached out. So, the lands the nitrates now fertilize are far greater in area than that of the region of the nitrates.

Then, perhaps, we turn our eyes oceanward. What! wealth in these great wastes? Most certainly, and indispensable wealth at that. Let us forget for a moment that

INTRODUCTION the oceans produce about as much meatstuffs as the land; this is really the least important feature about them. The oceans produce one thing that is absolutely necessary for every living thing almost every hour of the day, and that is fresh water. Every drop of fresh water that falls on the land is born of the ocean. Even the cold, polar oceans are indispensable to life, for their waters are constantly flowing out into the warmer oceans, thereby tempering the water of the latter and preventing it frorn being too warm for living things.

Thus we see that, after all. Dame Nature is not very unkind to her subjects. Compensation is her great law; if her supplies are "short" in one direction they are "long" in another. And when we take the bjoader view we must conclude that there are no waste places. It is only when we take the extreme and narrow view that we voice the persiflage of the poet Pope:

"While man exclaims: ' See all things for my use' — * See man for mine,' replies a pampered goose."

Now, these waste places are of various kinds and in pretty nearly every locality. Some are deserts pure and simple; some are very dry and, to avoid hurting our national feelings, we politely refer to them as "arid regions"; some are so rugged and inaccessible that nothing short of dirigible balloons and aeroplanes could open a general communication with them; still others are in polar regions and too bleak and desolate to produce foodstuffs or support human life. The purpose of these chapters is to present the characteristics of these waste places. Most of them have been conquered by man, and their resources have been opened wide to the world. Possibly others yet remain to be conquered, but "what man has done, man can do."

Chapter I

Years ago the maps of the United States depicted a vast region west of the Missouri River stippled with dots, which were supposed to imitate sand, and marked with the portentous legend, ''Great American Desert." As sturdy pioneers pushed their settlements farther and farther westward, the great American desert began to shrink in size until the roseate descriptions of prospectors and land speculators led one to believe that this whole region needed only a touch of the plough and the harrow to produce the most bountiful crops grown anywhere in the world.

Nevertheless, the great domain extending from the twenty-five-hundred-foot level to the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is a region so deficient in rainfall that, for the greater part, ordinary foodstuffs will not grow without irrigation; so farming must be confined mainly to the flood-plains of the rivers. Here and there considerable areas have been made fertile by capturing rivers, damming their streams so as to create great reservoirs, and then measuring out the waters to the farm lands below. The Salt River dam in Arizona, recently completed, will supply water to two thousand square miles, or about twenty-five thousand fifty-acre farms.

But in spite of all that man has done and can do to make this region fruitful, not far from half a million square miles will ever remain barren so far as the production of foodstuffs is concerned. Now this whole region, irrigated lands included, does not produce more wealth than the State of New York alone — possibly it does not produce so much.

Indirectly, however, it is worth more than two thousand million dollars yearly to the rest of the United States; for it is a great highland whose rims, the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountain ranges, are about two miles high. Now, these lofty ranges wring almost every drop of moisture from the rain-bearing winds of the Pacific Ocean, leaving them too dry to shed any moisture over the eastern half of the United States. Because of this great mountain barrier, the winds that bring rain and bountiful crops to the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic slope, follow an easier passage, flowing directly from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. And the copious rains are the chief wealth of this midland region.

But the arid western highland possesses a great wealth of its own — a wealth whose influence is world-wide, for it is one of the world's chief storehouses of gold, silver, and copper. Gold and silver are the mediums of commercial transactions, and copper is the chief medium for the transmission of electric power. These metals, therefore, are quite as necessary as are iron and steel. Moreover, this great waste, a seeming incubus on the face of the earth, is each year disclosing more and more of its mineral and agricultural wealth.

Gold is the most widely disseminated of all metals, and is said to be where you find it. That this statement is true has been demonstrated many times, especially during the last few decades. In the north it has been found in the frozen ground of Alaska and Siberia, in the south in the sands on the surf -beaten shores of Tierra del Fuego and in the reefs of the Transvaal, while it is found in numerous places lying between these extremes.

