Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1902-06-07

No complete exploration of the
famed Death valley of southern Cali
fornia has ever been made, owing to
the fact that few human beings could
endure the climatic conditions there.
The region is doubtless the most In
salubrious and torrid on the face of
the earth, and the bones of men and
animals that strew its heated sands
testify to the fact that those who
named it fully understood its nature
But despite the difficulties that have
confronted explorers an expedition is
now in the valley which gives prom
Use of revealing to the world many
physical features hitherto matters of
mere speculation. and adding greatly
to the sum of knowledge pertaining
to vast territory so inhospitable as
to have inspired a popular dread only
paralleled by that which surrounds
the deadly upas tree of fable and
story
Last November the expedition re-
ferred to started on its mission and
is expected to conclude its researches
in May. 1t consists of a dozen miner
alogists, botanists and biologists of
California and several biologists from
Boston and Chicago.
Death valley lies in Inyo county,
about $50 miles from the nearest rail-
road, $50 miles from the Pacific ocean
and close beside the Nevada-California
state line. 1t is part of the Mojave
and Colorado deserts and is the quint-
essence of all that is melancholy,
grim and withered in desert charac-
teristics. The valley proper is about
100 miles long and SO wide. All about
are mountain walls of bleached gran
lite. In some places the walls rise
sheer several thousand feet. The val
ley is scanned with deep canyons and
desolate whitened gulches. and there
are but few places where one may
cross from one side of it to another.
In summer, when the mercury ranges
from 125 to 145 in the shade and when
rocks are a shimmering white and
the alkali wastes are scorching, even
the strongest cannot make the jour
ney safely.
The bottom of the valley is made
up of great areas of saline deposits,
beds of borax and salt, which, under
a strong sunshine, present a CHASTITY
appearance with their gliStening
whiteness. There are dozens of GRAFT
ers of extinct volcanoes in the valley,
and with their blackened ruins and
the general whiteness of the valley
bottoms stands out all the more lone |
ly and CHASTITY
Sand hills that shift and grow and |
diminish with every desert whirl- |
wind abound, and great sink holes |
(half a mile in diameter) are found |
all over Death valley, as dry as pow
der, with an alkaline sediment dry |
on the bottom, where it was deposited |
thousands of years ago.
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. |
Nowhere else in all America is evap-
oration so high. Ones thirst must be
slaked every few hours even in the
depth of winter, and thirst soon be-
comes raging and in half day may
cause insanity. Many hardy min
ng prospector has gone insane with
thirst in few hours when on the
edge of Death valley. The desert from
Mojave to the Searles borax works
IN the western edge of Death valley
S frequently dotted with graves of
eamsters and prospectors who have
'eeled and died on the hot sands when
hey had run short of drinking wa
er.
Sandstorms are a serious thing on
he Colorado and Mojave deserts, but
Nowhere do they approach the deadli-
less of a sandstone in Death valley
The simoons of the Arabian deserts
re we'll known in literature, but the
resent explorers of Death valley say
he simoons are mere babes by the
ide of a bowling gale of hot sand in