195208 Desert Magazine 1952 August

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Four thrilling days await you in the

I N D I A N C A P I T O LG A L L U P , New M e x i c o

31st Annual Inter-Tribal

I N D I A N C E R E M O N I A LAUGUST 7, 8, 9, 10 - 1952

SEE THE Devil Dance and Yebechai of the Navaios Eagle Dance and Hunting Dance of the Cochitis Bow and Arrow and Clown Dance of the Hopis Snake Dance and Owl Dance of the Arapahoe-Cheyennese Butterfly Dance and Shield Dance of the La-gunas These and scores of others including theApaches, Sioux, Zuni, San Juan and TaosIndians4 C O L O R F U L D A Y Sof Indian Dancing and parades in Gallup's greatCeremonial Stadium

Mammoth Exhibit of Indian Arts and Crafts

The Indians love this great annual dance at Gallupand the Paleface visitors will be fascinated by thegreatest Indian conclave in all the world.For reservations and tickets write to

INTER-TRIBAL INDIAN CEREMONIAL ASS'NGallup, New Mexico

Winifred Randle Jones, author of "Black Agate inMilky Wash," began writing 15 years agoas a cubreporter for the Twin Falls, Idaho, newspaper. It wasn'tlong, however, before she put down her copy pencil andagain took up her school books to continue study atBrigham Young University in Provo, Utah.At BYU, she met Stanley R. Jones, an avid rock-hound, and they were married. With caring for a homeand five active children, it wasn't until 11 years laterthat Mrs.Jones went back to her typewriter.The return to writing paid offfirst with "It's GotM e , " the story of the effects of rockhounding which wona writing contest prize. Ever since, she has been writingfor Sunday magazine sections and women's and children'smagazines.The Joneses are enthusiastic rockhounds. Last winterthey joined courses ingeology, gemology and lapidary, andevery chance that comes along they are off on a field trip.* * *A native Californian, T. E. Jewell, whose prospectingexperiences are told in this month's Life on the Desertcontest story, was born in Happy Valley, now NorthBroadway, Los Angeles. While he was still a baby, hisfamily moved to Downey, California, and it was here thathe was raised and schooled."My first experience with the Colorado Desert was in1918," Jewell writes. "For several weeks I drove a four-mule team hauling cement from Whitewater station (nowPalm Springs station) to be used in constructing a diver-sion wall at the point where the Palm Springs highwaypasses through the cut and heads southeast toward theresort town."He has spent about one fourth of the last 34 years indesert countryworking on water well rigs, herding goats,

picking dates, figs and grapes, irrigating fields, drivingtractors and doing other jobs in the Coachella Valleyarea. He now is employed by Desert Steve Ragsdale asbookkeeper in his service and supply company in DesertCenter, California. His wife, Frances, is head cashier.The Jewells have five sons. The eldest is marriedand lives in Oregon; his nearest brother is a sergeant inthe AirForce, stationed at Lake Charles, La. The youngerthree are not yet old enough to strike out for themselves,and they live with their parents in Desert Center.* * *Jack Breed, who photographed the Navajo shepherd-esses in Monument Valley for this month's Desert Maga-zine cover, has traveled over a million miles photographing

North America.Jack was born a New England Yankeein Swamp-scott, Massachusetts, June 3, 1917. He attended BelmontHill School in Belmont, Massachusetts, preparatory toentering Harvard as a geology-geography major with sub-major emphasis on archeology and anthropology. He en-tered World War II as a photographic officer in the navyand served as aide and flag lieutenant to Vice AdmiralJohn H. Hoover throughout the Central Pacific campaign.Jack started coming west in 1933, when he was 15,"to catch snakes and see the wonders." He has beendoing just that ever sincetraveling, photographing, writ-ing and catching anything that crawls.Mrs . Breed had never been west of Pittsburgh until

she met Jack. They have three children, ages 4, 2 and 5months, and live in a New England farmhouse built 200years ago in West Boxford, Massachusetts, with 13 rooms,50 acres, one dog, three cats and four turtles. Jack alsohas studios in Whitefield, New Hampshire, and Tucson,Arizona.DESERT MAGAZ IN E


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D E S E R T C A L E N D A RAugust 1-3 Annual Cowboys' Re-union Rodeo, Las Vegas, NewMexico.August 2Old Pecos Dance, JemezIndian Pueblo, New Mexico.August 2-3 Desert Peaks Section,Southern California and San Di-ego Chapters, Sierra Club, climb toTemple Crag in Southern Califor-nia.August 4Corn Dance and Fiesta,Santo Domingo Pueblo, New Mex-i c o .August 7-1031st Annual Inter-Tri-bal Indian Ceremonial, Gallup,New Mexico.August 8-9 Northern ArizonaSquare Dance Festival, Flagstaff,Arizona.August 8-10Pecos Valley HorsemenAnnual Show, New Mexico Mili-

tary Institute, Roswell, New Mex-i c o .August 9Smoki Snake Dance, Pres-cott, Arizona. At sundown.August 10 Feast Day of San Lo-renzo at Picuris Pueblo, 28 milesfrom Taos, New Mexico.August 10Annual Fiesta and Sum-mer Corn Dance, Penasco, nearTaos , New Mexico.August 12 Annual Fiesta. SantaClara Pueblo, New Mexico.August 15Assumption Day Fiestaand ceremonial dance, Zia Pueblo,New Mexico.August 15-17Quay County Sher-iffs Posse Rodeo, Tucumcari, NewMexico.August 15-17Fifth Annual TesuqueValley Horse Show. Santa Fe, NewMexico.August 22San Augustin Fiesta anddance, Isleta Pueblo, New Mexico.August 26Opening of second an-nual New Mexico Hereford Asso-ciation Ranch Tour, Roy, NewMexico.August 29-September 1Annual Fi-esta, Santa Fe, New Mexico.August 30-September 1Desert PeaksSection, Southern California Chap-ter, Sierra Club, hike up the Thumb,Sierra peak in Southern California.August 30 Second Annual PalmWells Cactus Day, Morongo Val-ley, California.August 31-September 1 WorldChampionship Steer Roping, Clovis,New Mexico.

By TANYA SOUTHTruth must prevail! Whate'er we do,Howe'er we live each life anew,In time Truth must prevail. And weShall by it fall ignominiously,Or rise magnificent, to powerAt the appointed hour.

Volume 15 AUGUST. 1952 Number 8COVER Navajo sheep beneath towering bridge in Monu-ment Va lley. By Jack Breed of West Boxford,MassachusettsCLOSE-UPS About those wh o write for Desert 2CALENDAR August events on the desert 3HISTORY They've Tried to Tame Death Valley

By RANDALL HENDERSON 4DESERT QUIZ A test of your desert knowledge 10FIELD TRIP Black Agate in Milky Wash

By W. RANDLE JONES 11ART Painter of the Utah Desert

By H. MCDONALD CLARK 14EXPERIENCE Life on the Desert, by T. E. JEWELL 16INDIANS Hogan Marriage

By JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCH . . . . 17POETRY The Barren Land, by CLAUDE C. WALTON . . 22PHOTOGRAPHY Pictures of the Month 23MEMORIAL In Memory of a Rockhound

By PAT and GEORGE STURTEVANT . . 24FICTION Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley 25LOST MINE Lost Gold of the Vampire Bats

By JOHN D. MITCHELL 26CONTEST P r i z e a n n o u n c e m e n t f o r p h o t o g r a p h e r s . . . 2 7LETTERS Comment from Desert's readers 28MINING Current news of des ert mines 30NEWS From here and there on the desert 31LAPIDARY Amateur Ge m Cutter, by LELANDE QUICK . . 36HOBBY Gems a nd Minerals 37COMMENT J u s t B e t w e e n Y o u a n d M e , b y t h e E d i t o r . . . 4 2BOOKS Reviews of Southwestern literature 43PAGEANTRY Indian Ceremonial in New Mexico . Back CoverThe Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Press, Inc., Palm Desert,California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the post office at Palm Desert,California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No. 358865 in U. S. Patent Office,and contents copyrighted 1952 by the Desert Press , Inc. Permission to reproduce contentsmust be secured from the editor in writing.RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor MARGARET GERKE, Associate EditorBESS STACY, Business Manager MARTIN MORAN, Circulation Manager

Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledgedunless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility fordamage or loss of manuscripts or photographs a lthough due care will be exercised. Sub-scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue.

SUBSCRIPTION RATESOne Year $3..ri0 Two Years $6.00Canadian Subscriptions 25c Extra, Foreign 50c ExtraSubscriptions to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed in Conformity WithP. O. D. Order No. 196S7Address Correspondence 4o Desert Magazine, Palm Dcserl, CaliforniaA U G U S T , 1 95 2


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Death Valley's great salt sink, from Dante's View. Photo by John L.Blackford.

They 've Tr ied toT a m e D e a th V a lle yBy RANDALL HENDERSON

URKING BEHIND the rockyparapets of the Amargosa andPanamint Ranges in desert Cal-ifornia and Nevada, Shoshonean In-dians watched a strange caravan in-vade their ancestral homeland in thelate fall and winter of 1849.These Indians never before had seenmen with fair skins and beards, noroxen and wheeled vehicles. Here wasa band of human beings from anotherworldand from their hiding placesoverlooking the route, the Indians

watched from day to day as the in-vaders in straggling groups movedslowly across the ranges and valleysof this region, their progress alwayswestward.More than 100 years have passedsince those '49ers of the Californiagold rush daysWilliam Lewis Manly,the Asabel Bennett family, the J. B.Arcane family, the Briers, the Jay-hawkers, the Georgians, the MississippiBoys and otherscame this way.Not all of them survived. So tragic

To the Shoshone IndiansDeath Valley was home. To the'49ers it was a place of tragedy.To the hard-bitten prospectors oflater years it was a source ofmineral wealth, to be gottenonly by toil and hardship andpain. But today, a new genera-tion of Americans has sought,with considerable success, tomake it a mecca for winter tour-ists. Death Valley is still wildand mysterious and awe-inspir-ing. But it has been made ac-cessible and safe even for atenderfoot. Here is the story ofthe transformation which hastaken place and of the menwho brought about thesechanges.was the experience of those who didmake it through this waterless regionthat they gave it a name which hasremained to this dayDeath Valley.The descendents of those Shoshone

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Indians still live in Death Valley. Someof them now have adobe houses , buil tby Uncle Sam. Others prefer the shel-ter of mesquite t rees , and a cookingfire on the ground. They now wearclothes instead of wild animal skins.Dur ing the century which has passedsince the bearded ones blazed the f i rst

white man's t rai l across Death Valley,succeeding generat ions of these dese r tt r ibesmen have witnessed amazingchanges in the landscape of the aridwilderness which was once their ownhunting ground.They have seen lone p rospector scome and go. They have watchedboom mining camps spring up almostover night , and then f izzle out . Theyhave watched the 20-mule team wag-ons of the borax industry, the road-builders , and the construction ofScotty's fantastic castle and since1949, an annual influx of more than200,000 motor i s t s .

