Prayer of a Navajo Mother By INEZ H. Goss Prescott, Arizona My baby girl, my dark-eyed one, We are so rich—we have the sun; We have the snow and summer rains, We have the mountains and the plains. Our hogan small and snug and warm; Your cradleboard keeps you from harm, Protected by its polished bows, Cushioned by bark of sweet cliff-rose. My prayer is not for greater wealth. But only "May you walk in health; May hunger always pass you by; May beauty by your pathway lie." THE HARPS By IRENE- E, PAYNE Las Vegas, Nevada Sometimes at dawn I hear Aolian harps, A faint sweet music with a haunting strain So far away the muted sad refrain Escapes my ear. It is full strange that here Amid the barren and the blasted peaks, The desert reaches that no verdure seeks, The pipes of Pan should tinkle still. Perhaps it is the little winds that run Along the pass to herald waking sun. Perhaps it is the wings of birds I strain to hear. Or yet the half heard music might arise From sun rays stretching in the quiet skys. 1 know not how the singing starts, But in the quiet dawn I hear the minstrel harps. • • • THE DESERT By ENOLA CKAMBERLIN Los Alamitos, California Grandfather walked the desert, Pricked oxen with a goad; Fought sand and heat and darkness. And often made his road. Father pushed his horses From dawn to dark to try To make it to a waterhole WILD BUCKWHEAT MAGIC DESERT DAYS Before his barrels went dry. By Ai ICF. ZIMMERMAN By GEORGIA JORIMN Grandfather knew the desert. Santa Ana, California San Diego, California Its moods, its quiet stars; And Father took the time to drink 1 cannot sleep for listening to the rain. The Sun and Desert Air spin magic with Like slippered footsteps of a friend long their hands, At sunset's crimson bars. gone A veil of amethyst as thin as fairies chose. While I who cross the desert Now back again. It tints the crystal on the hot, reflecting With hurry as my need. And thinking of wild buckwheat on the hill. sands Relinquish all its glories Now it will drink its fill. To jewel tones of purple, lavender and rose. 1 too absorb this airy film of violet rays, To the subtle robber speed. For long hot months the savage, searing sun Receiving Nature's gift of health from Besieged the thirsty hill with blistering heat. Desert Days. DESERT DAWN Till life in all the tender plants was done. By MIRIAM R. ANDERSON Only the buckwheat would not grant defeat. San Bernardino, California Passive it gathered in the golden rays Expectancy pervades the quickened air, That made it brown and beautiful, until Bird orchestras tune softly, then are stilled; It grew so dry, I almost feared to touch And silence marks the moment, for the clear The sunburned blossoms that I loved so By TANYA SOUTH Pure essence of the day to be fulfilled. much. Nothing is buried. What you arc Reflects in everything you do. Immensity bestrides the mountain peaks, The desert sands, the sky—the first warm Oh, blessed long-awaited rain. By changing pace and tone and hue. You of yourself can make or mar ray Now the bright brittle tops will disappear; Of sun jewels glance to touch the edge of The seeds will scatter; Whatever type of life you fill, By what you are, and what you will. space— And the stiff stems grow green again And dawn, gold-handed, sweeps the night Under the soft persuasion of the rain. away. DESERT MAGAZINE Publisher's Notes This month's cover photograph, depicting a happy family of desert vacationers at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, heralds the return of the "visiting season" to the Desert Southwest. This is the month when increasing numbers of week- ending rockhounds make their avoca- tional jaunts in search of agate, treasured turquoise, banded jasper, Apache tears, and hundreds of other desert gems. This is the month when thousands of Easterners, feeling the frosty approach of winter, dream of Southwestern warming ovens — Tuc- son, Palm Springs, Scottsdale and a hundred other chosen sun spots. Volume 21 NOVEMBER, 1958 Number 11 And this is the month when the desertland itself is making its change- over from the sear-of-summer to the COVER White Sands National Monument winter-welcome phase of its many moods. By CHUCK ABBOTT And while the seasonal changes of POETRY Prayer of a Navajo Mother and other poems . 