WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. After an oil portrait now in the possession of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford. (With kind permission of the Shakespeare Memorial at Stratford.) Frontispiece to The Open Court. A MONTHLY MAGAZINE Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and VOL. XX. (No. 9.) SEPTEMBER, 1906. Copyright by The Open Court Publishing Company, 1906. NO. 604. THE NEW SALTON SEA. VAST GEOLOGICAL AND ALLUVIAL CHANGES IN THE SOUTH- IMAGIN BY EDGAR L. LARKIN. MAGINE all these things: that once a very high and massive tower of stone, whose base rested on solid Archæan rocks beneath the primordial Palæozoic sea, lifted its top far above the waves. And that the tower stood from twenty to thirty miles east of a line drawn from Denver southward through Colorado Springs to Pueblo; that the Archæan strata were so thick and rigid that they did not bend upward and downward, so that the top of the tower during millions upon millions of years kept at the same mathematically exact distance from the center of the earth; that a powerful telescope provided with accurate levels, micrometers and graduated circles was set on a level base of stone on the top of the unique observatory; that a man, a skilled observer, lived on the tower during almost interminable ages and kept up lonely vigils, his eye at the instrument, ever making sweeps of his watery horizon, in hope of seeing some object; and that after watching so long and through so many eons that duration to him seemed to be infinite, he at last was rewarded by detecting an object just a few inches above the water in the distant west. Behold! it was land in what is now Central Utah. The tower was high enough to be in a tangent line drawn from its summit to the sea above what is now called the Wasatch range, south of Salt Lake. The telescopist at once measured its azimuth and height above the ocean horizon. His vigilance was increased and he never left the telescope. In a few thousand years, another slight elevation of land rose up out of the waves, and the first was a few inches higher. Then new wastes began to appear by centuries. And after eons rolled away,-by years. Finally, all Colorado emerged from the Western sea. All of Utah was lifted up and to the southwest, Northern Arizona rose above the horizon. The tower, not being disturbed by this rising, was a place for accurate measurement of rates of elevation. These were exceeding slow. The mighty layers of Archæan rock were loaded with an inconceivable mass of superposed strata. The man saw the Rocky Mountains rise, and Pike's Peak lift its Majestic head above the ancient sea. And he saw the tops of Mounts Powell, La Plata, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Ouray, rise inch by inch, century after century. The observatory, the tower of stone having been set on the Archæan, weathered all later ages, until on this eventful and auspicious day when the first land in the west was seen, the day when this story opens a late Jurassic day. When Colorado, Utah and Arizona were well up, the climate began to change. Rain and wind attacked the land and began the colossal work of beating down the peaks and transporting the debris, the products of the war,-to the sea. Nearly all of the abraded material went to the southwest. In 1900, I wandered in that wonderland of the earth-Central Colorado, and over the "Divide." A little stream here started toward the Gulf of Mexico, and there to the Gulf of California. A number of creeks united to form the headwaters of the Grand River, two thousand miles from their resting-place in the Californian gulf in far away Mexico. I saw waste places, denuded areas and facades and wondered where the washed-away debris might then be. The Grand River rising near Grand Lake in Colorado, flows into east-central Utah and unites with the Green to form the mighty Colorado, flowing through Arizona, through the magnificent canyon, and through desert wastes to Yuma and on southward to the head of the Gulf. All these streams form one of the great river systems of the earth. Their erosive and cutting power is enormous, and transporting of soil, silt and debris likewise. For Paleozoic times were quiet; there being no high mountains, or elevated continents, to cause changes in climate and set up storm conditions, hence hurricanes, cyclones and raging winds did not obtain, nor rapidly driven rain. Gentle ripples came along Palæozoic beaches, left their tiny marks and these are now traced in stone in our museums. Then came the terrific Appalachian Revolution in the Atlantic States, which crumpled up the strata into mountains and closed the Carboniferous Age. Troubles beneath the waves then over Colorado, Utah and Arizona, came on apace and lifted up the Rocky Mountains before the astonished eyes of our faithful watcher on the hypothetical tower. The circulation of winds then began and storms of rain. The age of carving, cutting, wearing, denudation and sculpture commenced and has been at work since, even until the present. And in no part of the world have these artists-wind and rain-wrought more exquisite work than in that vast area drained by the Colorado River. In later eons, frost, ice, snow, hail and more rapid winds came to the giant task of beating down the Rockies, the plateaus of Colorado and Utah, and hurrying the debris beneath the waves of the southern gulf. In Colorado, I gained something of the outlines of the plans and specifications of the primeval sculptors. Beneath the blue of the Colorado sky, I saw as it were, the blue-prints, the plans of the world's first architects. But in outline only. WITHIN THE CANYON'S MAZE. Later, I descended the mighty Canyon of the Colorado River in Arizona, and explored its intricate recesses, chambers and caves, hewn in the most obdurate Archæan rock, by swiftly running silt and sand-laden water. I saw the whole stupendous plan, the denudation of the uplands and erosion of the most wonderful canyon on earth. All the materials abraded from two great states had to pass through this canyon, ever grinding and cutting a wider and deeper way. Our man on the tower saw a Cretaceous deposit alone, 9000 feet deep. Its debris since then, has passed through the Canyon. Those able to handle words as one would sticks and stones, have often climbed down into this canyon even to the edge of the torrental river; and have tried to describe what they saw, so that a distant reader might derive some idea of the gigantic scene, this rocky splendor, this wondrous vision; but words lost their power, and the pen its potency. There is no hope in words, therefore the canyon cannot be described. Artists with paints and pencil have made effort many times; but colors seem to pale and fade— the amazing scene cannot be fixed on canvas. When I entered the mighty chasm-this "abyss of erosion," light from the sun, the sun of Arizona, was pouring into the terrific labyrinths in a grand supernal flood. Facades, towers, temples, cathedrals and palaces were all aglow. But, when I left, radiant beams came streaming in at a different angle, illuminating columns, pillars, turrets and domes not seen before. I entered a cave of gloom, and with a blade of steel, endeavored to scratch the Archæan strata. It was almost impossible, for the rock is more rigid than solid flint. The |