M ining has brought inter mittentst r ikes of wealth, and great numbersof people into the area. But the realpay-off for Death Valley has beentourists and it is a harvest whichpromises to increase as the years rollby. Death Valley has become a meccafor winter visitors, thanks to the visionand initiative of a few men and thework of a great many.M en of the Pacific Coas t Bor axcompany were f i rs t to envision the

tourist possibilities of the region. Atleast they were the first to invest largesums of money in tourist accommoda-t ions a t Furnace Creek , Ryan andDeath Valley Junction. Also, theywere among the most urgent advocatesof a national park or monument inthis region.But even before the construction ofFurnace Creek Inn had been s ta r t ed ,Walter Scott and Albert M . Johnsonhad begun the building of that archi-tectural fantasyScotty 's CastleandH. W. Eichbaum was building a tollroad into the Valley by way of Towne'spass, to be followed by the erection ofthe Stove Pipe Well hotel .But the push which finally put DeathValley on the tourist map came f romanother group of menin the serviceof Uncle Sam: Stephen T. M ather ,first director of the National ParkService ; Horace M . Albr ight , M ather ' sassistant and later director of the Na-t ional Parks ; P res ident Herber t Hoo-ver , who in 1930 withdrew the DeathValley region for consideration as aNat ional M onume nt , and la t e r onFebruary 11, 1933 , as one of h i s las tacts in the White House, establishedthe M onume nt ; Conrad Wir th , nowdirector of the National Park service,who as chief of CCC operations inthe Nat ional Parks and M onuments

Ray Goodwin Superintendent o f Death Valley National Mo nument.Photo by Don Dow nie.from 1934 to 1942 was responsiblefor much of the initial constructionwork in the M onument ; and RayGoodwin, who for 19 years has beenthe man on the jobfirst as construc-tion engineer , and since 1938 as super-in tendent of the M onument .The ro le p layed by Theodore Ray-mond Goodwin was not the most im-portant in the e stablishing of the M on-ument originally, but no man has putmore of himself into the developmentof Death Valley as a winter play-ground for Americans than has thiswiry Yankee f rom New England. Thestory of the transformation which menand tools have wrought in Death Val-ley during the last quarter of a cen-tury is inseparably linked with theenergy and enthusiasm of Ray Good-win, and of his wife Neva.Born in Norwich, Connecticut , Sep-tember 26, 1887, Ray t r ied his handat many things before he finally at theage of 45 found his niche in the mostdesolate desert in North America.A descendent of sea-faring people,

he had been a yachtsman, boat-builder ,musical instrument and farm imple-ment salesman, concert promoter andfarme r. In 1911 he sailed acros s theAtlantic in a 21-foot yacht skipperedby Thomas Fleming Day, editor ofYachting Magazine. They spanned theocean f rom Narragansett Bay to Gi-bralter in 33 days, and then went onto the Italian International Expositionat Rome, returning home by l iner .An important turning point in hislife came in 1915 when a friend re-turned f rom Yuma, Arizona, where hehad regained his health and had be-come enthusiast ic over the farmingpossibilities in Yuma Valley. Ray wasso impressed that he sold his musicstore at Providence, Rhode Island,and bought a ticket for Arizona.

He worked for the ReclamationBureau a few months, then bought aranch for his Providence f r iend. Forf ive years he alternately wor ked forthe Reclamation office and farmed. In1921, with 640 acres of Pima longstaple cotton planted on the YumaA U G U S T , 1 9 5 2


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reservation near Winterhaven, Cali-fornia, the price of cotton droppedfrom over a dollar a pound to a fewcent s .That ended hisfarming career . Hetook a jo b asassistant county engineerfor theYuma County Highway com-mission. That wasduring theper iodwhen Dick Wick Hall , Arizona'swriter-humorist , was devoting most ofthe space in hisweekly mimeographedSalome Sun to lambasting the Yumaroad commissioners for their neglectof thenor thern Yuma County roads .But it wasn't Ray's fault . Hemerelywas one of the h i r ed men .In 1923 the California Highwaycommission wasprepar ing to extendU. S. Highway 80across theAlgodo-nes sand dunes to replace the plankroad which for many years hadbeenpar t of the connecting l ink betweenEl Cent ro and Yuma.While not a t rained road engineer ,Ray had learned much about the build-ing of dese r t roads dur ing hisservicein Yuma County, andwhen theCali-fornia department offered him a jobas r e s ident engineer in eas t e rn Imper-ial County he accepted .It waswhile working on Imper ia lCounty roads that he began exper i -menting with a new type of cons t ruc-tion called "road mix" or " d e s e r tmix ." It consisted in working certainspecial grades of oil into the nativesand or soil, andthen rolling it to ahard surface. Itwas low cost construc-tion, and the big oil companies werehelping develop thep roce s s . Ray ad-mits that itwas quite byaccident thathe d i scovere d a formula which workedwell on a span of road in Imper ia lCounty.In 1926 the California Highwaydepar tment sent him to Newbe r ry assuper in tendent of construction on asector of Highway 66. There he con-tinued his experiments with desert mixroads .He came across a copy of M anly 'sDeath Valley in'49, and became in te r -e s t ed in the no r th e rn M ojave d e s e r ta r ea . At first opportunity he droveto Death Valley and was fascinated by

To p The 20-mule team made fa-mous by the Pacific Coast Boraxcom pany. Picture taken onthe Dev-il's Golf Course in 1930. Frashersphoto.Middle In thedays when FurnaceCreek Ranch conducted sight-seeingtours ofDeath Valley in a buckboard.Frashers photo.Bot tom Original Stove Pipe Well as it was in thelate '20s. Once awaterhole for theprospectors, it isno longer in use. F rashers photo.

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what he saw the r e . M any o the r t r ipsinto the region followed.One evening at the Barstow HarveyHouse where he o f t en a t e hi s dinne r s ,he met Stephen T . M athe r , f ir s t dir ec -tor of the National Park Service, andduring the conversation asked if itwould not be feasible to include DeathValley in the nat ional park system."But i t i s hot as blazes up there ,"M a the r r e p li ed ."It s winter cl imate i s the finest inthe land," said Goodwin. "All youro the r pa rks a r e fo r summer vacat ion-i s t sYel lowstone , Cra t e r Lake , GrandCanyon and Yosemite . Why not havea winte r pa rk to provide yea r -a roundrecreat ion faci l i t ies for motoris t s?"M athe r did not l ive to see the DeathVall ey M onume nt e s tabli shed, but theseed sown by Pacific Coast Borax men,the Union Pacificand by Ray Good-wineventually bore frui t .In Barstow Goodwin met NevaLong, and after a few months theywere mar r i ed . She vi s i t ed Death Val -ley with him and shared his enthusi-asm for the region. Today they havetwo children, Ted Goodwin, a cadetin the U. S. M ili tary Acade my at WestPoint, and Kathe r ine M ar t in , whosehusband is a member of the U. S. AirC o rps .Ray had become a recognized au-thori ty on deser t mix roads , and whenthe National Park Service asked theCalifornia Highway department for theloan of a construction man to helpbuild low cost roads at Crater Lakeand Yel lowstone pa rks , Ray was a s -s igned to t empora ry duty in the pa rks .While on that ass ignment he metHorace M . Albr ight , who had suc-ceeded Stephen T . M athe r a s di r ec to rof the National Park Service , andFrank Ki t tr idge , Pa rk Se rvice e nginee r .In 1930 Kittridge offered him a jobas roving const ruct ion super intendentin wes t e rn pa rks and monument s . Hehad ass ignments at many places , in-cluding Sequoia, Yosemite , Yel low-s tone and Casa Grande , Ar izona . OnJuly 25 tha t yea r Pr e s ident Hooverissued an executive order temporar i lywithdrawing from entry approximately

To p Graves of Shor ty Harris andJim Dayton, pro spectors. Mo re re-cently a mo nument has been built atthe head of these graves. F rashersphoto .Middle Park Service and CCCsupervisors who were building DeathValley roads and trails in 1934.Frashers photo.Bottom CCC camp on Cow Creekin 1934. Many o f these buildingsare still standing and are being usedfor stor age. F rashers photo.

