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Show -10- Letter of Capt. H. S. Burton (late general) of the United States Army. Georgetown, D. C, March22,1860. Sir: In answer to the requirements contained in your note of the 19th instant, I have the honor to submit the following statement respecting the Colorado desert of California. I presume I am not required to make a minute report upon the geography of this formidable desert, as full and accurate reports upon it have been made by several scientific and capable officers of the Army, and are now on file among the archives of the War Department. * * * I consider it an immense waste of uninhabitable country, incapable of cultivation without irrigation. * * * From about the 1st of April to October subject to the most intense heats, the atmosphere dry and scorching, like the hot air from a furnace. From November to March subject to quite severe cold. At this season, the winds from the coast-range of mountains in California sweep across the plains to the Gulf of California with the greatest violence, raising the fine sand of the desert in immense clouds. * * * Many a time I have been overtaken by the sand-storms while crossing the desert, and obliged to stop, roll myself in a blanket, and holding my mule by her picket-rope, lie down upon the sand, without shelter, and wait until the storm was over. * * * Even the Indians think of this desert with terror. They believe that the souls of bad Indians are condemned to wander over this desert forever, in summer without water, and in the winter without clothing, and from my own experience upon it I can well understand why they consider it the abode of the wicked after death. |