The vast tract of land in the western part of the United States whence most of these metals are obtained has been

Mohave Desert, California. Buzzards' Roost the scene of many tragedies. It is an inhospitable region, scanty in both animal and vegetable life, where climatic conditions call for heroic daring on the part of those who would search out its hidden mysteries; it is a land of deathdealing mirages, yet containing untold wealth for the miner, and likewise for the husbandman who can irrigate the fallow parched surface.

The bold prospector has unearthed in many places of southern Nevada gold-bearing rock assaying thousands of dollars to the ton, the result being the building up of cities and towns and the construction of connecting railroads to meet the demands of the growing commerce. Until recently, silver was the principal metal sought and found in the State of Nevada; but now gold is king, and his throne has been shifted from one desert camp to another, each laying claim to his abundant presence, while new claimants are ever bringing new treasures into light.

The two most valuable deposits of the precious metals ^ow known in Nevada are at Tonopah and Goldfield, the discovery of the first having been made in 1901 and of the latter in the following ye^r. Some of the Goldfield ore has assayed as high as thirty thousand dollars per ton, and so rich were many of its ores that they were sacked and carefully guarded until landed at the reduction works. In one year and a half from the discovery of gold at Goldfield the output reached four million dollars.

These mines of the Nevada deserts excel in the richness and abundance of their ores, while in the future these camps bid fair to outrival in development all other sections of the United States. A few years ago the southern part of the Silver State was considered utterly worthless and a region to be shunned like a charnel-house, on account of its barren and dangerous character. Now it is the Mecca of the gold-seeker.

These mines have already made many a poor man wealthy and many a wealthy man a millionaire. Each hillock, ledg'e, or ravine holds a possible fortune, and no hardship and peril is too great for the prospector lured by the hope of a rich find. The prosperous desert mining town, first built of canvas and rough lumber, is soon replaced by a better class of buildings, and water is brought through long miles of pipe from the nearest available source. Anon, electric-lighting and other modern conveniences are added, thereby making life more tolerable in a fierce climate of heat and cold, of fiercer winds and blinding dust.

Not only is gold found in these desert wastes, but borax, nitre, sulphur, silver, salt, soda, opals, garnets, turquoises, onyx, and marble form a part of its resources. Rich gold mines have built the towns of Randsburg and Johannesburg in the midst of the Mohave desert, while finds of rich ore made elsewhere are of frequent occurrence. It is thought that in the near future sufficient nitre can be obtained from the deserts of California and Nevada to render the United States independent of Chile, from whose desert, Atacama, the world's chief supply of this mineral is now obtained.

Perhaps there is no part of the United States more healthy and at the same time more deadly than the southeastern part of California, embraced in those indefinite areas called the Mohave and Colorado deserts. That life and death should lay claim to the same regions with equal strength seems somewhat of a riddle, but a careful investigation of the conditions will make good the claims of both. Here are regions rivalling the Sahara in heat, lack of water, and barrenness, and in many parts as difficult to traverse; regions full of surprises in deceptive mirages, peculiar vegetation, strange animal life, occasional cloudbursts, purity and exhilarating effects of atmosphere, charm of everchanging colors reflected from the mountains, wealth of floral display in early spring, and marvellous fertility of soil when touched by the magic wand of water. All these and a certain weirdness of beauty difficult to define give these great wastes a peculiar attraction of their own which only those who have spent much time there can understand and appreciate.

For the dread white plague in its early stages there is no medicine and no other chmate that can equal the pure.

healing atmosphere of these deserts. A new lease of life may be gained by the nerve-racked man or woman who will lay aside all home worries and spend a few months at some congenial home on one or another of these deserts.