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T O OLANCHS\f/**r -J ' \S LONE PINE

D E A T H V A L L E YS V I E W J U N C TI O NSHOSHONE

two million acres in Death Valleypending classification todet e rmine theadvisability of giving portions of itnat ional monument s ta tus .Ray Goodwin made known to hissupe r io r s tha t if theDeath Valley Na-t io nal M o nument wase s tabl i shed, hewould be int e r e s t ed in an as s ignmentt h e r e .Then, ea r ly in 1933, just before hisre t i rement from office , Pres ident Hoo-ve r e s tabl i shed theDeath Val l ey Na-t ional M onume nt cove r ing an a r ea ofnear ly 2500 square mi l e s . It is thes econd la rges t a r ea in United Statesadmini s t e r ed by the National ParkService .In 1937, on theinitiative of Nevadacongre s smen, approximate ly 300,000acre s ofNevada t e r ra in were added tot he mo nument . Ho weve r , it becameapparent later that much of theaddedarea had gr ea t e r va lue forgrazing pur-pose s than for r ec r ea t ional use , and amo vement isno w inpro g r e s s atWash-ington to r e turn about 200,000 ac r e sto the public domain, leaving theM o nu m e n t a 4-mile strip on the Ne-vada side of the s tate l ine .Aft e r the wi thdrawal o rde r had beeni s sued in 1930, it was discovered thatwhi l e Albe r t M. Johnson andDea t hValley Scotty hadbeen spending hun-

d r eds of thousands of dollars in thebuilding of thei r cast le , they hadneg-lected to gettitle tothe land.Johnson hur r i ed to Washington tosee what could bedone about it. Hor-ac e M.Albright suggested that John-

son and Scotty have their site surveyed,an d hewould see what could bedoneabout revis ing theorde r . Then John-son found himself in a new quandary .If the land on which theCastle wasbeing built should be r e t u rned to thepublic domain, any war service veteranwould have a prefe r ence r ight tofileon it.When this situation came to light,Albright gave Johnson the promisethat if theM onume nt was e s tabli shedhe would askcongress for legislationpermit t ing theowner s of theCastle tobu y thes i te . Albright made good hispromise andafter theM o nu m e ntwasformed he hadint roduced at thenextsess ion of congress a bill authorizingsale of the land toJohnson and Scotty.The bi l l passed both houses of con-gr e s s , but was vetoed by Pr e s i den tRooseve l t on r ecommendat ion of Sec-retary Harold Ickes , on the groundthat the act asworded did not provideadequate protect ion fort he M o nument.Another bi l l waspa s s ed and s igned,providing that if Johnson andScottyoffered the Castle site for sa l e , thefederal government would be givenfirst option to buy it. Themeasu r ealso contained some stipulations whichwould forever bar it from degenerat inginto a honky-tonk ret reat . The Cast lesite, including Scotty's hide-away cabina mile and a half away, consists of1270 acres , and valuable water r ights .

H . W.Eichbaum, who hadheld aconcession from theWrigley interes t son Catal ina i s land before coming to

Death Valley, also found himself indifficulty when the withdrawal orderwas i ssued in 1930. According to thestory told today, he hadmistaken thes tump of an oldte lephone pole for agovernment sect ion corner , and laterdecided he hadbuilt hishotel on asection of land adjoining the one heowned. Hear ranged tot rade sect ions ,and after the deal was completed foundhe had been r ight in the first place . Itbecame neces sa ry to get a special actthrough congress to clear up the title a n d is said to have cost $4000 insurveys and legal fees tostraighten outthe di l emma.Pacific Coast Borax company hastitle to approximately 13,000 acreswithin the M onume nt , including thel and where Furnace Creek Inn andRanch arelocated, and numerous pat-ented mining claims.When theDe ath Vall ey M onumentwas formed, nofederal funds were im-mediately available for e i the r pe r son-ne l or improvement s . Col.John R.White , supe r int endent of Sequoia Na-tional Park, wasassigned the r e spo n-sibility for the newmo nument as anadditional duty.Late r Fr ench Gi lman, one of thePark Service 's finest botanis t s , wass ent in as res ident custodian. Gilmanimmediately set up a little nursery forthe propagation of dese r t plant s , andbegan to ext end the botanical checklist which hadbeen s ta r t ed by Dr.Colville during theDeath Valley Ex-pedition of 1891 . Thanks tothe work

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of Dr. Colvil le , French Gilman andlater naturalists, the list of native plantsfound within the M onume nt now num-bers 608 species . Gilman later wasglad to relinquish his responsibilitiesas custodian and devote his t ime en-ti rely to the work he lovedin thefield of botany.And then Ray Goodwin was givenan assignment he had been wanting forseven year s . In October , 1933 , he wastold to report to Col. White for dutyin Death Valley. He was to be engi-neer in charge, acting for Superinten-dent Whi te .Ray and Neva established a tempo-rary home in one of the cabins on theFurnace Creek ranch . A f ew monthslater four ready-cut houses werebrought in, and erected along CowCreek whe r e t h e Pa rk h eadqua r t e r svillage is now located.In the absence of Park Service funds,Ray was put on the PWA payroll , andhis manpower for the job was drawnfrom the Civil ian Conservation Corps.Two companies of CCC boys werebrought in by direction of ConradWirth, in charge of CCC constructionin national parks and monuments .The 400 CCC men, wi th r e se rve a rmyofficers in charge, built barracks forthemselves and then turned to the bigtask of making Death Valley a habit-able place for hundreds of residentsand hundreds of thousands of visi tors .They arr ived in 1933, and duringthe eight years they were on duty inDeath Valley, graded 500 miles ofroads , installed water and telephonelines, erected a total of 76 buildingsfor the housing of themse lves and PWAand Park Service employes . They alsobuilt trails in the Panamints and topoints of scenic interest all over themonument .One of their assignments , for whichCongres sman James Scrugham of Ne-vada deserved a great deal of credit ,was the erection of an adobe village,

a laundry and a trading post for theli t t le band of Shoshone Indiansthedescendants of the t r ibesmen who sawthe f i rst bearded white men enter DeathValley in 1849. Until this time theIndians, with neither a reservation noraid f rom the federal government , hadbeen living in primitive camps andcrude b rush shel t e r s a t the wate rholesin the area.Those were hectic days for Ray andNeva Goodwin. The architectural andlandscaping departments of the Na-tional Park Service of course were re-

sponsible for the planning of improve-ments, but their offices were far away,and Ray Goodwin, as the man on thejob, literally lived with the construc-tion crews. He explored the canyons,seeking new scenic att ractions, t ramped

One of Death Valley's first Easter services on the dunes near Stove PipeWell Ho tel. This annual service was the idea o f H. W . Eichbaum, builderof the hotel. Frashers photo.over the ter rain to f ind the best routesfor side-roads, and when he could taketime off from other duties he soughtto clear up controversial points as tothe exact routes followed by the '49ersin their t rek through Death Valley.In 1935 a si te was selected at 4000-foot elevation in Wildrose Canyon inthe Panamint s as summer headquar t e r sfor the Park Service, and the CCCboys buil t cabins for the park person-nel .Ray was made super in tendent . Heand Neva now live in an air-cooledcottage in the Cow Creek village.Their love for Death Valley hasnever dimmed, and although Ray'sret i rement is s t i l l some years away, heand Neva are planning a home some-where in the region for their lateryea r s , possibly at Beatty.During a recent visi t to Death Val-ley I asked Ray about his future plansfor the M onument . "With the excep-tion of improvements on some of theroads already in use," he said, "I thinkour road-building program is aboutfinished. The West Side road by wayof Shorty Harris ' grave and Bennett ' swell should be paved, also the scenicdrive through Titus Canyon. I hopealso that eventually we will be able tooil the road into the M onume nt f romSaratoga Springs. Beyond that, andnormal maintenance I see no need foradditional roads within the M onume nt .The most important project for thefuture i s the museum."On the w alls of his office at M onu -ment headquar t e r s is a sketch prepare dby the Park Service architects for amuseum building especially designedfor Dea th Valley. M uch of it is to beof native stone, and the landscapingas far as practicable will be of the

plants and shrubs which grow in themonument .Over a period of years , Ray Good-win and his staff have accumulated agreat collection of exhibitsthe relicsof the emigrant trek through the val-ley, artifacts of the Shoshonean Indi-ans , the tools of the pioneers whomined the Death Valley region, min-eral specimens, a herbarium and the

skins of Death Valley wildlife readyfor mounting. Probably no region inthe United States offers a greater va-riety of exhibit material than the be-low-sea-level floor of Death Valley andthe adjacent mountains and canyons.Today this material is stored atgreat hazard in the abandoned bar-racks of the CCCawaiting the daywhen a museum will be constructedfor i ts permanent housing.The museum idea gained a substan-tial sponsor this year when the DeathValley 49ers under the direction of

Pres ident Ardi s Walker , super in tendentin Kern County, voted to make themuseum in Death Valley a major ob-jective. John Anson Ford, formerpresident of the 49ers , and a super-visor in Los Angeles County, indi-cated that he would accept the chair-manship of a special committee to pro-mote the museum project . With thebacking of such leaders , and a mem-bership consisting of thousands of theSouthwest's most culture-minded citi-zens , i t appears certain the Death Val-ley museum soon will begin to assumedefinite form.Former Secretary of Interior Ickesonce considered the feasibility ofcharging an admission fee for entranceinto the De ath Valley M onume nt , asis done in many of the national parks.

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Polished slabs of black agate from Milky Wash in the Levan Ridge area of centralUtah. Lapidaries also find it goo d gem cutting material. Specimens slightly enlarged.

B la c k A g a te in M ilk y W a s hThe day Stanley and Randle Jone s found Milky Wash was full ofsurprises. First there was the delightful painted valley with its colorfulcla y hil ls and the two sparkling reservoirs. Then came the ag ate avirgin field in which gem quality black stone carried beautiful con-

trasting ban ds of cha lcedo ny. Here is the story of a new collectingareaa hidden valley laced with f ine cutting materiala rockhoundShangri-la in central Utah.By W. RANDLE JONESPhotog raphs by Wi l l a rd LuceM ap by Nor ton Al len

wife, we left our home in Provo anddrove south on U. S. Highway 91.The hil ls to the east were covered withautumn colormuted purples , yellowsand reds blending into a lush carpetaccented here and there by a bri l l iantpatch of gold or crimson. The valleyside of the road was rich with thehoney color of harvested grain fields.The two prospector s ' vague d i r ec-t ions took us as far as Levan, centerof the Levan Ridge country and home

, I 'VE seen agate downthere in veins 18 inchesthick."This sounded too good to be t rue.But when we heard the same r epor tf rom two old-time prospectors f romthe Levan region of central Utah, wedecided i t might not be as exagger-ated as it s ee med . M y husband , S tan-ley, and I resolved to invest igate.I t was a bri l l iant September morn-ing when, with Willard Luce and his

of prosperous sheep and catt le men.We talked to several of the 624 resi-dents and he ard: "A gate? Don 't knowabout agate, but there's a lot of flintin M i lky Was h ."Flint that's the tip-off in Utahamong s tock and sheep men . As theyride along, they notice the agate andobsidian but lump it indiscriminatelyunder that one word.At Levan Highway 91 divides, withstate highway 28 continuing south tojoin U. S. 89. We were directed todrive 11 or 12 miles south on U28,then turn left on the road which ap-peared to be the most t raveled . Wefollowed the highway down throughsage brush f lats which had replacedthe cult ivated sections. We were closerto the foothills now, and the sage wasbright with its fall costume of yellow.Here and there a ranch house o r tu r -key farm broke the monotonous desertexpans e .

