Salt is another valuable mineral found in both the Mojave and Colorado deserts. The famous salt-fields of Salton are in the latter desert, but they have a story all their own, which will be told in another chapter.
[CHAPTER XII]
A REMARKABLE HARVEST-FIELD
The most remarkable harvest-field in the United States, if not in the whole world, is located in the heart of the Colorado Desert. The spot is known as Salton, and it lies 265 feet below the level of the sea.
The crop which is harvested is salt. So plentiful is the natural deposit of this necessary article that it is plowed with gang-plows, is scraped into windrows as hay is raked in the field, and, like hay, it is stacked into heaps from the windrows and is then loaded into wagons and later into cars to be carried to the reduction works three miles away.
There are about one thousand acres in this saline field. When one looks upon this glittering, sparkling, and scintillating field, which lies like a great patch of snow dropped down into the midst of the burning sands of the plain, he is reminded of that passage of Scripture which says:
"Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."