The Portland daily press., 1896-05-12

sands, runs down to the sink hole, $50
feet below the sea.
Death Valley is only strip itself eight
to sixteen miles wds, but the man W no
could walk across it at its worst has
never boon born. With the fierce sun
light blazing down. being cast back from
the sand, so that oven in the shadow the
thermometer registers nearly 40 degrees,
with the air full Of salt, and the sand
giving under his tread, he'd die half way.
You can't drink water enough to Stake
your thirst, and travellers are found dead
with canteens of water beside them.
The only fresh water in the valley
comes from the gloomiest feature of al
the spotted, strange stained Funeral
Mountain. The single employe Of borax
enterprise has managed to make alfalfa
grow on little plot-the only green
place in Death Valley. Back from this
there are hills as white as flour noun
talns, covered as clcanly by borax as if it
had fallen like snow.
Around tho base Of the Funeral Noun
lain curves the Amargosa River. Nobody
has even seen water flowing upon the sur
face OF this river bed, but tho ghost of
great river, miles wide, is there between
great perpendicular banks, hundreds of
feet high. Nobody has followed the river
be d to its source or traced it to it's disap-
pearance. Somewhere down under the
bed the water flows, the scientists say,
but whether it is yard or milo down
even they do not know. Even when the
skies crack and let the cloudbursts
through, TO water runs over the Amar-
gosa River sands. The thirsty earth can
drink 1t up faster than it can fall.
Death Valley is beautiful, but the man
who explores it and tho unoanny noun
tains about it comes back, if he comes at
all, gaunt and wasted. In his sblistered
eyes are tie images of the mirror-like sea
of snlt, tho BLUR of the blazing sun, tho
heaped-up mounds that tell where some
body has found dead man and put him
out of sight, tie bleaohed skeleton, not
whittier than the earth ON which it lies,
and not the gay colors of the Funeral
peaks, the picturesque rounded tops of
the Monts Blanuo. the quaint crags of
the dead rivers cliff banks.
About tho valley lives almost every
yenomuus thing that orawls in the West
rattlesnakes. tarantulas, centipedes, scor-
pions, even Gila monsters, those hideous
slow lizards that every scientist says are
harmless and every front ierslnan says
are deadly.
The valley never lacks for victims.
There is gold there-gold enough for
many fortunes, and year after year the
men seek it, even where the sun scorohes
and sets them mad.
The gold has been found, not once, but
many times. This frightful place has
more tales of lost mines than any other.
The Pegleg, the Broyfogle, tho Mansfield |
claim, the Lost Padre mine ard many
more have tempted prospectors back to
the pit Of glaring alkali. These are real
mines. In Southern california towns
they will show you ore brought back by
tho original disooverer, rock all a-glitter
with the precious points, but in the
whole list no one has rewarded it's finder.
The Pegleg discoverer, tho first and rich
est Of all, could never find his way back
to the boulder that jutted through the
white cap of borax and revealed the
wealth bslow. He tried again and
again, until he could no longer find
credit fer the -four and bacon he must
have to live on while he searched. He
left his ore specimens and his map to
another man. who has Kept up the search
for twenty years, and HASN'T found it yet
Old Breyfogle trailed h is way out of
the deserts with more rich rock. He told
Of cave in canyon where ne crawled
to find shelter from cloudburst, and
found the richest look that was ever
brought out of the gold country. He
showed the rock when he came out, and
started back to his mine with mules
laden with water and provisions. OF
| too big to be left to one man, but old
Breyfogle knew the mountains and the
| men who prospect among them, and he
| doubled on his trail, made false starts,
and at last shook the followers Off the
scent and vanished. He never came
back. Man, mules water barrels, tools,
nrovisons-all disappeared. This was a
generation ago, but in that country there
are yet men clnmbering among the dead
canyons. looking for cave with roof
studded with gold. Tt is the Esame story,
with few variations all through.
! The Lost Padre mine is the sonly one
with o radically different legend. That
tale came from the Indians. An old
| Pluto came over from the Nevada side,
and was rescued from death from thirst
by prospector, and in his gratitude
offered to bring the white man to mine
that had been worked by the mission
fathers 100 years before. They started,
but as they went the worth of the SER
vice he had received seemed less to the
| Indian and the service lie was rendering
seemed more, and at last he refused to
proceed unless he was paid pony and
| gun. The miner promised but the
Indian demanded his price in advance,
and they returned to the edge of oiviliza-
ton, got the pony and gun and started