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Jm W^^iLooking eastward across the small valley of the Milky Wash toward the brilliantlycolored clay hills. Best agate material is found at the west end of the valley.Thirteen miles south of Levan atthe top of a rise a well-defined roadled off through the sage brush andcedars. We turned onto it and droveslowly, not knowing just what we werelooking for. After passing through anarrow pass between two low hills wesaw ahead of us sheep corrals and anabandoned shed. We decided to stopand do a little prospecting.What a surprise awaited us! As wedrove up to the corrals and stopped,the entire panorama changed. Just afew feet ahead was a wonderful littlevalley. Dropping suddenly from thesage brush rise, it stretched lazily be-tween painted hills. We estimated itwas about four miles long and three-quarters of a mile across.The low hills to the east and northof the valley are of highly-colored claywith emerald green, red and tan spill-ing from the tops of ridges and intothe draws. They form a sharp contrast

for the cedar-covered hills which mountbehind them. Two small reservoirsprovide a sparkling bit of reflection inthe center of the north end of the val-ley.We looked at each other in amaze-

ment. Nobody had mentioned thislovely painted valley in discussingMilky Wash. Later we learned thewash earned its name from the erodingfloods which each spring wash awayenormous quantities of the valley'sclay to turn the run-off water milkywhite.From the corrals a narrow truckroad led down into the valley and out

the south end. We decided to walkrather than to risk driving our passen-ger car down the dugway. On thevalley floor we found our first bits ofblack agate. A thin coat of clay gaveit a blue look as it lay on the ground.The pieces were small, but they showedfine quality with fortifications or con-trasting bands of white. We decidedthis was the place to hunt.Rock hammers in hand and eyessquinting at the white earth, we gradu-ally worked toward the west side ofthe valley. The float became bigger

and better, and soon we struck paydirtagate jutting out of the hillside,its vein exposed by erosion. Theseveins, we discovered, extend back andup into the sides of the hills and rangein size from paper thin to several

inches in thickness at the exposedpoint. Running thin for a way, thevein will suddenly expand into a bugof agate. Here is one place it pays towhomp a rock even at the risk of frac-turing a piece too badly for cutting.Some of it, while appearing to be solid,is composed instead of tiny veins lyingclose together in the matrix; others formbubbles. Another piece will show aninch-thick vein of agate with bands,windows or inclusions adding to itsbeauty. In color the agate varies fromdeep black to gray or brown toneswith white or clear chalcedony in con-trast.

We found spots where the agatewas in combination with a coarsequartz crystal. Much of it had beenthrown out of test holes by gold pros-pectors. Occasionally a piece of verythin, brilliant carnelian agate will liein tiny bubbles across a piece of agate,matrix or quartz. It makes an attrac-tive window piece, but has no value asgem material.

There was evidence of considerableprospecting activity in the valley, butthe quantity of agate lying undisturbed12 DESERT MAGAZ IN E


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made i t seem unlikely the si te had everbeen visi ted by rockhounds.The west side of the valley slopesdown from a hill which stands con-siderably higher than i ts neighbors .Composed of weathered basalt f lowscontrasting with mounds of gravel andconglomerate, it is entirely different incomposition from the colored clay hillsacross the valley. We found no t raceof agate on the east s ide.Our packs f i l led, we t rudged backup the hill to the car, reluctant toleave this quiet valley. The only noisesto be heard were the faint cl icks ofinsects and the scampering of an oc-casional rabbit .As we turned back toward the high-way we noticed a trail leading off tothe left. It wound to the west ar oundthe base of what we had dubbed Agate

Randle and Stanley Jones and Mrs.Willard Luce o pen up a Vein o f agate.The veins, which lace throughout thehillside, vary in size from a thin layerup to eight or ten inches in width.

Hill . Our curiosi ty was aroused, andwe decided to follow. The path led toa spot where considerable agate min-ing had been done. Large veins hadbeen broken up and picked over . Wegathered a few pieces but they werenot of the same quality as our earlierspecimens from the valley side of thehill.We returned to the highway anddrove south about two miles to justbelow the county l ine separating Juaband Sanpete counties . Here the roadcoming out of the south end of thevalley joined the highway. We followedit to see if we might drive right intothe valley on a return t r ip, but weredisappointed. The road is completelywashed out in several places .Talking to other rockhounds andprospector s la t e r , we d i scovered thatthe whole country south of Levan con-tains agate and fossil material. Bothsagenite and i r is agate reportedly havebeen found in the hills and valleys,but in small quantities.Stockmen f rom M anti lease theM ilky Was h land under the TaylorGrazing Act. Since it is unfencedrange, they have no objections to rock-hounds coming in for collecting pur-poses . No mineral claims have beenfiled in the agate area.We have found our M i lky Washblack agate cuts and polishes brilli-antly, and where the contrast ing tonesof white or clear bands form a pattern,a very effective gem can be produced.

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Utah Artist Paul Salisbury and "Cattle Country," one of his paintings of Southwestdesert scenes.Painter of the U t a h D eser t . . .By H. M C D O N A L D C L A R K

O M E T H I N G A B O U T theSouthwest keeps cal l ing meback to deser t s ights andsounds and s ensa t ions . My brush in-s t inct ively seeks out vivid colors onthe pa l e t t e , and before I'm fully con-scious of it, I'm painting the d e s e r tagain."That 's how Paul Salisbury explainswhy hiscanvases are almost exclusivelyof deser t subjects . Paul , a tal l , dark-hai r ed , brown-eyed man in his ear lyfort ies , is a Utah ar t i s t noted for hisreal i s t ic port rayal of de s e r t s c ene s .Navajo Home Life is a typical Salis-

bury paint ing. An Indian woman si t sat her loom with a woman companionbeside her carding wool and a Navajomothe r t ending a s leeping baby in ac radleboard . Behind them a she ephe rde r saddle s his hor se to take the

Paul Salisbury was a profes-s ional saxophone player , anda good one. But the saxophonefailed to offer much opportun-it y for art express ionand soPaul turned to painting. Onthe catt le range and in theNavajo country of his nativeUtah he found both beauty andaction and the artistry withwhich he has brought thesequali t ies to his oil c a n v a s e shas g i ven him recognition asone of the Southwest's out-s tanding artis ts .

lambs to grazing lands between thesandstone bluffs of southe rn Utah.So realistic is the ar t i s t ' s int e rpr e -tation of this Southwest scene that onei s t r anspor t ed beyond the canvas andbecomes int imately aware of warm sun

on sand, the gay colors of the Navajowomen' s appare l , the coar s e t extur e ofwool and the magic design of an un-finished blanket . All the s ense s aresatisfied by the sympathet ic t reatmentof color and form.Dur ing winte r months , Paul is con-tent to remain within his studio wallsin his ho me at Provo, Utah, paint ingfrom memory or from sketches madeon summer excur s ions . But with thearr ival of spr ing, the great outdoorsbecomes the artist 's studio and, paint-ing under its canopy, he subst i tutes im-media t e expe r i ence for memo ry .Salisbury spends much of his sum-m e r in M onument Val ley , on the Nav-ajo reservat ion in southe rn Utah andnor the rn Ar izona . "I like to think ofthis s t re tch of de s e r t as my count ry , "he e xplains . "I amcompletely at homein it, and it s e ems to ow n a par t of me.I love to paint the Navajos . "

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Paul and his wife, Chloe, live in anart ist ically arranged home in Provo.Here they ra i sed the i r two chi ld renPaul M urdo ck, a student at BrighamYoung Universi ty, and Geraldine, wholives with her husband in Carlsbad.New M exico. Each spring the familystages a reunion, with f requent t r ipsto the desert where Paul captures i tsscenic beauty in paintings and sketches .

M any of Paul 's orde rs come f romTexas pat rons . Nume rous Cali forniacatt leme n and M ontana rancher s a lsoorder directly f rom him. An agenthandles other sales , especially thosein the East. Salisbury paintings hangin schools , banks, l ibraries , collegesand private homes throughout thecountry. His oils move rapidly in theJ. W. Young Galler ies in Chicago.To develop his natural talent , Paulstudied art at West High School inSalt Lake City, at Brigham YoungUniversi ty, Provo, and at Los Ange-les Junior College. He took advancedwork at Chouinard School of Art andat Ar t Cente r , both in Los Angeles .In addition to two one-man showsone at Provo and the other at the ArtBarn in Salt Lake Cityhe has ex-hibited in the Palmer House of Art ,Atlanta, Georgia; the Utah CentennialExhibit in Salt Lake City; the RobertVose G all e r i e s in Boston; M axwellGallery in San Francisco; Springer-vil le Art Gallery, Utah, and Bohlman'sAr t Shop, Reno , Nevada.The city of Provo bought three ofPaul 's large oils for the town library.

"Navajo Ho me Life," a Salisbury painting of reservation life in Mo numentValley.One is of Father Escalante and hisparty emerging f rom Spanish ForkCanyon; another shows pioneer s c ross -ing the Provo River , and the thirdpictures Provot , the explorer af terwhom the city was named, holdingcouncil with the Indians at Point of theM ountain ."When I was a boy on my father 'sranch, I was always drawing," Paul

As a boy on his father's Utah ranch, Paul Salisbury was fascinated by thehor ses and cow s. He still is, and loves to paint them into realistic pictureslike this o ne, "Summer Range."

r emembers . "The hor ses and cowsfascinated me; they still do. That'swhy I love to paint round-ups ." M anyof his canvaseslike Cattle Countryan d Summer Range depict South-west cowboy scenes .Paul was born at Richfield, Utah,near the Kanosh Indian reservation.As soon as he first noticed color andform, he drew with crayon what hesaw. Now he expresses himself ex-clusively in oils.

