and then served as the outlet of the Colorado River.  But the river carried a good deal of sediment, and in time made a bar, which slowly and surely shut off the sea on the south, leaving only a narrow channel for the escape of the river, which cut its way out, probably at some time when it was not carrying much sediment.  Then the current became more rapid and cut its way back into the land, and, in doing this, did not necessarily choose the lowest place, but rather the place where the formation of the land was soft and easily cut away by the action of the water.

“While the river was cutting its way back it was, of course, carrying more or less sediment, and this was left along the banks, building them all the time higher, and confining the river more securely in its bounds.  That is the Colorado River as we have known it ever since its discovery.  Meantime, the water left in the shallow lake, cut off from the flow of the river, gradually evaporated—­a thing that would take but a few years in that country, where the heat is intense and the humidity very low.  That left somewhere about 2,000 miles of desert land, covered with a deposit of salt from the sea water which 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.