2 our desert country go along their GHOST TOWN way, the editorial staff of Desert Chinese Ghost Town in the Humboldt Range Magazine goes along its way, think- By NELL MURBARGER 4 ing three months ahead of today. CALENDAR (Conversely, it was three months ago November events on the desert 6 —in the 112 degree heat of late ART OF LIVING Silence—the Desert's Most Precious Gift August—that we were planning this By ELEANOR N. FOWLER 8 November issue of Desert.) TRAVEL * * * Trail to the Canyon of Turquoise Water Some of our plans ahead include By RANDALL HENDERSON 9 the addition of full-color art on the FICTION back cover, some color ink on the Hard Rock Shorty of Death Valley 12 INDIANS inside pages, and gradual changes in From Pueblo to Classroom, by LaVON TEETER 14 the format and design of our many INDIANS feature departments. Pueblo Portraits, by JOHN L. BLACKFORD . 17 To develop a better and bigger FIELD TRIP Mojave Desert Opal Diggings Desert Magazine editorially, there is need for a corresponding growth in By HAROLD O. WEIGHT 18 Desert's circulation and advertising LETTERS sides. Any increment in circulation Comment from Desert's readers 22 and advertising will be utilized to CLOSE-UPS expand the magazine's value as a About those who write for Desert 22 HISTORY readable, enjoyable journal for you. Jerome, by JOSEF and JOYCE MUENCH . 23 * * a NATURE A survey questionnaire was mailed In the Land of Sagebrush out last month to one out of each 10 By EDMUND C. JAEGER 24 of Desert Magazine's subscribers EXPERIENCE (they were picked at random from Emily of the Desert Trails our circulation files). Results of this reader sampler are already beginning By DOROTHY ROBERTSON 27 to return to editor Randall Hender- ASTRONOMY Hobbyists Who Scan the Desert Night Sky son's desk. Compilation of the ques- By GASTON BURRIDGE 29 tionnaire will be reported to you DESERT QUIZ either in January or February, de- A test of your desert knowledge 30 pending on how promptly the replies NEWS are mailed. From here and there on the desert 32 * s # MINING We hope an ever-increasing num- Current news of desert mines 36 ber of you will feel, as we here at HOBBY the Desert Magazine pueblo feel, that Gems and Minerals 38 LAPIDARY Desert is the ideal inexpensive Christ- Amateur Gem Cutter, by DR. H. C. DAKE ... 41 mas gift. Your publisher promises COMMENT that those who receive Desert Maga- Just Between You and Me, by the Editor ... 42 zine as a gift this coming year will BOOKS 12 times bless the giver, for Desert Reviews of Southwestern literature 43 will continue to bring into focus the PHOTOGRAPHY beauty and the wonder and the his- Pictures of the Month back cover toric past of our Southwest—in more than 400 pages of enjoyable, authentic The Desert Magazine la published monthly by Desert Magazine, Inc., Taliri Desert, and wholesome reading between now California. Re-entered as second class matter July 17, 1948, at the Postofftce at Palm Desert, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered No. 353865 In U. S. Patent Office, and a year hence. and contents copyrighted 1958 by Desert Magazine, Inc. Permission to reproduce contents CHARLES E. SHELTON must be secured from the editor in writing, Publisher CHARLES E. SHELTON, Publisher RANDALL HENDERSON, Editor EUGENE L. CONHOTTO, Associate Editor BESS STACY, Business Manager EVONNE HIDDELL, Circulation Manager ABOUT THE COVER . Unsolicited manuscripts and photographs submitted cannot be returned or acknowledged White S;inds National Monument — a unless full return postage is enclosed. Desert Magazine assumes no responsibility for damage or loss of manuscripts or photographs although due care will be exercised. Sub- 140,000-acre playground of gleaming white scribers should send notice of change of address by the first of the month preceding issue. sand located 15 miles southwest of Alamo- SUBSCRIPTION RATES gordo in south-cent rat New Mexico. The One Year SI.00 Two Years »7.00 Monument's slowly shifting dunes represent Canadian Subscriptions B5c Extra. Foreign 50c Extra the largest deposit of surface gypsum in the Subscriptions to Army Personnel Outside U. S. A. Must Be Mailed in Conformity With world. Chuck Abbott of Tucson is the P. O. D. Order No. 19687 cover photographer. Address Correspondence to Desert Magazine, Palm Desert, California NOVEMBER, 1958 The railroad work for which they came to this country came to a close; unfriendly white men barred them from jobs in the towns—it was then that the Chinese laborers turned to chinese mining. One of their camps was in American Canyon near Lovelock, Nevada . , . ghost town Chinese placer miner carrying flat- By NELL MURBARGER type rocker used for mining gold in the Map by Norton Allen in the early days. Photo courtesy Nevada State Historical Society. Humboldt Range ERNST was telling me of the Chinese as wood-cutters, but re- activity. Hundreds of Chinamen were pioneer times in Nevada, and belled if they aspired to better occupa- working the gravels, and recovering mentioned that her mother had tions.