M usic is another art at which Paulexcels. Once his profession, it now ishis favorite hobby. He has playedsaxophone in many orchest ras andbands in the weston the old Pan-tages circuit, in the first Salt LakeSymphony, B righam Young Univer^ isi ty orchest ra and band, Herb AdkinvPasadena orchest ra and the LibertyPark band in Salt Lake City.A quiet spoken man, Paul is unas-suming and humble about his work inart . But he has st rong convictionsabout art which he expresses unhesi-tatingly: "I believe in conservativepainting. The more realist ic the pic-ture , the bette r . M oder n art , with itsabstractions, holds no attraction form e . "To achieve realism in his paintings,he pays great attention to detail. Hisbrush catches the shoe on a horse 'sfoot, the hidden horn in the sand, thebeaded design on a moccasin, the mus-cles of a mustang. When he was askedto paint a turkey ranch, he first visitedthe ranch to make prel iminary sketchesof the grounds, the turkeys and thesur rounding landscape . Then he went

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to the local library and studied, turke ysfrom their anatomy to their livinghabi t s . "I l ea rned every thing therewas to learn about turkeys before Ibegan painting," he laughs.Gifted with a photographic mind,Paul sees a scene once , and it: is fixedpermanent ly in his memory . He gleansideas f rom momentary impres s ions orf rom movie scenes . "In the movie ,

Smoky," he says in exampl e , " t h e r e isa scene showing a black horse drivinga he rd of red catt le under a mountainledge . The picture r emained f r e sh inmy mind and later furnished a sugges-tion for a painting I subsequently de-veloped and sold in New Y o r k . "Paul Salisbury is devoted to his art,an d he finds constant inspiration inthe dese r t landscape , and in its inhabi-

tant s . The Navajo shepherdess withher flocks, the forest ranger on aninspection tour , the pioneer in hiswagon trekking westward across thede s e r t , the cowboy in his prair ie king-dom, the snowdrifts that isolate valleyranchesall these typical Southwestscenes are captured with ref reshingrealism by this painter of the Utahde s e r t .

L I F E o n t h e D E S E R TBy T. E. JEWELL

The skinniest , raggedest human being I have everseen hobbled into our camp on the dese r t ea r ly in theevening of a day in the fore par t of M ay , 1928 . He wasleaning heavily on a forked stick and had no canteen .His only provisions were two or th ree p ieces of j e rkedmeat that only starvation could make palatable.The h ea t of summer was already set t ing in, and thewinte r wate r holes were d rying up. In the direction fromwhich he came , the neares t wate r that we knew of wasat the old French Diggings, 25 or 30 miles southwest ofour camp at M idway Well , Imper ial County, California.We knew that no man as weak and lame as the s t rangerhad ever made that t r ip without water . Where had hecome f rom? To say that we were merely curious wouldbe a gross under s ta t ement .The s t ranger did not talk much, at first , just drankwate r and r e s t ed . Af te r a bit he asked if we could givehim some clothes and hot water , and while we p r epa r edsuppe r , he sc rubbed up. Afte r supper , when we wer esitting around the f i re , our guest told us his story."I lef t Blythe about the first of M a rc h to prospect amonth or so in the Chocolates . I found some high-gradefloat, and traced it a couple of miles , but neve r was ableto find the vein. I'd stayed, hunting for it, until I wasjust about out of everything but salt and bean s , andwas heading for the wel l , he re , on my way back toBlythe ." I was coming down that big canyon five or sixmiles wes t of the point of the range . About a mile upt h e r e ' s a place where an old volcanic dike had pushedup across the canyon, and later the water broke throughalong the east wall . Up a dozen feet or so the re ' s agood sized quartz st r inger showing on the canyon wall,an d I climbed up to look at it."The wal l is almost straight up and down, and Iwas hanging on with one hand, with my feet rest ing ona couple of rough places , t rying to b r eak off a chunkwith mypick. The next thing I knew I was on the floorof thecanyon with a broken l eg ." M y b u r r os had been ahead of me, and by the timeI thought of them, they were out of s ight . Never didsee them again. I lay there quite a while, too damnedsca r ed to try to do anything."The chances were about a million to one againstany help coming along, and the only thing I could seewas to put a bullet through my head and be out of mymisery . I never will know why I hung my gun on mybelt that morning instead of leaving it in my bed-roll ,but I had. W h e n I actually had the gun in my hand,though, I knew I did notwant to die , and I really startedfiguring my chances."Before it broke th rough that old dike , the re was

Here is theamazing s tory of what happened whena desert prospector found himself in an i so la ted can-yon wi th a broken legand neither food nor water.This is one of thewinning entries in Desert's Life-on-the-Desert contest in 1951.a little lake above it. W h e n the dike b roke , it crackedon down below the bottom of the old lake . Water runsthrough the crack slow enough that there is a wetweather buried tank above the dike that will last acouple of months, af ter a big rain. I had found the holewhere game waswatering, as I came down, in the grassand arrow-weed about a hundred feet above the dike .Wild burros had watered there that morning."I f igured if I could get up a few feet on the side ofthe dike where I could see over the top of the a r row-weed , I might be able to knock over a bu r ro , and a mancan live on jerky and water quite a while if he has to."I dragged myself to wher e I could gethold of somedrift sticks for splints, and wedged my foot in the rocks .Y e s , it was painful, but I was de spe r a t e . I set it thebes t I could and bound it with my unde rwea r and belt ." J u s t as it was breaking daylight next morning, alone bur ro came in to wate r . Gue s s he could smell me,because I hea rd him stomping and moving around foran hour or more before he finally came close. I onlyhad three shells in my gun, and I used 'em all before Idowned him fork e e p s ."Boys , the re ' s no r anke r mea t in the world than anold jack burro, and that 's what I'd shot . When I gotto him and found it out I was so mad I bawled, butpretty soon it sank in that there wasn't going to be an-other chance. Anyway, it was meat . I hung it onb ru sh and sp read it on rocks to dry. The f lies blowedand spoiled about three quarters of it. The r e s t of it,and wate r , is what I've been living on for over th reeweek s ." I had to scrape my water hole out a l i t t le deeperevery couple of days. This morning it was almost fourf ee t deep , and when I got out of the hole after gettinga drink I sl ipped and caved down a bank. The waterwasn't too good, anyway, so I decided to try getting tothe well here , f iguring to wait for a car to come through.Took me 14 or 15 hou r s to make ten or twelve miles ,but I made it."I really thanked God when I sawyour camp, boys .I was hungry, and I'm still hungry. And I'm going tobe hungry for a long time to c o m e . "An opportunity came a couple of days later for ourguest to ride in to town. Before leaving he gave usdetailed instructions for finding the place, and told usthat we should f ind some good paying placer . He alsodescr ibed the location of thehigh-grade float, and wher ehe had t raced it to.As the car was being turned around for the trip totown he said, "You have the dope , boys , if you'rein te r es t ed , go get it. I'vedone mylast prospecting. Fromno w on I'm stayipg where I can get to something toeat without crawling. Thanks, and so long."

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The bride and groom Sally Laughter 's daughter , 15, and Per cy Cly, 35. Theyare living in a tent until they can build their own hogan.

H o g a n M a r r i a g eBy JOYCE ROCKWOOD MUENCHPhotog rap hs by Jos e f M uench

the soap-weed bloomsin November, the snow willcover the stalks ," the oldNavajo medicine man had said. Hewas r ight , too, for the snow had beendeep and the winte r s evere . Now i twas M arch in M onume nt Vall ey , andthere was st i l l more snow. Spring washeld back f rom the desert .We were a lmost as snug as the

sheep, corraled in the l iving room ofHarry Goulding's t rading post . Pat-terned Indian rugs of red and black,gray and white , made f rom the woolof M onume nt Val ley s heep lay under -foot . M ore of them decorate d the

walls and hung over the backs andarms of chairs . One even covered thebig round coffee table in front of theopen coal f i re . The rugs seemed tohold the warmth of the desert sununder which they had been woven.With the wind accenting our com-fort, I saw the promise of a long, quietevening. The lanky t rader would talkon his favorite subjectNavajos-andhis wife " M ike " would make a f reshpot of coffee. We would sit and toastourselves, with only a stray thoughtfor the hil lside sheltered sheep andthe Indians in their scattered hogans.Casually , M ike asked her b rother ,

Two horses and fifty dollarsthat was the price Percy Clypaid for his 15-year-old Navaiobride. But he was a good bride-groomhe chopped wood forhis mother-in-law. Joyce andJosef Muench were present atthe wedding reception andhave given Desert Magazinereaders this unusual glimpseof life on the Navaio reserva-tion.

M aur ice Kne e , "D id you know thatPercy was gett ing married tonight?""Percy Cly? Is Sally Laughter giv-ing him her daughter after all? Shesaid last year she wouldn't .""Can ' t we go?" someone asked ."Sally was in the post early thismorning and said they were to bemarrie d tonight ," continued M ike inanswer to M aur ice ' s look .

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Trader Harry Goulding. His customers are Sally Laughter, her newly marrieddaughter, and 2-year-old son. The Indians depend on the trader for supplies ofevery kind, often paying with wool, rugs, sheepskins and labor.He nodded thoughtfully and tu rnedto Har ry ."Did the goats get fed? I was un-loading the pickup and didn't havet i me . "We sat on the edge of our seats andwondered about theequivalent of wed-ding bells in Navajo life.Our e l even-year old, s t r eamlinedfor action, whispered to me. " A r e n ' twe going?" I shushed him. M aur ic e ' sbride of a month, Ladora, laid herhandon the boy ' s knee and commentedsoftly, "Things are like that out h e r e .

