ich had
evaporated, and most of it below the level of the sea. That is the
Colorado desert as it has been known since its discovery.

"Then, last spring, came the overflow which has brought about the
present state of affairs. The river was high and carrying an enormous
amount of sediment in proportion to the quantity of water. This
gradually filled up the bed of the stream and caused it to overflow
its banks, breaking through into the dry lake where it had formerly
flowed. The fact that the water is salt, which excited much comment at
the time the overflow was first discovered, is, of course, due to the
fact that the salt in the sea water which evaporated hundreds of years
ago has remained there all the time, and is now once more in solution.

"The desert will, no doubt, continue to be a lake and the outlet of
the river unless the breaks in the banks of the river are dammed by
artificial means, which seems hardly possible, as the river has been
flowing through the break in the stream 200 feet wide, four feet deep,
and flowing at a velocity of five feet a second.

"It is an interesting fact to note that the military survey made in
1853 went over this ground and predicted the very thing which has now
happened. The flooding of the desert will be a good thing for the
surrounding country, for it does away with a large tract of absolutely
useless land, so barren that it is impossible to raise there what the
man in Texas said they mostly raised in his town, and it will increase
the humidity of the surrounding territory. Nature has done with this
piece of waste land what it has often been proposed to do by private
enterprise or by public appropriation. Congress has often been asked
to make an appropriation for that purpose."

Mr. McGillivray had also some interesting things to say about Death
Valley, which he surveyed.

"It has been called a _terra incognita_ and a place where no human
being could live. Well, it is bad enough, but perhaps not quite so bad
as that. The great trouble is the scarcity of water and the intense
heat. But many prospecting parties go there looking for veins of ore
and to take out borax. The richest borax mines in the world are found
there. The valley is about 75 miles long by 10 miles wide. The lowest
point is near the center, where it is about 150 ft. below the level of
the sea. Just 15 miles west of this central point is Telescope peak,
11,000 ft. above the sea, and 15 miles east is Mt. Le Count