Arrastre Spring-Followup
Posted by LeRoy Johnson on July 04, 2004 at 17:58:08:
Below is part of a letter I sent the author of the book Jean and I are reviewing. We hope to post the review at this site. Thanks for the information you folks supplied. LeRoy
In your book (p. 63, col. 2), you emphatically say: “There is no Arrastre there.… [and] [w]hat is more, there is no Arrastre hidden by the brush as another author has stated.” Apparently you are making an oblique criticism of our comment in Escape from Death Valley (n31): “The spring is named after the old gold mining arrastre hidden in the brush nearby.”
Enclosed are a few pages (pp. 126-132) from Linda Greene’s Historic Resource Study of Death Valley. There are two photographs of the arrastre on page 131.
Your bodacious assertion that sagebrush could not “possibly grow in that sort of a hard rocky mountainside” (pp. 60-61) is patently false. We ecologists commonly say sagebrush ‘prefers’ deep, rich soil. Under these conditions, it grows best and ranchers commonly use it as an indicator-plant for fertile soils—the taller the plant, the deeper the soil. Sage brush is an amazingly adaptable genus and grows in a wide variety of habitats and environments.
I’ve enclosed pages from three books of four noted authorities on sagebrush. Sampson & Jespersen (1963:139) tell us that “[b]lack sagebrush inhabits dry rock hillsides, ridges, and plateaus” in the Panamint Range. And, Taylor (1992:18) tells us when sagebrush grows in “dry, rocky areas … [it] may average less than one foot in height. Then, Mozingo (1986:256) tells us “dwarf sagebrush [a.k.a. black sagebrush] grows on rockier, poorer soils than big sagebrush.”
- Re: Arrastre Spring-Followup chahwalla 22:55:30 07/04/04