Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1902-04-25
HORRORS OF DEATH VALLEY.
The Desoate Region In Southern CAL
ifornia Where SO Many Prospectors
and Pioneers Have Perlshed.


ford's expedition there in 1890 began with
the cool days of last November, and will
close for a season when hot weather
comes to Death Valley in May. The ex-
petition consists of dozen mineralogists,
botanists, and biologists of California, and
several biologists from Boston and Chica-
go. The building of the Los Angeles,
San Pedro and Salt Lake Railroad from
Salt Lake City, Utah, to Los Angeles,
Cal, through the desert country adjacent
to Death Valley has reused interest in
the mineral possibilities of this little
known corner of the Union. With
railroad, by which ores, borax, and saline
products may be hauled cheaply to smelt
ers and market, there may be fortunes
to be found even in so forbidding a bit
of the earths surface as this. Thus far
the explorers have located, under the
United States mineral laws. the largest
deposits of nitre in North America, sew
eral beds of naturally formed borax, be-
sides numerous outcroppings of silver and
copper ores. The expedition has care
fully studied the remarkable topography
and geology of Death Valley. To cover
the subject thoroughly, however, many
months will be required. and when cool
weather returns next fall the expedition
will resume its work for another season.
Death Valley lies in Inyo county, about
$50 miles from the nearest railroad. $50
miles from the Pacific Ocean. and close
beside the Nevada California State line.
IT is a part of the Mojave and Colorado
deserts, and is the quintessence of all
that is melancholy, grim. and wthered in
desert characteristics The Valley prop
er is about 100 miles long and 80 wide.
While most of Inyo county for thousands
of square miles is a plateau averaging
5000 feet in altitude. Death Valley is
from 300 to AGO feet below sea level.
Mount Whitney to the east is over 49,,
foe fn6 nd fhn hot
to the valley is very PERCEPTIONS. All
about are mountain walls of bleached
granite. In some places the walls rise
sheer several thousand feet. The valley
is scanned with deep canons and desolate
whitened gulches, and there are but few
places where one may cross from one
side of 1t to another In summer, when
the mercury ranges from 125 to 145 in
the shade, and when rocks are SHIN
mering white and the alkal wastes are
scorching, even the strongest cannot make
the journey safely.
The bottom of the'valley is made up of
great acres of saline deposits beds of
borax and salt, which, under a strong
sunshine present a CHASTITY appearance
with their glistening wilderness. The
bedrock are shale and schist left from
the Jura-trassic period, but most eX-
tensive volcanic eruption has so scattered
and demoralized the various formations
u
found within few feet of one another.
There are dozens of craters of extinct
volcanoes in the valley, and with their
blackened ruins and coating of dark
cinders, acres in area. the general white
ness of the valley bottoms stands out all
the more lonely and CHASTITY.
Sand hills that shift and grow and dim
inish with every desert whirlwind abound
and great sink holes (half n mile in
dameter) are found all over Death Val
ley. as dry as powder with an alkaline
sediment dry on the bottom where 1t
was deposited thousands of years ago.
The Indians of the Mojave desert call
the valley Devils Hollow (mingojunk)."
and none will ever go farther into 1t than
the Threshold and then only in winter.
A wealth of uncanny stories are in the
lore of the Mojave tribe about bad Indi-
ans who have been condemned to live
through all eternity in Death Valley.
There is no known hotter. drier spot in
Africa or Asia. Birds which abound in
the Sierras do not wing their way across
this spot. Nature is absolutely lifeless
in Death Valley. While the waters of
melting SHOWS on the lofty mountains
run unanimously down the canyons on
the western sides of the Sierras, they
never reach Death Valley on the eastern
side, for they are sucked away in the
vast sandy stretches long before they
pass the feet of the mountains. Nowhere
else in all America is evaporation so
high. Ones thirst must be Stacked every
few hours even in the depth of winter.
and thirst soon becomes raging, and in
half a day may cause insanity. Many
a hardy mining prospector has gone in
sane with thirst In few hours, when
on the edge OF Death Valley. The desert
from Mojave to the Searles's borax works
on the western edge of Death Valley Is
frequently dotted with the graves of
transfers and prospectors who have
reeled and died on the hot sand, when
they had run short of drlnking-water.
The mirages of Death Valley, the ex-
plorers there say, are the most remark
! able in the world. Every day in any
season one sees among the parched hills
and scalded mountain sides, .phantasmic
| pictures, miles in area, of foaming noun
| tain streams sylvan shades, alfalfa fields
! and browsing cattle-scenes reflected from
the other sides and tops of the Sierras
| Occasionally scenes from the Pacific
Ocean may be reflected in the mirages,
and sailing ships and tossing waves may
| be seen amid the shimmerng desolate
| sand hills and alkali canyons of Death
| Valley The Indians call the mirages
| the Big Spirits pictures. Sometimes in
the hottest weather the mirages will re-
main floating wonderfully distinct in the
| valley for a day at a time, but generally
| it lasts only a few minutes. Then the
! phantaSma VanisheS In tWinkllng, 10
| be soon succeeded by another-until as
many as seven different mirages have
| been seen there in one day.
| Sand-storms are a serious thing on the
| Colorado and Mojave deserts, but no.
where do they approach the deadliness of
a sand-storm in Death Valley. The
simoons of the Arabian deserts are well
known in literature, but the present ev-
plorers of Death Valley say the simoons
are mere babes by the side of a bowling
gale of hot sand in this place. The hot
air rising from the canyons and bottoms
of the valleys encounters the cold atmos-
phere currents from the Serras and
Rockies, and the rushing of the cooler
| air into the valley instantly creates a
| storm undreamed of in any other part
| of tbs world. For hours at a time the
sand-storm RACES occasionally for a day
| and a night Nothing alive can brave
the hurricane The man who will keep
close within a tent, with his head wrap
ped in a blanket, will survive, but he will
suffer with heat almost as severely as
If in an oven, and for days thereafter
with a pain from smarting nostrils and in
famed eyes and ears. Old-tme plains
men, who know about all the hardships
! that mans anatomy can experience, are
a unit in saying that the desert sand
storm, more particularly a Death Valley
sand-storm, is the most trying physical
| ordeal. The mountains, which bulwark
| Death Valley, show the terrific erosion
of their fiinty faces by SUGGESTIONS OF
these tempests. Here and there are
starved grease-root plants like stunted
starved trees that have been half buried
in sand during these storms. Many a
| xnyhn hos faat, aefa -,