Gila monsters

Among the animal life found on the desert are the wildcat, coyote, rabbit, deer, rat, tortoise, scorpion, centipede, tarantula, Gila monster, chuck-walla, desert rattlesnake, sidewinder, humming-bird, eagle, quail, and road-runner. Wild horses and wild donkeys, or ''burros," frequent these great wastes, cropping the vegetation that grows on the oases.

One of the most interesting of these animals is the desert-rat, whose habits, seemingly intelligent and equally curious, enable him to maintain a home amid surroundings most unfavorable to his survival. He is a big, active fellow of a glossy gray color, and since he always leaves something in place of whatever he may carry off, he is often called the trade rat. Night-time is his "busy day."

The house that he builds for himself is a veritable fortified castle built in up-to-date desert-rat style, under a protecting bush or rock, or beside a cactus — preferably a prickly pear. This stronghold, from four to five feet long and three feet high, is made of sticks interwoven with pieces of prickly cactus, thorny twigs, and odd bits in general — great care being taken to have most of the thorns project outward. His private quarters consist of a shallow hole burrowed under the centre of this thorn-woven pile. Access to the interior is gained by a winding passage.

The only enemy that might try to thread the mazy hallway is the rattler, who by an ingenious device is deterred from even making the attempt. To keep his snakeship from intruding on domestic privacy Mr. Rat takes several strips of spiny cactus and lays them flatways across the passageway leading to his retreat.

It is well known that a rattlesnake will not crawl over a prickly substance; hence a traveller when camping out at night in rattlesnake regions often surrounds his sleeping place with a horsehair rope as a safeguard against such an unwelcome intruder. Even the hungry, prowling coyote, who would make short work of the rat could he but get at him, fights shy of lacerating his paws by attempting to tear down the formidable pile.

The desert-rat has a morbid desire to carry to his home any small article which he may chance to find lying around, as many a desert miner has found to his discomfiture, but he always leaves something in its place, such as a strip of cactus or a stick.

For downright strategy no creature inhabiting the* desert surpasses the road-runner, sometimes called the groundcuckoo or snake-killer. Though omnivorous, this bird lives chiefly on reptiles and mollusks. It is decked in a gay plumage of coppery green, with streaks of white on the sides and a topknot of deep blue. In fieetness of foot it is said to equal the horse. Many stories are told of its surrounding a coiled sleeping rattlesnake with strips of cactus and then tantalizing its victim until, baffled in every attempt to get away, the snake finally inflicts a deadly bite on itself. Then the road-runner leisurely proceeds to devour the suicide.

The characteristic plants of these deserts are sage, mesquite, greasewood, and a great variety of cacti. Of the cactus family, the most conspicuous is the saguaro, or giant cactus, which frequently attains the height of fifty feet. All the cacti are leafless and abundantly supplied with sharp, needle-like spines which protect them from herbivorous animals. The bark or outer covering has a firm, close texture that prevents the sap from evaporating during the long, dry season. In traversing the deserts during May and June, one is amazed at the display of beautiful blossoms of white, yellow, purple, pink, and scarlet issuing from their thorny stalks.

The plant 'most welcome to the thirsty traveller, and which has saved the lives of many a wandering prospector, is the "well of the desert," a barrel-shaped cactus thickly studded with sharp spines. When one cuts out the centre of the plant in a bowl-like form, the cavity soon fills up with a watery liquid that is most refreshing.

Hot and forbidding as are these terrible wastes, they are the dwelling places of several tribes of Indians. The desert cactus furnishes them a large part of their food, and

A giant cactus in Arizona

the fibre is woven into cloth to provide them with clothing. These Indians have been acclimated to the desert for centuries and are well versed in all of its moods and mysteries. They know of no better abode; neither can they be induced to leave it for a more congenial climate and fertile soil. Travellers and prospectors have told many stories about their experiences in these deserts. But perhaps no story has possessed a greater fascination than that of the lost Pegleg Mine.

