Below the Sea 4 of 4

Los Angeles Herald, Volume 31, Number 12, 14 October 1888

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Below the Sea—Nature's Pneumatic Cabinet.

 

[BT WALTIB LISDLKY, M. D., LOS ANQELES. | I I recently read that an American of wealth was establishing a sanatorium in > the valley of the river Jordan, near the Dead Sea. He ascertained that a bronchial affection was relieved where the barometric pressure was great, as it is in this valley of the Holy Land. This is the most marked depression on the face of the earth, being l,2oo.feet below sealevel. The gentleman makes the reasonable assertion that where atmospheric pressure is greatest, as in the depressions, respiration is easiest. In the eastern part of San Diego county, about one hundred miles from Los Angeles, is a depression traversed by the Southern Pacific railroad.known to geographers as the Sau Felipe Sink, but commonly called —on account of the innumerable shells spread over its surface —the Conchilla Valley. The unobserving transcontinental traveler over the Southern Pacific railroad would travel the 100 mileß west of Yuma —on the Colorado river—without giving a glance out of the car window, but he would think ho was in the Colorado Desert, and wish the train would go faster; yet this very spot is one of the most remarkable on the face of the irlobe. Dr. J. P. Widney, of Lus Angeles, while surgeon in the United States Army, crossed this region with troops twenty-one years ago. He then noticed surrounding this territory a well defined • line along the mountain sides, always at the same level. Above that line the rocks are sharp and jagged, showing that for ages the water had stood at that level. He says, "I found it to be the old beach of a sea." I find nothing else noted of this country until the surveying party of the Southern Pacific railroad, in running the line from Los Angelea to Yuma, found that sea level was at the point where Dr. Widney had noted the ancient beach. They then gradually descended to the south until they reached a depression of 268 feet below sea level, at a point near Salton. This basin is about 130 miles in length by thirty miles in average width. The deepest point is about 360 feet below sealevel. Along the northern margin of this basin, right up against the mountains, are great numbers of date-palms. These tropical trees are indigenous to this valley, and many of them reach a height of eighty feet. When ripe, a single bunch of fruit weighs one hundred pounds. It has a taste very similar to the date-palm of commerce. The tree has large fan leaves, and is the same as can be seen in almost every park and yard in the towns of Southern California. The passenger on the Southern Pacific railroad, by glancing out of the north side of the car at Indio, can see these giant sentinels keeping silent vigil over the plains beheath them. At Salton, on the Southern Pacific Railroad, the surface of the earth for nearly ten miles square is covered with a crust of salt four inches to a foot thick. I stopped there in midsummer and went out on this great white field about noon. The mercury indicated 105 degrees F. in the house, but out in tho sunshine, with the dazzling reflection from the glistening surface that extended for miles on each side, the temperature was probably 105 degrees F. The workmen out in this peculiar harvest field were as cheerful as any set of men I ever saw, and there was far less exhibition of suffering from heat than is to be seen, ordinarily, in .luly, in the wheat fields of the Mississippi Valley. The low relative humidity explains the total absence of sunstroke here. The atmosphere in this region, adulterated by the chlorine gases emanating from the salt-beds, must be nearly aseptic. There are extensive mills here for grinding the salt. It is not put through any system of purification, but, after grinding, proves to be excellent for table use. Several hundred tons are thus prepared every month and shipped away. A few miles east of here are the famous mud volcanoes, which are equal in wonder to the geysers of this State. Owing to the treacherous character of the ground around them they have never been thoroughly examined. Professor flanks, the State Mineralogist, undertook it, but breaking through the crust he was so severely burned that he was compelled to abandon his investigations. Here is an extensive, almost unexplored field for some adventurous scientist. Indio is the place to stop and make headquarters for tours through this interesting country. It is the principal station in the valley, and ia near the northern rim of the basin, being only twenty feet below sea-level. The sandy plains around Indio were formerly considered a hopeless barren waste, but the advent of the railroad has made great changes. Good water is supplied by surface wells; but in order to have water for irrigation, artesian wells have been bored. There is one, two and threefourths miles east of Indio that is now no wing 1,000 gallons per hour. This flowing water was reached at a depth of only 115 feet, after boring through layers of sand, clay, sand, tough blue clay, clay, coarse gravel, clay and sand. Oranges and various other kinds of fruit are being grown here, and melons, tomatoes and berries ripen several weeks earlier than at Los Angeles and other places near the coast. There are in this vicinity about forty thousand acres of excellent land. The visitor here, on witnessing the water flowing from the artesian wells, the grass growing, the melons ripening, and the peach trees blooming, can fitly say With Isaiah: ''The Lord shall comfort all the waste places. He will make the desert like the garden, and the desert shall rejoice, and bloom as tbe rose. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground Bhall become a ' pool, and the thirsty land springs of water."

