The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1893-12-17
DEATH VALLEY.


Death Valley. which was delivered at
Metropolitan Temple on Friday, added
something TO our knowledge of one Of the
most curious spots in the State. 1t was a
year or two after the discovery of gold
that its existence was made known by the
frightiul destruction Of an Immigrant
party by thirst within its limits. The i'm
migrants were coming in through Nye
County, Nevada; they crossed pass III
the Paramint Mountains. and struck into
the valley, where their skeletons lie 10 this
day. Some ten years afterward the United
States Boundary Commission surveyed the
valley and pronounced it TO be the bed of
former lake, which had been drained in
one OF the last volcanic commissions on
this side of the mountains. Since then it
has been visited by occasional explorers,
and gatherers of borax; but as 1t contains
no water, as the air Is impregnated with
mephitic gases, and as the thermometer
sometimes registers as much as 140 degrees
IN the shade in summer, visitors have been
few and far between.
Yet it is an interesting spot. 1t is part
of the belated world, to which the Great
Salt Lake. the subterranean river of
Mojave and the Colorado desert belong,
and of which the Geysers of Sonoma are
an 3ffshoot. As Greenland is a relic of the
last glacial age, so this distressed region is
surviving relic of the latest igneous age !;
an era when nothing was finally settled.
and fire and water were cOntending for
supremacy over the soil. Similar regions
exist in Southern Calabria and in the
vicinity of the Dead Sea in Palestine; the
volcanic force has so far lost its primitive
energy that earthquakes are light, and
there are no eruptioDs; but the volcanic
gases con tinue to escape in such quantity
that travel is attended with danger to life,
and the water springs are polluted with
salt, sulphur and poisonous ingredients.
In the California Solfa.ara excessive heat
is added to the other horrors OF the place.
The center of the valley is hotter than
Sennaar, and the only animal life II con-
tains is a few specimens Of tropical rep
tiles.
Mr.. Momson is reported to have said
that the bottom of the valley is the lowest
depression on the earth's surface. This is
not strictly correct. The lowest levels OBJ
tanned in Death Valley are about 400 feet
below the sea, whereas the surface of the
Dead Sea in Palestine is 1900 feet below.
But the hole which goes by the name of
Death Valley is pretty deep. The crust of
the earth throughout the valleys of San
Bernardno and lnyo counties must be
very thin. The travellers feet are separ-
ated from the internal body of everlasting
fire by slim sheet of earth and rock,
which would offer but slight resistance
to seismic force. a few miles distant
from Death Valley there is region which
may be surveyed by the eye. and which
contains a thousand active volcanoes
small of their kind. to be sure, baby vol
canoes, so TO speak, but, still. actively en-
gagged in throwing up mud ana water
And not many miles away is the range of
granite mountains among which Mount
Whitney rears its head through The clouds;
solid masses OF primeval rock which must
have worn the share in which we see them
now when the plain at their feet was
seething, raging caldron in which fire
and water contended for the mastery.
To see such marvels of nature people
cross oceans, spend fortunes and carry
their lives in their hand. Neither Mauna
Loa nor Hecla offers such wonders to the
beholder as Death Valley and the Col
oradO Desert. 1t might. perhaps. not be
bad idea to add to the many attractions of
the Mldwinter Exposition visit TO this
unfinished world. In January and Febru-
airy the heat in the valley IS bearable-not
over 90 degrees in the shade. Excursion
parties might be fitted out with supplies
of food and water. and, in few days. the
visitors might see enough to realize what
the world was like in the Plutonic age.
The contrast between the pleasant valleys
of the rivers. with their fruit trees burst
ing into blossom, and these dreadful des-
erts, with their awful chasms and their
hldeous inhabitants. would be thing not
easily forgotten.