The story of this lost mine has been told and retold with many variations for the past seventy years, and more than a score of persons have lost their lives in attempting to rediscover it. In 1836, according to the traditional story, a man named Smith, distinguished from the rest of the Smith family by the possession of a wooden leg, was journeying with several companions from Yuma over the Colorado desert. On account of his wooden stump he was dubbed "Pegleg" by his fellow-travellers.

After having been out several days and not finding any springs or water holes, the prospectors became greatly alarmed and hastened toward three small buttes which they saw standing out in the desert, in the hope of finding water in the dry wash leading from their bases. On arriving at the foot of the hills they were sadly disappointed; diligent search revealed no signs of water. He of the wooden leg climbed to the top of one of the buttes to get a better view of the country, and to the northward saw a high mountain; but before descending, he observed some black stones under his feet and on picking one up found it heavy and filled with a brassy-colored metal. He then picked up several of the stones and put them into his pockets, but being desirous of reaching water as soon as possible, he gave little thought to his find.

He told his companions of the mountain seen to the north and advised all possible haste to reach it, saying that he believed that they would there find water. The next day at nightfall they succeeded in reaching the base of the mountain in an exhausted condition and found a spring of cool, clear water. They were thus barely saved from a lingering death by thirst. The mountain was named Smith Mountain.

At San Bernardino, Smith showed his ore to an expert, who pronounced it nearly pure gold. The real importance of the discovery did not seem to dawn on the one-legged man, however, until thirteen years afterward; then, in 1849, it was heralded to the world that wonderful discoveries of gold had been made in several parts of California and that a man could dig out of the ground a fortune in a few days or weeks. Smith became enthusiastic and organized an expedition in San Francisco to seek for his desert mine where gold could be had for the picking up.

The expedition started out from Los Angeles. One night, just before reaching Smith Mountain, the Indians who had been taken along to pack the supplies secretly decamped with the provisions, thus compelling the prospectors to return as speedily as possible to save their lives. Smith felt discouraged and left the company at San Bernardino. Whether he perished in again trying to find his mine or left the country is not known. At any rate, he was never heard of afterward.

In i860 a man named McGuire deposited in one of the San Francisco banks several thousand dollars in gold nuggets which he said he obtained near Smith Mountain. He organized a party of six to hunt for the Pegleg Mine. What they found, however, will never be known, for they all perished, and their bleached bones were found on the desert a long time afterward. They were not alone in disaster, however, for very many others in trying to find the legacy of Smith have met the same fate.

But the hidden wealth of this great region, so long known as the "Great American Desert," is by no means confined to its storehouses of gold, silver, and copper. Here, there, and almost everywhere are areas that lack but one element to make them the most productive regions of the world, and that one element is water.

The conquest of the Colorado desert is not the "first instance of desert land reclamation in the United States, but it is certainly one of the marvels of the world's history. A more pronounced and inhospitable desert never existed; and, in proportion to the area reclaimed, it is doubtful if one can find greater productivity than the lands that constitute Imperial Valley. Let us take a glance at nature's work in this region.

Long before the Mississippi was born the Colorado was an ancient river and it formerly flowed through a fertile valley. During countless ages it has stripped from the plateau and carried into the Gulf of California a deposit of rock waste from the land surface of its basin many feet deep, and abraded billions of tons of material from its channel. All this silt and detritus have served to fill up the northern part of the gulf, the result of the deposit being an immense land area. At length a great bar was formed across the northern part of the gulf, making a sort of inland sea. Then the hot climate caused the water to evaporate, while from time to time the Colorado overflowed its banks, spreading a rich sediment over the former sea-bed.

Various parts of this depression, which, like Palestine, lie below the sea-level, are known as Salton, Coahuilla, and Imperial Valleys. The lowest part, now filled with water, is usually called the Salton Sea. The whole of this region is comprehended under .the name of Colorado Desert. In 1900 a company was formed to reclaim that part of the desert included in Imperial Valley, by taking water out of the Colorado River a few miles below the boundary between California and Mexico.