No oneever does anything r ight now."Our joint urge persisted, "Let 's goto the wedding!""W ell ," M aurice finally agreed, "Wemight take a run down and see if itisn't over yet."We c rowded out, pushing the doorshut against the wind and carefullytucking the warmth back into theroom.Snow was still falling quietly in a darkworld. We found our way down thestairs and into thenea r e s t car.The car moved , pushed off the ledgewhere the post sits a mile above sea

level, and theheadlights searched f ran-tically for the narrow, dropping road.We plunged into a hollow and up overthe sand, around a hogan and off intothe darkne s s . M o r e t urn s and hillswere swallowed up before we came toa stop, high in the air on a cold andwindswept knoll . When the lightsblinked off, the black void envelopedus , and only thewind spoke.M au r ic e had a flashlight, and weheaded into a ravine, wading ankledeep in moist red sand. The pencilof light sought out a small wooden door

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Navajo life. Living in a hogan made o f logs and mud, the members o f the Navajofamily eat and sleep mostly o n sheepskins o n a dirt floo r. A brush is made fro mYucca fibers that gro w nearby. F or the baby, a ho me-made cradleboar d.in a mound of the same red sand."Wait a minute t i l l I see what 's go-ing on," he said and disappeared intothe igloo-shaped st ructure. The ghostlyoutlines of a white tent, feebly lightedfrom within, napped nearby, as thoughabout to push off from its mooringsand sail away.

"Come on in , " we heard , and thedoor was opened . Even the shor t es tof the group had to bend to clear thedoorway. We crowded in, s tandingwith necks bent .A small i ron stove gave out heat

that filled every crack of the hoganwhile we found places on sheepskins.Sally Laughter was sitting in easyNavajo fashion on the floor, about tohave dinner with her t iny two-year-oldson. On the hard red dir t was a t ray-like board set with several dishes . Anoil lamp showed up the peeled cedarlogs, woven into the spiderweb patternof raf ters and side supports . The cleancedar smell blended into the warmth.Boards made nar row shelves he re andthere , pushed into any convenientledge, and a calendar with last Novem-

ber 's page uppermost , gave the placea modern , t ended look .Sally smiled as M aurice talked. Shefondled the child, touching a burn onhis bare leg, comforting, protecting,reassuring him with her hands.M aurice pushe d his cowboy hat backon his head as he swung toward us ,still squatting."They were mar r i ed th i s noon andhave the tent next door . The gir l won'tgo away. Would you like to take apicture of the bride and groom? Sallysays it 's all right to take it here."A U G U S T , 1 9 5 2


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Harry Goulding and his wife, Mike. F riends of the Indians, and hosts toMo nument Valley visitor s, the Gouldings have operated a trading post andlodge in this remote region for 25 years.

He wen t out to converse with thegroom. A picture would be bet t e r inthe hogan than in a tent . I wonderedif Percy would come into the sameroom with his mother- in-law, in de-fiance of the Navajo taboo. He spokesome English and probably had at-tended school , but his bride had not.I was so busy watching faces andenjoying the scene of which we hadsuddenly become part that I did nothave time to regret missing the actualce remony. It must have been simple,probably consisting of the usual wash-ing of the br ide ' s hai r , and the ritualmeal of corn-mush , fed by the newly-weds to each other f rom a Paiute wed-ding tray.We soon became accus tomed tohaving the door open and bring somenew element into the room. F i r s t itwas the br ide . Her long, full, sateen

skirt hung to the top of heavy shoes .She shifted the blanket around hershoulders and smiled. It was not likeSally's smile. Would her smooth skinever take on the chiseled wrinkles , herbroad face ever look like her mother ' s?Jus t now it was like a blank pagebeside the character revealing one ofthe older woman. How many daugh-ters before her had been mar r i ed offwith or without her consent from thishogan, or some similar hearth in thel imitless desert? How many more chil-dren could this old woman expect toraise? The girl was well built toomature for f if tee n. The mothe r , I wouldhave said, was a hund r ed ; but therewas the two-year old to deny it.

Between snatches of Navajo , M aur-ice explained that Percy was willingto be photographed. Sally had knownhim since he was a little boywho usedto roll rocks out on the road to delaythe infrequent cars . Percy said hewasn't going to stop looking at hernow just because he had marr i ed herdaughte rnot even if the M edicineM an did prophecy he would go blind.The groom, when he joined us, wasall smiles . They were for us, hisgues t s , for M a u r ic e , his white friendwho spoke excellent Navajo. He neverlooked at Sally nor at his br ide .The picture wasposed and the flashse t off. When the bulb had cooled, itwas presented to the Indian baby. Heaccepted it unsmilingly and held on asthough thewhite boymight try to takeit from him.M aur ic e sat on his haunches andtalked, onegroom to another ." I had to give my mother-in-lawone mule , two ho r s e s and ten dollarsfor he r , " and he j e rked hishead towardLado ra in jeans and fancy cowboyboots . "What did you have to giveyour mother- in-law?"Lado ra , as befitted a bride, said

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Young Navajo shepherdess. Nine-year-old Mary has never been to school butremains at home to care for the flock which is the family's main source oflivelihood.nothing of what her mothe r in KansasCity might have thought of the re-cital, and Sally joined Percy in galesof laughter .

The Indian was a little reluctant,but he finally admitted to two ho r s e san d $50.The girl half smiled, still aloof, asthough none of th i s concerned her.Her only glances , when the wide-openbrown eyes l e f t our faces , were forhe r mothe r .

We found bills in our pu r s e s to prof-fe r as wedding gifts, some for the b r id e ,some for Pe rcy . It was warm with ourheavy coats on, sitting a few feet fromthe s tove , and we were glad finally tobe standing, smiling, saying goodnight.Outs ide , the cold air shook us. We

found the night clear , s tarred aboveand black below, as we t rudged upthrough the sand to the car." W h a t is the b r ide ' s name ?" I asked ."I guess she doesn't have one,"

M aurice laughed. "Jus t Sally Laugh-te r ' s daughte r . I asked Sally once andshe sh rugged her shoulder s and saidshe d idn ' t know."Two ho r s e s and $50! And shewouldn't leave her mother . He was agood son-in-law, Sally had said. He

cut wood for her after the wedding.F rom the hillside corral , as wepas s ed it, came the sleepy tinkle of bellsas the sheep snuggled closer to theirl it tl e M arch lambs .

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B y C L A U D E C . W A L T O NEvanston, Wyoming

Why do I see beauty in this greasewood, rock and sandWhen other people think of i t as God's forsaken land?Why do 1 feel kinship to the wind, the s tars , the s un,And find a healing solace in this waste that others shun?It may be that ear th's e lements have known, the same as I ,The s t ranglehold of ci ty s t reets where dreams decay and die;It may be that they hunger for the freedom of the plainAs a parching wheatfield hungers for the ecstacy of rain.Here , the wind is freed from mountains and the tyranny of t rees ,And they race with wild abandon over dry, unfer t i le leas;Here , the clouds have spi l led thei r anguish on the peaks beyondthe r im,Peaceful ly they guard the Heavens when the evening l ight growsdim;The moon has room to wander through the magic of the nightWhile the shadows s t retch to Heaven where the Cup hangs closeand bright;Here a soul can grow in s tature , reaching to the very s tars ,And a hear t forget the pr i son of convention's r igid bars .These are things that make me love i t , God-forsaken though i t be;Oh, barren land, in your domain a man is freeis free .


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S e c u r i t y , . .M ary Otto of Los Ange les , California,photographed this affectionate mule fam-ily on a trip through southern Arizona lastJanuary. Taken with a Rollieflex camera,Plus X film, 1/100 s eco nd at f14, the pic-ture is first prize winne r in Desert M aga-zine's June photo contest.

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a e d c f . . .A wagon wheel rotting inPioneerArizonaPaul E.and hesecondentries.camera ,

Cemetery, Ehrenberg,, intrigued Photographe rBlack of Los Angeles,made this study to winprize among June photoBlack used a RollieflexPlus X film an d G filter,1/25 second at f 16.23


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Desert friends of Francis Marion "Shady" Myrick pay tribute to the first gem-stone prospector of California's Mojave Desert.

In Memory of a Rockhound. . .7HE SLIGHT, friendly man whowas the Mojave Desert's firstgemstone prospector was hon-ored in permanent and appropriatefashion last Memorial Day at the RandDistrict cemetery in California.Dedicated to Francis Marion "Shady"Myrick, a memorial monument wasunveiled by representatives of NavalOrdnance Test Station Rockhoundsand the Desert Lions Club of RandDistrict, assisting Harold Weight ofTwentynine Palms.The monument, blanketed, with Mo-jave Desert gemrock specimens em-24

By PAT and GEORGE STURTEVANTPhoto by Al Gonzalez

bedded in masonry, is the result of asuggestion by Harold and LucileWeight. The couple had urged thatthe obscurely marked grave be morefittingly designated. Dwight Crawfordand other gemstone enthusiasts ofNOTS seconded the idea, and withthe cooperation of the Lions club, ar-ranged for the monument. A specialfeature is a bronze plaque in the head-stone, which describes Myrick as "TheGodfather of American Rockhounds."From the years of 1900 to 1925,Myrick explored the Death Valley re-gion with considerable success and

publicity. One of the first gem huntersand probably the most successful rockdealer in the state at that time, Shadywas the discoverer of blue-red chal-cedony, named myrickite by theSmithsonian Institution in his honor.Recorded in governmental reports arehis other finds of Death Valley blood-stone, jasper and hyalite opal.Unlike the misanthropic desert her-mit of folklore, Myrick was a kindlyman always ready to answer the eagerquestions of tenderfeet, or ponder theproblems of the day with his manyfriends in the Johannesburg-Red

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M ountain ( then Os dick) -Randsbur gregion. He admitted that he missedthe companionship of men during hismonths-long t r ips into Death Valley,but a love of reading and the companyof his two pack burros compensatedfor the lonely periods between visi tsto town.All over his hunting grounds (north-east of Joburg and into the southernreaches of De ath Val ley) , M yr ickmaintained caches of supplies and de-veloped waterholes which saved thelives of countless persons.Born in Iowa in 1850, the patronsaint of present day rockhounds be-gan his prospecting in Colorado atthe age of 21 . For year s he se rved assheriff in the rough 'n ready boomtown of Leadville during the '80s, andhe was a member of the Coloradolegislature during this period.An ironic twist of fate, it was duringa pilgrimage to the site of his pioneerdays in Leadville that Shady died, onJune 27, 1925. "I 've wanted so longto meet again my early day friends inColorado , Utah , Idaho , and the West -e rn s ta t es , " he to ld Rand res ident s jus tbefore h i s depar tu re . His body wasreturned for burial in the Joburgcemetery July 4 of that year .Al though hi s in te r es t s were p redom-inantly those of the gem collector(having been guided in that directionby Joe Foi se of Johanne sbu rg) , M yr ick

could smell a good claim as well asthe next one, and several of his goldfinds created minor flurries of excite-me nt in the mining world. One ofthem was responsible for his nickname.As a young man of 19, Jame s Ross erof Randsburg r e la tes , M yr ick cameupon a mining camp, "Oro Fino," inColorado, and proceeded to annoymany of the hardbitten old timers withhis quest ions. One f inally growled,"There ' s a good shady place underthat t r eedig there . " The young mandid as he was bid, and struck a richlode before nightfall. From that timeon , he was "Shady" to most everyone .

