Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1892 — THE GREAT PERSIAN DESERT. [ARTICLE]

THE GREAT PERSIAN DESERT.

A. March Across a Great Plain of Glittering Salt. _____ .< An interesting account is given in the Asiatic Quarterly Review, by C. E. Biddulph, of a journey through the Great Persian Desert, a country almost unexplored so far as Europeans are concerned, from which we take the following: Just as the sun was low on the horizon, found us approaching the brilliant white expense which had attracted our attention so much on the previous day. This we found to be more immediately surrounded by a stretch of swampy ground, through which wound a single path, trodden into some degree of consistency by the traffic of ages. In the winter the ground on either side of this must constitute a tegular morass, to judge from the skeletons lying about of animals who had wandered off the track, and,, apparently sinking into it, had been unable to extricate themselves again, and thus died as they fell. After following •his track for about a couple of lmles f -we eame-npon the actual sheet 9f salt. This at the edge was soft and sloppy, like half-melted ice; but;as we proceeded, it gained more and more in consistency, till at a distance of three or four miles it resembled nothing more than very solid ice, strong enough to bear any weight. After marching for a further distance of five or §ix miles upon this strange surface we halted to-examine, as far as we could, its composition; aud by means of an iron tent peg and a hammer we endeavored to detach a block to take with us; but we found it far too hard for us to be able to make any impression, and though we succeeded in bending our tent pins, we made no impression upon the salt beyond detaching a few chips, which we were obliged to be satisfied with as the result of our labors; these we found to be of the purest white and as hard as granite, though later on, in exposure to the daipper air beyond the margin of the salt plain, they turned a grayish color and lost a good deal of their consistency, becoming quite pliable in the hands. We were told that at this distance from the land the salt incrustation was many feet thick; and this we could easily believe to be the fact, Having completed the examination, we continued our way, and anything more weird and unworidlike than the scene which'surrounded us it would be difficult to imagine. The last gleams of daylight had now disappeared and the moon was shining brightly upon our way. All round us lay a boundless expanse of the most brilliant white salt, glimmering like snow in its light and unbroken by any relief to the dead monotony of the effect thus produced, except in such cases as nere and there a bush or a piece of stick, blown off the neighboring plains, had got inbedded in its surface. Not a sound was to be heard except the tramp of the animals and the clang of the mule bells, while every now and -then, a» nhigh-wind was blowing, a piece of bramble or a whisp of grass would come racing past along the level surface in a ghostly manner that was quite calculated t 6 make one start. The effect of the moonlight upon the white ground was to render things less diseernable than had we been on land; and we could easily understand how easy it must be to lose one’s way here, for once or twice getting separated from the kaffila, we found that the only guide to its position was the sound of its bells. The track, moreover, was of the vaguest description, the only signs by which it could be distinguished being the traces left by previous kaffilas, and these occasionally failed us, so that more than once we found ourselves, to our consternation, wandering off the route onto to a surface which had apparently never been touched by man or beast. We crossed the margin of the salt, on our entrance upon it, about 6:30 p.m., and marching steadily at an average pace of not less than three and a half miles an hour, we found ourselves at the other side about 3 a.m.; and must thus have traversed a distance from edge to edge of about twenty-five miles in a straight line. From the view which we obtained at various points of the vast hollow in which this incrustation is accumulated, and from the accounts of the people dwelling near, We reckoned that the total extent covered by it could not be less than about 400 square miles, if only it stretched in the direction from east to west as far as it did in that in which we had crossed it, from north to south; but, as far as we couldfiudge, it must have extended much farther.

It is difficult to expl&in the origin of this strange phenomenon. It may be that this incrustation is the deposit accumulated in the vast lowlying plain in the course of centuries upon centuries, during which the rainfall and the annual melting of the snows upon the mountains, beside the perennial streams which all drain into this basin, have brought down in their waters from the strata of salt through which they have passed these incalculable quantities of salt in solution. The summer sun has dried up the water by evaporation and left the salt deposit lying upon a soil more or less saturated with moisture. The layer of salt thus deposited has gained in thickness and consistency year by year, till it has become, at a distance from its margin on either side, a solid homogeneous nfass of the purest salt, sudh as, in any other country than Persia, would constitute a natural treasure of great value, for there is no occasion for mining expenses; the salt has only

to be broken up by dynamitepr othei means and carted away. But so deficient are the simplest-meanST&f communication in this country that hen it must He, absolutely useless, though distant only about 100 miles from its capital, for want of any possibility ol transporting it thither. After one day of welcome rest for aud beast, we started on a march of twen-ty-four miles across an expanse ol sand, to the nearest well. It is curious to notice that while to the north of the plain of salt no sand is visible, the whole southern side is covered with huge sand hills, which stretch someiifteen or sixteen miles Through the outskirts of it was of these that our wav lav, and weary work it was indeed for all of us, plodding through such heavy ground. As the day grew, moreover, the wind rose and the air became filled with particles of sand, which inflamed 1 the eyes, so that for a couple of days afterward they did not recover from the effects. •As we proceeded, the plain of salt, which was on our right, gradually receded from us, till at our camping ground it was only faintly visible in the distance. Here we found the remains of another old caravansary, which had become so buried in the sand that we had to enter it by the roof, and a spring ol delicious sweet water. Andcontinuing our journey the next day for a distance of twelve or fourteen milos through the same sand, we found ourselves in the neighborhood of Kashan and in the midst of civilization —at least in such a degree of it as exists in Persia.