The tracks of the road must either be moved farther east, or else they must swing in to the west of the hills to escape being engulfed by the sandy billows. The hills are composed of fine particles of sand which have been carried before the winds which sweep a hundred miles across a level and barren plain. What first caused the sand to pile up will never be known, but once a barrier was formed, all the sand which fled before the winds piled up, raising the barrier each year. The winds, which always blow from the west, are continually beating against the base of the hills, lifting the sands there, sliding them up the sloping sides and dropping them over the other side. Thus, as the westward slope is eaten away, the eastern side of the hills is added to and they slowly advance toward the east. [Illustration: DIGGING THE IMPERIAL CANAL] The range has yet an open field many miles before it comes to the Colorado River. When the hills reach that point they will disappear, for the waters of that mighty stream will bear the shifting sands away toward the sea. In the southwestern portion of the desert, one hundred miles across the plain from the Walking Hills, nature has dealt in geometrical figures on an extensive scale. The plain, at this point, is composed of claylike soil, very hard and firm, unlike that of the surrounding desert, which is loose and sandy. The clay section is smooth as macadam, and is level save for the geometrical figures which are found thereon in relief. From beyond the clay-paved section the winds have brought the light, loose particles of soil and have piled them up in crescent-shaped hills at various places about the plain. The hills vary in size but not in shape. Each mound is as true a crescent as is the new moon, or as could be constructed by the most skillful landscape gardener. The proportions are carefully preserved in the various mounds. The horns of the crescents all point eastward. The winds all blow from the west. Like the Walking Hills, they travel slowly across the plain, preserving their shape and proportions but growing a little taller, a little broader, and a little thicker as they go, because of the new material which is continually being brought across the plain by the constructive winds. There is, no doubt, some good and sufficient natural cause for this peculiar construction. Some unalterable law of nature is probably being followed in the shaping of these sand-heaps, but thus far no one has been able to offer an explanation for this remarkable freak of the winds. [Illustration: IMPERIAL CHURCH--FIRST WOODEN BUILDING IN LOWER COLORADO DESERT] [Footnote 1: "Pegleg" Smith was a brother of the famous trapper, Jedediah Smith.] CHAPTER XVI JOURNALISM BELOW SEA-LEVEL The printing-press has sought many strange corners in the universe. It has, in these modern times, led rather than followed civilization. In the new West it usually is, first the printing-press, then the town.