The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-01-14
CLOSE TO sUBTERRANEAN FIRE.
Are the Feet of Those Who Walk on
the Burning Sand of Death Valley.

From the San Francisco Call.
Mr.. Frederick Momson's lecture on
Death Valley, which was delivered at
Metropolitan temple on Friday. added
something tQlour 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
frightful destruction of an immigrant
party by thirst within its limits
The immigrants were coming in through
Nye county, New. they crossed 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 sur
veyed the valley and pronounced it to be
the bed of a former lake, which had been
drained in one of the last volcanic convul-
sions on this side of the mountains
Since then it has been visited by coca
sional explorers 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 l40' 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 subterrauean river of Mo-
iave, and the Colorado desert belong, and
to which the geysers of Sonoma are an
otfshoot. AS Greenland is RELIC OF the
last glacial age, so this distressed region
is a surviving relic of the latest igneOus
age; an era when nothing was finally set
tied, and fire and water were contendinR
for supremacy over the soil Similar re-
gions exist in. Southern. Galabria and. in
the Eieinity'of the Dead Sea iRs Pa les. inc /;
the volcanic force hassO far lost its prfmi-
tive energy that earthquakes are light,
and there are no eruptions; but the vol
in
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
p excessive heat is added to the other hor-
rors of the place The center of the valley
is hotter than SEMINAR, and the only
animal life is few specimens of tropical
reptiles.
Mr. Momson is reported 10 have said
that the bottom of the valley the lowest
depression on the earth's surFlce. This
is not strictly correct. The lowest levels
obtained in Death Valley are about 400
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 lnvO counties
must be very thin. The travellers feet
are separated from the internal body of
everlasting fire by a slim sheet of earth
and rock, which would offer but a slight
resistance to seismic force A few miles
distant from Death valley there is "A
region which may be surveyed by the
eye, and which contains a thousand
active volcanoes, so TO speak, but still
actively engaged in throwing up mud
and 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
shape in which we see them now when
the plain at their feet was a 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 hands. Neither Mauna
Loa nor Hecla offer such wonders to the
beholder as Death Valley and the Colo
RADIO Desert. In January and February
the heat in the valley is bearable-not
over 90 in the shade. Excursion parties
might be fitted out with supplies of food
and water, and, in few days, the visi-
tors might see enough 10 realize what the
world was like in the Plutonic age. The
contrast between the pleasant valleys of
the rivers. with their fruit trees bursting
into blossom, and these dreadful deserts,
with their awful chasms and their mid
eous inhabitants, would be a thing not
easily forgotten.