Wealth of the Worlds Waste Places and Oceania | Page 2

River. Catching the
material for caviare 83
Gathering salt at the mouth of the Ural River 87
Driving over the tundra in winter 91
Train on the steppes of Russia 95

Dunkar Spiti, Himalaya Mountains, India 99
Khaibar Pass, the gateway to India 107
On the sands of the desert 117
The yak not only serves as a beast of burden, but furnishes milk, butter,
and meat 103
A group of Arabs with their dromedaries 111
A caravan crossing the desert on the road to Jaffa 125
Peary's ship, the Roosevelt 137
Commander Robert E. Peary and three of his Eskimo dogs on the
Roosevelt 141
Musk ox 144
An antarctic summer scene 149
The penguin defies the cold 153
Street in Reykjavik, Iceland 163
North Cape, Iceland 167
Stone igloos on the bleak coast of Greenland 171
A large iceberg 173
A group of Eskimos in south Greenland 174
The Straits of Magellan. Cape Pilar is the extreme western end 177
Fuegians 179
The Everglades of Florida 184

Group of Seminole Indians in the Everglades of Florida 187
The Devil's Slide, Weber Canyon, Utah 191
Witch Rocks, near Echo Canyon, Utah 193
This strong and impregnable place is the Rock of Gibraltar, and the city
nestling at its base, Gibraltar 201
Landing-place for commerce on the Caspian Sea 209
Open workings of the diamond mine, Kimberley 219
Sorting gravel for diamonds in the Kimberley mine 223
A Malay girl 229
A Malay boy 231
A giant fig-tree, 140 feet in circumference 235
A mother kangaroo with a young kangaroo in her pocket 237
An Australian emeu 239
Homestead and station in Young district, Australia 243
The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the most remarkable animal
structure in the world 247
Melbourne is the largest city of Australia and contains nearly half a
million people 257
Maori pa, or village 263
The Petrifying Geyser, New Zealand 265
Native canoe, Fiji Islands 275

General view of Volcano House, Kilauea, Hawaii 279
A lake of white-hot molten lava. The volcano of Mauna-Loá, Hawaii
281
Native ploughing in rice-field, Guam. One may find rice-farms as
skilfully cultivated as those of Japan or China 287
The carabao, harnessed to a dray or wagon, shuffles along 291
The harbor of the city. Scene on the Pasig River, Manila 295
Extracting indigo in Ilocos Province, Philippine Islands 297
Manila hemp as it is brought in from the country 299
A breadfruit tree in Java 303
Coffee-drying in Java 309
Natives in the jungle, Sumatra 313
A jungle, scene in Sumatra 316

WEALTH OF THE WORLD'S WASTE PLACES AND OCEANIA
[Illustration: Islands of the Pacific.]
PART I
WEALTH OF THE WORLD'S WASTE PLACES

INTRODUCTION
There is a great wealth of literature about what we call the world's
productive lands--that is, the densely peopled lands that yield grain,

meat, sugar, fruit, and all the various foodstuffs. In any well-equipped
library we may find great numbers of useful books that will tell us all
about the places where cotton, wool, and silk are grown, or where coal
and iron are mined. All these lands are the dwelling places of many
people. Networks of railways connect the various cities and villages,
and probably a majority of the people living in them have travelled in
and about much of the area of these lands.
A large part of the earth's surface is commonly called "unproductive."
As a rule this is only another way of saying that such parts of the world
produce little foodstuffs. We must not take the word "unproductive"
either too literally or too seriously, however, for Dame Nature has a
way of secreting some of her choice treasures in places so forbidding
and so desolate that only the most resolute and daring men even search
for them. For instance, the mineral once much used by the makers of
carbonated or "soda" water comes from a part of Greenland that is so
bleak, cold, and inhospitable that no human beings can long exist there
unless food and fuel are brought them from afar off. The famous
"nitrates" of Chile are obtained in the fiercest part of the Andean desert.
Not only the food but the water consumed must be carried to the miners,
who are but little better than slaves. Most of the gold and silver is
obtained in regions that are unfit for human habitation. The largest
diamond fields in the world are in a region that will not produce even
grass without irrigation--a region that would not be inhabited were
there no diamonds. From the most inhospitable highlands of Asia
comes a very considerable part of the precious mineral, jade. Death
Valley, in the southern part of the United States, on account of its
terrific heat, is perhaps the most unhabitable region in the world, but
the borax which