 

In this valley live about 400 of the Cohuilia Indians. This is an interesting tribe. Dr. Stephen Bowers, in a paper read before the Ventura County Society of Natural History, March 5, 1888, said be believed them to be of Aztec origin. They are sun and fire worshipers and believe in tbe transmigration of souls and tbat their departed friends sometimes enter into coyotes and thus linger about their former habitation. They practice cremation. Their principal article of food is the mesquit bean, which they triturate in mortars of wood or stone, after which the meal is sifted and the coarser portion is used as food for their horses and cattle, and the finer is made into cakes for family use. The agave, or century plant, which is indigenous here, is also much used for food. The roots, roasted, taste like ■tewed turnips, while the stem, roasted, is said to taste like baked sweet potatoes. From this plant they also make the Mexican beverage pulque, which has about the same alcoholic strength as beer. The ethnologist can, by gaining their confidence, get much interesting information from these very peaceable Indiana. I found at Salton and Indio asthmatics, rheumatics and consumptives, all of whom reported wonderful recoveries. Some of these stories I accepted cum ftano »alit, which phrase is, by the way,

 

THE LOS ANGELES DAILY HERALD: SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 14, 1888.

 

especially applicable to the salt-fields. These asthmatics and consumptives claim that the farther they get below sea-level and the dryer the atmosphere, the easier they breathe. The rheumatics claim that the heat and dryness improves the circulation. My stay was not long enough to make any trustworthy observations, but it occurred to me that, aside from dryness— mean aunual,relative humidity certainly not over twenty-five—and equability, there was considerable atmospheric pressure at a point 350 feot below sealevel, and that we had here moderately compressed air on a large scale. In a recent paper on the use of the pneumatic cabinet, tho author, from many cases in practice, shows that compressed air relieves asthmatics and cases of phthisis. He says the compressed air will gradually force its way into every part of the lung, in order that the pressure may be the same on the inside as on the out. While the proportion of oxygen is, of course, not increased, yet there is an increased quantity in a given space, and we really have the oxygen treatment on an extensive scale. The physician may say that at from 200 to 360 feet below sea-level the pressure would not be as much as in the cabinet. That is true, but fie patient goes into the cabinet for, say half an hour, three or four times a week, while if he .is at a point like Salton he is breathing this moderately compressed air all the time, day and night. This is simply on the principle of the pneumttic chamber of Tabarie, tha firat one ever employed. This is the method recommended by Dr. A. H. Smith. He refers to the therapeutic value of the increased amount of oxygen inhaled. He says compressed air is useful in catarrh of the mucus membrane, in acute and subacute inflammation of the respiratory mucus membrane, in restoring the permeability of airtubes occluded by* exudation or otherwise, in asthma, in pulmonary hemorrhage, in pleuretic effusion, in simple anu'tnia, in inveterate cases of psoriasis and ichthyosis and in the various forms and stages of phthisis. He does not recommend it in pulmonary emphysema. Dr. Smith says compressed air should be used promptly and perseveringly on the earliest recognizable signs i of apical catarrh iv those predisposed to , chest disease. He also especially recommends it as an alterative. Of course my deductions are tentative, but I hope by calling attention to this uuiiue region to gain the assistance of intelligent observers. If a phthisical or asthmatic patient of considerable vigor intends coming to Southern California, his physician might be justified in suggesting that —except during the summer months —he stop at Indio, and froai there test the climate of this basin. If not suited or benefited, it is but two hours' ride by rail to Beaument, a delightful resort, with excellent accommodations, two thousand five hundred feet above sea-level; but two hours more to the pine forests in the San Jacinto mountains, from six thousand to ten thousand feet above tea level, or to Riverside, Monrovia, Pomona, or Whittier, ail about 1,000 feet above the sea; or to Los Angeles, 350 feet above sea level; or to Santa Monica, Long Beach, Santa Barbara,or San Diego, directly on the coast, and but nine hours ride by rail and boat to Catalina Islands, twentyfive miles out at sea, where a typical ocean atmosphere can be enjo-ed. Thus an error in location can be quickly corrected. Note. Other places below sea-level —Sink of tbe Araorgoga (Arroyo del Muerto), in Eastern California, 225 feet below sea-level. The Caspian Sea, eighty-five feet below Bea-level. Lake Assal. east of Abyssinia iv tho Afar country, eight miles long and fonr miles wide, is about TtiO feet below sea-level, ft fboies are covered with a crust of salt about a foot thick. This salt is » source of revenue to the A fare, as tbey carry it by tbe caravans to Abyssinia, whey they lino a ready market. There are several other depressions about six hundred feet, below sealevel in this vicinity. Tho noted oasis Siwah. in the Libyan desert, three hundred miles west of Cairo, is one hundred and twenty feot below sea-level. Here are beautiful date-palm groves, and h re aiso the apricot, the olive, tbe pomegranate and (he vine are extensively cultivated, in in the Borne desert is tbe oasis Araj, iwo hundred and sixty-six feet below aea-level There are also numerous other depressions In the th sort portion of Algeria aud at various points on the Sahara Desert. —[from the Southern California Practitioner for October.

 

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