The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-01-13
Close to subterranean Fire.
From the San Francisco Call.

From the San Francisco Call.
Mr.. Frederick Momson's lecture on
Death Valley, which was delivered at Met
ropolitan Temple recently, added some
thing to our knowledge of one of the most
curious spots in the State. 1t was year
or two after the discovery of gold that its
existence was made known by the fright
full destruction of an immigrant party by
thirst within its limits
The immigrants were coming in through
Nye county, New, they crossed Il pass in
the Paramint Mountains and struck into
the valley, where their skeletons lie to 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 convulsions on this
side of the mountains. Since then it has
been visited by occasional exp lorers and
gatherers of borax but as it contains no
water, as the air is impregnated with
mephitic gases, and as the thermometer
sometimes registers as much as l400 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 Moiave
and the Colorado Desert belong, and of
which the geysers of Sonoma are an off
shoot. 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 vi
cinity of the Dead Sea in Palestine; the
volcanic force has so far lost its primitive
energy that earthquakes are light, and
there are no eruptions but the volcanic
gases continue 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 Solfatara excessive heat
is added to the other horrors of the place.
The centre of the valley is hotter than
SEMINAR, and the only animal life is a few
specimens of tropical reptiles.
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 Deaf Valley are about 43O feet
below the sea, whereas the surface of the
Dead Sea in Palestine is 300 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
Bernardino and Inyo counties must be very
thin. The travellers feet are separated
from the internal body of everlasting fire
by slim sheet of earth and rock, which
would offer but slight resistance to seis-
mic force A few miles distant from Death
Valley there is region which may be sur
veyed by the eye, and which contains a
thousand active volcanoes-small of their
kind, to be sure, baby volcanoes, so to
speak, but still actively engaged in throw
ing up mud and water And not many
miles away is the range of granite noun
tains, among which Mount Whitney rears
its head through the clouds; solid masses
of primeval rock which must have worn
the shape in which we see them now when
the plain at their feet was seething,
raging caldron in which fire and water CON
tended for the mastery.
To see such marvels of nature people
cross oceans, spend fortunes and carry
their lives in their hands. Neither Mauna
Loa nor Hecla offers such wonders to the
beholder as Death Valley and the Colorado
Desert. In January and February the
heat in the valley is bearable-not over
9O' in the shade. Excursion parties might
be fitted out with supplies of food and
water, and, in a few days, the visitors
might see enough to realize what the world
was like in the Plutonic age. The con-
trast between the pleasant valleys of the
rivers, with their trees bursting into bios
som, and these dreadful deserts, with their
awful chasms and their hideous inhabi-
tants, would be thing not easily forgotten.