The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1902-07-05

| experienced one of these whirlwinds of
alkali sand.
The nearest water course to Death
valley is the Amargosa river, a little
stream that trickles down in an enor-
nous bed from away up among the
mountains in Nevada. Centuries ago
the Amargosa was a mighty roaring
torrent that eroded granite rocks and
ate river bed half a mile wide for
over eighty miles. The Amargosa
loucheS the extreme southwestern end
OF Death valley, and in the locality
lizards and venomous crawling things
may be occasionally seen darling from
under rocks. In the same locality tiny
IlVuiets of heavily charged borax wa
Ter issue from the base of ancient vol
canoes and form in pools. Hundreds
OF acres of the purest borax are Gre
aIed mere by the intense evaporation,
ana large fortunes have been made by
Callfornlans, who haul the product
across the desert to the railroad sta
ton in Mojave
Death valley gets its name from it's
ghastly aspect, its desolation, and its
deadly effect upon many a venture
some or ignorant mining prospector
who has attempted to cross it in sum
mer, and who has died of thirst there.
among all the tales of grim hardships
and dreadful suffering by emigrants to
CallIornla before there were railroads
west of the Missouri river, none is so
pltltul as that of the party who got
lost in Death valley in 1849. There
were 800 emigrants in a caravan at
salt Lake City in August of that year.
All were going to the gold fields of
California. A division of opinion arose
as to the safest and easiest trail across
the 70 rlrlacc III. 70
the new Eldorado. Some 200 of the
party struck out for the southeast,
and found the old Santa Fe trail, which
nnally led them to southern California.
The rest went plodding in a caravan
across the wastes of southern Utah.
There was nothing to show them the
way through the lifeless roasting val
leys, past the bald mountains, and then
westward over the towering Sierras.
The caravan was in the Land of
thirst. For four months the starving,
half craZed men and women wandered
hither and yon through the region of
horror, seeking some pass between
the mountains to the Pacific ocean.
Mirages led them vainly miles away
from the trail. Their wagons fell apart
from dryneSs, and horses fell daily
under whitening heat. The oxen fell,
and stalWart men Sickened and died
in the camps. One day nine young men
became separated from the main party,
and years later their whitened bones
were found in an extinct volcanic era
ter, where they had crawled in their
delirium and weakness. For days the
gaunt, weak men in the party went
without food. The days were too hot
for them to be out in the sun, and they
confined their efforts to the nights for
finding paths that might lead out of the
roasting tomb.
At last ,eighty-two of the original
party-now mere skeletons and SO weak
that they could scarcely walk-found a
passage way through the Funeral
mountains, and, summoning all their
little remaining strength, managed to
get up and out of Death valley into the
cool and well watered region of south
ern California, beyond the Sierras. One
of the party, the Rev. ]. w. Grier,
weighed 1SS pounds when he left Salt
Lake City, and when he reached Los
Angeles eighteen weeks later his weight
was down to ninety,-two pounds. Two
of his brothers and one of his sisters
in-law died during the awful journey.