His last big st r ike was made justtwo years before his death, in 1923.On his way home to Johannesburgfrom Death Valley, 40 miles east ofOsdick, he came upon a lava hill hehad marked 12 years previously as apossible gem region. Looking overthe ground casually, he broke off apiece of burned conglomerate, anddiscovered gold. Although a smalltent . city of pros pectors sprang upbeside the claim, and samples prom-ised r ich possibil i t ies , the st r ike turnedout to be a narrow vein of gold whichhad toppled over from erosion of therocks around i t and thus appeared tobe wider and deeper than i t was.

Although the countryside that for-

merly was almost solely M yrick's between Re d M ountain and the s outh-ern end of Death Valleyis almostcompletely closed to visitors by thenavy, specimens f rom this ter r i toryhave found their way into collectionsof rockhounds all over the world, andno doubt many that Shady himselfpacked into the Rand Dist r ict are gemsprized by owners .GROW CACTU S *FROM SEEDIt is fascinating to watch the firstspines form on a seedling cactus . Dr.A. D. Houghton, cactus expert andauthor of The Cactus Book suggestsplanting cactus seeds as soon as theyare obtained f rom the parent plant .The older the seed, the slower i t willsprout . Fresh seeds germinate almost100 percent, and the little plants areinteresting from the start.

ANSWERS TO DESERT QUIZQuestions are on page 10l _ W i n d .2Yellow.3_Highway 60.4Grand Canyon.5San Juan river.6Arizona.7Albuque rque .8Cholla.9Navajos.10M arcos de Niza.11Phoenix.12Raft with which the Yuma In-dians crossed the Colorado.13Quartz.14M anly-Bennett-Arcane party.15Copper mine.16A famous desert cartoonist.17Utah.18June.19Rocks.20A seepage spring.

S & o n f yOF DEAT H VAL L EY

"What do you do for freshmeat away out here in a forlornplace like this, with no cattle andno rail road?" the visi tor was ask-ing. He and his party had stoppedat the Inferno store af ter a sum-mer trip to a Nevada gold minein which he was interested.

"Shucks, they's plenty o' meata round he r e , " an swe r ed HardRock Shorty who was keepingstore while the clerk pumped gasin the stranger's car out in front."Ol ' Hank Hoskins who loafsaround here when i t ' s too hot towork his tungsten mine, goes outnearly every morning and bringsin a jackrabbitand they're notbad eatin' if yu know how tocook ' em. An ' when we don ' thave f resh meat they's alwaysplenty o' jerky. See them stringsof it hangin' on the rafters overyer head?"Usta have f resh eggs everyday an' chicken on Sunday in theold days when Pisgah Bill hadhis chicken ranch up on EightBall crick. But Bill ain't bin inthe chicken business since thatbig cloudburst hit the Funeralsback in '27. So all we git nowis powdered eggs and cannedchicken once in a while."Bill 's chickens wuz doin' fineat f i rs t . He growed a nice patch

o' feed fer 'em down below thespring, and built a fence o' mes-quite to keep the coyootes out ."Then that blasted storm comealong. Rained six inches in ahour an' a half an' a wall ofwater come down that crick musta bin 10 feet high jedgin'from the damage it done. Billwas up workin' his mine on Pie-bald mountain that day, an' thechicken pen was on high groundso the birds wuz all right. Butthe garden all went down thecanyonan' the re wuz nothin 'left fer 'em to eat."Bill made a trip down to

Barstow to get a load o' feed fer'em. He came back complainin'that the price o ' grain wuz toohigh so he bought a few sacks o'chicken feed and then went overto the wood shop and got a dozenbags o' saw dus t. 'I'll mix it halfan ' half,' he explained. 'Thechickens'll never know the differ-ence, an' that 's the only way Ican support 'em 'til I git thatgarden growin' again. '"At first it looked like a gooddeal. Chickens wuz doin' allr ight . Then in about three weeksone of 'em laid a wooden eggan' inside o' a few days they wuzall layin' wooden eggs. So Billquit the chicken business ."

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ever of discovering his wealthy cus-tomer 's secret . Then one day the In-dian came in for his usual supply ofgroceries and, after paying the bill ingold, told the merchant that he hadcome to tell him the secret of the goldnuggets . "I am an old man," he said,"and I will not be able to make use ofthem much longer ."M any year s ago ," he began, "whi let rai l ing a wounded deer across thefoothills on the eastern slopes of theBaboquivari mountains , I sat downto rest on the top of a long ridge run-ning in a northeaster ly direction f romthe peak. As I rested, my attentionwas attracted by a flight of large vam-pire bats . They were emerging f roma crevice not far f rom where I wassitting. Never in my life had I seenso many beautiful silver-colored batsof such size."I made a torch f rom a piece ofdry ocotillo bark and threw it downinto the crevice. From its dim light Icould see what appeared to be a mines tope . Ore had been taken f rom sonear the surface that the roof hadbroken through, creating an openingthrough which the bats might enterand leave the mine. A slight draft wascoming from the opening, indicatingthat the re was another en t rance some-where. I invest igated further and dis-

covered a small hole several hundredfeet farther down the mountain side.Evidently it had been used by somewild animals for a den. It proved tobe the portal of an old tunnel that hadbeen covered over with mesquite polesand earth, now almost rotted away."After cleaning out the hole I madeanother torch and entered the tunnel ,"the Indian continued. "About 100feet in I came upon a number ofmetates and manos stacked againstthe wall. A short distance farther onwas a pile of broken ore and some oldmining tools and candlesticks such aswere used by early Spanish miners .On the floor of one of the several largestopes was another pile of broken ore,and farther back against the wall stooda cross and a shrine such as Spaniardsand M exicans often build in minesthey work. In a small tunnel or cross-cut on one side of the long tunnel was

a pile of buckskin bags full of goldnuggets. Evidently this gold had beenrecovered f rom some placer operationsin another part of the mountain.Against the back end of the little tun-nel a pile of gold bars gleamed yellowin the dim light of the tor ch. Some ofthe buckskin bags had rotted, and thenuggets had trickled down, forminggolden mounds on the floor of thetunnel .

Picture-of- the-Month Contest The black and white pictures used in Desert Magazine generallycome from two sources: (1) Photos submitted by writers with theirfeature stories, and (2) Pictures entered in the Picture-of-the-Monthcontest. In addition to the prizes awarded in this contest, the editorsoften select from among the entries other pictures for purchaseto beused sooner or later in Desert's pag e s. So, if you are a free lancephotographer, amateur or professional, the best way to sell a pictureto Desert is to enter it in the monthly contest.Entries for the August contest must be in the Desert Magazineoffice. Palm Desert, California, by August 20, and the winning printswill appea r in the October is su e. Pictures which arrive too late for

on e contest a re held over for the next month. First prize is $10; s econ dprize $5.00. For non-winning pictures accepted for publication $3.00each will be paid.HERE ARE THE RULES

1Prints for monthly contests roust be black and white. 5x7 or larger, printedon glossy paper.2Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as to subject, time andplace. Also technical data: camera, shutter speed, hour of day, etc.3PRINTS WILL BE RETURNED WHEN RETURN POSTAGE IS ENCLOSED.4All entries must be in the Desert Magazine office by the 20th of the contestmonth.5Contests are open to both amateur and professional photographers. DesertMagazine requires first publication rights only of prize winning pictures.6Time and place of photograph are immaterial, except that it must be from thedesert Southwest.7Judges will be selected from Desert's editorial staff, and awards will be madeimmediately after the close of the contest each month.Address All Entries to Photo Editor

7 2 e 4 e n t PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA

"As I made my way out of the tun-nel I stopped and picked up one ofthe buckskin bags of placer gold. I didnot think the gods would object to anold Indian like myself taking one smallbag of all that gold to buy food forhimself and family. After concealingthe tunnel entrance I made my waydown the mountainside to my houseand buried the sack of gold beneaththe dirt floor."I t was f rom that sack," he ex-plained to the trader, "that I got thegold I bartered with you for food andsupplies. Go to the mountain, climbup the long ridge, and when late inthe evening you see a large numberof silver-colored bats in the air, youwill be near the mine."The merchant , mounted on his mulewith his mozo running at his s t i r rup,left early the next day. Arriving lateon the ridge he and the boy saw batscircling overhead and decided to waituntil the next morning to search forthe mine .Just as daylight was breaking, theold Indian rode into camp. He seemedworried. He told the merchant he wasfrightened and regretted telling himthe secret of the mine. A tribal lawforbade any member of the t r ibe todisclose the location of a mine ort reasure to an outsider . The Papagofeared retribution at the hands of thegods."I waited until all the bats wereback in the hole; then I closed theentrance with rocks and earth. Nomore bats , " said the Indian. "The yall will die in the hole, and no whiteman will ever find the mine."No more vampire bats have everbeen seen in the Baboquivari moun-tains . Nor has anyone ever found thelost mine they guarded. BLEACHED RED MENNEED INDIAN MAKEUP

When a Hollywood motion picturecompany called 450 Indians for workin a film being shot in a Central Ari-zona mountain location, makeup mendiscovered the Indians had to besprayed with dark paint before theywould look properly red for the cam-e ra s .

