its bitter, useless waters, 4
now and then.
p324 and facing plate "The Salton Basin and the Salt-Works before the rising of the Salton Sea," Copyright 1903, C. C. Pierce & Co., Los Angeles, Cal.
George Wharton James (1858-1923 *). The Wonders of the Colorado Desert (Southern California) its Rivers and its Springs, its Life and its History, Pictured and Described. Including an Account of a Recent Journey made down the Overflow of the Colorado River to the Mysterious Salton Sea...
With upwards of Three-Hundred Pen-and-Ink Sketches from Nature, by Carl Eytel.
Vol. II.
Boston 1906
full page spread, University of Michigan copy, digitized September 5, 2007
*
Its very desolation seemed to be an allurement. The prospector argues that surely a place which is obviously so cursed that nothing will grow upon it must have been created by the Lord of all things for some purpose, and the only purpose it could possibly have was to carry mineral hidden somewhere below its forbidding surface.
p 309
—
its bitter, useless waters (1-8), all
24 January 2014
tags: G. Wharton James; illusion; mirage; prospecting; salt; Salton Sea; water