The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1893-05-06
Borax in Death Valley.

Up to 1857 borax came to us from the
East Indies, Persia and Italy, was refined
in Venice and in England, and imported at
a cost of 81 pound, often more, its high
price offering strong temptation to adulter-
alton. In 1869 the price had fallen to 40
cents pound, and in 1879 to IL cents,
and from that time borax has remained a
cheap commodity within the reach of all.
How has this been brought about? Out
of disaster and human suffering, so sharp
that the valley first found to be rich in
this deposit bears the name "The Death
Valley, where the discoverers of the borax
deposits found, in 1867, the remains of
emigrant wagons undecayed, and their
tracks, still plain in the hardened sand,
though thirty years had passed since hope
left them, and the little company one by
one lay down to die.
Gold alone had been the object of the
party who sought to enter California by
way of Salt Lake, and who, halting in the
Death Valley. in Injo county, California,
ffound heat so intense that, added to the
lack of water, it made further progress i'm
possible, only few of the stronger ones
escaping to tell the tale,
Later experts, sent out to report if gold
were really to be found in the valley, came
upon the borax fields, and later the de-
posits in Nevada. From the Pacific Coast,
says the Evening Telegraph, four million
pounds year are supplied for home con-
sumption, which has now reached the as
tonishing total of ten million pounds yearly,
with constantly growing demand. Once
introduced into family use, whether in
kitchen, laundry or nursery, it becomes an
essential.
Borax forms by crystalization, and every
student of mineralogy knows that in this
fact is Natures own guarantee fpurity, a
crystal in the nature of things being abso-
lutely pure. Reduced to the powdered
form which has been found most useful for
daily service, it is, of course, possible to
add cheaper and heavier adulterations, but
frequent analysis shows that this is seldom
done, and never by reputable companies.
In its present form it has numberless
uses, the arts finding it no less essential
than medicine and the household. 1t is
not only disinfectant, but antiseptic, ar
resting decay in animal food, and invalua-
BILE in the washing of clothing or bedding
suspected of infection.
As softener of hard water it is Of
greatest use in regions where lime enters
largely into the geological formation, and
the water is unfit for washing.
As used by physicians, it not only soft
ems, but purifes water, heals ulcers and
boils, relieves bruises, sprains and burns,
allays infammations and prickly heat, is
useful in catarrh and acidity of the stomach,
and as an antiseptie in typhoid fever,
cholera and smallpox. In the arts Its use
is constant. 1t produces the glaze on chi
ma, earthenware and tiles, and is used in
the enamel for graniteware, as a mordant
in calico printing and dyeing, and Aux
for all metals, as it enables them to melt at
a lower temperature. Used with pure, fine
white sand in the proportion of four to
one, it produces glass so hard as to cut
common glass like a diamond, while it is
added to slaked lime where it is desired to
render plaster tireproof.
1t is the housekeeper, however, who
reaps most constant benefit from its use,
and to one of an experimental turn of
mind, more and more methods will present
themselves. 1t is in all cases safer form
than many preparations of soda, and the
slightly larger cost would not prevent Its
use rather than cheap apd irritating sub
stitutes, the nature of which can soon be
judged by the effect upon the skin. No
less friendly in its action than the forms of
petroleum known as vaseline and its pre-
parations, it is one of the gifts of nature,
whose surprises in this direction are but
just beginning, and whose resources seem
inexhaustible.