A Yakima chief explaine d it: " In-dians today do not expose their bodiesto the sun as their ancestors did. Foryears they have worn conventionalclothing, and their protected skinhas become as light as that of theaverage white man. Their faces andhands are dark, and a few weeks ofexposure to the sun would bronzetheir enti re bodies ."Instead of waiting for the sun to dothe job, the movie men sent to Holly-wood for 700 quarts of liquid makeupand a spray gun. Arizona Republic.

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Rattlesnake that Glowed . . .Dese r t :

Walla Walla, WashingtonDid I read in Desert Magazine anitem to the effect that rattlesnakes arephosphorescent at night?Recently I was unfortunate enoughto get my car stuck on the high craterof an old little-used road along therailroad tracks in rattlesnake country.1 worked until dark trying to get off.At last I realized 1 would have toget help. I started out on the road;but it was too dark for me to follow,so I made my way to the railroadtracks and walked along between therails. I had heard that this was afavorite haunt for rattlers, but I as-sumed they would be bedded downfor the night, especially since a stormwas coming. Raindrops already werefalling.Suddenly, about two ties ahead ofme, I saw a snake, wriggling frantic-ally to get out of my way. It appear edto be white and had a steady glow.Could it have been an albino, or isthere a possibility that rattlesnakesphosphoresce? I must admit I didn'ttarry to find out if it really was arattler. It might have been a harmlessbull snake. JEAN B. STALKERDesert has published items aboutthe fluorescence of scorpions, butnever has heard o f rattlesnakes withthat talent. A lbinism, w hile rar e, iswell known in snakes and has beenreco rded for m any species. An al-bino snake has white skin with thenormally dark pattern showing ves-tigially in faint yello w. Even if heweren't white, a startled snake'squick escape, movement would makehim easier to see, especially againstthe dark backgro und of o iled rail-way ties.R.H.

Aztec, Not Tule Well . . .Los Angeles, CaliforniaDese r t :Tommy Jones and Gus Lederer areburied at Aztec Well in the Chucka-walla M ountains of California and notat Tule Well, as reported on page 23of M ay Desert.I am writing the story of TommyJones, the old prospector who traveledthe dese rt regions since the '90s. M yhusband was Tommy's grubstake part-ner in several mining ventures.Tommy died at Aztec Well in 1922,alone and many miles from his miningcamp near the spot which since has

become Desert Center. He had beendead three days when Gus Ledererfound him. A handsome bronze tab-let with a poem by Gus was placedover his grave, but later was stolenby vandals.Fifteen miles back in the mountainsfrom Aztec Well, which can be reachedonly by burro trail, there is a monu-ment to Jones and to my husband.There is no danger of vandals carry-ing this away; it will stand for all time.Across the center of one huge, tower-ing rock Tommy Jones had painstak-ingly chisled in large letters that standout in bold relief the following legend:

The Blue Dick CampDick Haskins {year) Thomas JonesThe prospector with the burro pic-tured in the November, 1950, issue ofDesert Magazine is Tommy, just be-fore he made his very rich strike atGoldfield, Nevada. He later sold thisproperty for $75,000.TESSIE COOKE HASKINS

Tunas Without Spines . . .Gila Bend, ArizonaDese r t :Early in June, my father and I drovedown into Baja California to the In-dian village at Santa Catarina M ission.Although it was too early for the fruitof the prickly pear to be ripe, thetunas were approaching a mature size,and a fairly clear demonstration of theIndian methods of gathering and de-spining the fruit was possible. (JulyDesert.)One of the Pai Pai women showed ushow it was done. With a pair ofwooden tongsfashioned of two stickseach about a foot in length and aninch or so wide and lashed togetherat one endshe grasped the fruit anddetached it from the cactus plant witha quick, sharp twist. Before placingthe picked tuna into the net bag whichhung over her left forearm, she brushedit with a tuft of short sage brushbranches . These processes were re-peate d until the bag was almost filledwith fruit.

Grasping the bag at either side, shethen proceeded to shake and jostlethe fruit with an up-and-down see-sawmotion. Since the tunas were not ripe,we could not judge just how effectivethe operation was; but our Indiandemonstrator explained that when thefruit is ripe the spines are dry. andthe shaking causes them to be rubbedloose and to fall through the coarsemesh.The tuna bag is about 15 inches indiameter. In constructing it, the In-dian craftsman ties woven agave fibercordage into a rectangular net withmeshes about an inch square. The two

ends are brought together and fastenedto form a cylinder, one end of whichthen is gathered together and tied,completing the bag. A cord is threadedthrough the loops at the top, the endsbeing left long for suspension.The netting also is made in largersizes for carrying purpose s. Use ofthese burden bags was widespreadamong Southwestern peoples, and num-erous ancient examples exist. I haveseen them pictured on painted Hoho-kam pottery vessels from Arizona,dating from around 600 A.D. Isketched one of these pottery figuresas I'd remembered itan Indian carry-ing a net burden bag suspended froma headbandand showed the drawingto the Santa Catarina tribesmen. Theyseemed keenly interested in the ancientorigin of this household utensil.

Recently, Ruth Simpson of South-west M useum and I were discussingthe possible significance of the hookedstaff often carried by painted figures inancient pottery designs. M iss Simpsonsuggested it was used for hooking downsaguaro fruit. But according to ourPai Pai informant, it served to balancethe load being carried in a burden net.The Indian woman gave a good dem-onstration, using a long staff-like stick.NORTON ALLENAnswer from O.C.M .L.S. . . .Santa Ana, CaliforniaDes e r t :

As a member of and legal counselfor the O range Coast M ineral andLapidary Society, I have been in-structed by the unanimous vote ofthat society to answer the letter, "Blow-out Trail to Hause r" written by M aryFrances Berkholz and published in theJune issue of Desert Magazine.In this letter, through thoughtless-ness or maliciousness, the O.C.M .L.S.has been quite definitely linked to anact of malicious mischief and even oflawbreakingthe strewing of brokenglass upon and along the Wiley Wellroad which leads from Highway 60-70to the turn-off to the Hauser Beds.Neither this society nor any of itsmembers had anything whatever todo with this contemptible act.

The facts concerning this matter areas follows:Our field trip director in companywith several other parties traversedthis road on April 2, 1952, enroute tothe prominent dike known as the"Thumb." The boxes of glass along-side the road and the loose glass inthe road were present at this time. OnApril 4 the field trip director againtraveled this road in order to set upmarkers to guide the members of thesociety into the Hauser area. On this

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trip he found in addition to the glassa row of broken and up-ended bott lesblocking the turn-off to the Hauserarea. Since the boxes of glass appearedat the very spots where the club mark-ers would have to be set , there oc-curred the coincidence mentioned inthe l e t t e r .Our f ield t r ip director was fortunateenough to meet and talk with somelocal people, and these people placedthe time of the glass dumping assomet ime Fr iday aft e rnoon , M arch 28.The O .C .M .L .S . , whose me mbe rcar s had to t raver se and r e t raver sethis glass-strewn road on their way toand from the field trip location, wereas shocked and disturbed by this lowact of vandalism as anyone could beand discussed at some length the pos-sibilities of taking some action. How-ever , action was reluctantly abandoned

as not feasible , s ince we didn't knownor could we discover who the cul-p r i t s we r e .Now for the Orange Coas t M ineraland Lapidary Society or i ts membersto be accused by indirection of thisdespicable act has not produced avery happy situation and has causedthe ent i r e membership shocked sens i -bilities, injured feelings and pain.There is not a shred of truth in theinnuendos contained in that let ter , andit is a great surprise to us , who arelovers of the great outdoors , that a

society of the good character andstanding as ours should even be men-tioned in connection with a despicabledeed of this sort .C A R L C . C O W L E S

Desert Magazine regrets verydeeply that an injustice has beendone the Orange Coast Mineral andLapidary So ciety. But we want toassure Attor ney Co wles that neither"thoughtlessness nor maliciousness"entered into the writing and publish-ing o f the letter. Mr s. Berkho lzmerely reported what she saw alongthe road. And until your letter cameit never occurred to me that O.C.-M.L.S. were the initials of your so-ciety. We join you in your condem -nation of the litterbug who placedthe glass there. But perhaps there isa moral for all of us in this incident:"Don't place field trip markers along-side junk piles for signboards, likehumans, are apt to be judged by thecom pany they keep." We who haveour homes on the desert would l iketo have the cooperation of our vis-itors in keeping the desert clean. I'llconfess it is not a very pleasant oc-cupation, cleaning up debris that hasbeen left by someone else and yetthere are many o f us who frequentlydo that very thing.R.H.

A U G U S T , 1 9 5 2

The am azing purple motor oilR O Y A L T R I T O N !Royal T r i ton - th e amaz ing pu rp le moto r o i l -w as d e ve loped togive the greatest possible lubricant protection for today's precision-built engines.Royal Triton got its distinctive purple color from the uniquecombination of fortifying compounds it contains. These compounds,combined with its high quality, make Royal Triton America's finestheavy-duty motor oil.

H O W TO G E T T O P P E R F O R M A N C E F R O M Y O U R C A RTo get 100% performance you need follow just twosimple rules: 1. Take your car to your car dealer ' sfor frequent checkupsat least every 2,000 miles.2 . Use the f ines t motor oi l money can buy -Ro yalTriton-45^i per quart .Available at leading car dealers' in most areas of the U.S.

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195208 Desert Magazine 1952 August

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Transcript of 195208 Desert Magazine 1952 August