The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1908-05-04
PEN PICTURE OF
VALLEY OF DEATH
Pacific Miner Eloquently Gives Some
Idea of Famous Death Valley.


A recent issue of the Pacific Miner,
published in San Francisco. contain
ed an article on Death valley, which
will give those who have not seen
the valley some idea of its vast vast
ness. The article follows:
Over the dead wastes of this al
most foreign and abandoned region,
beauty, silence and desolation for
ever hover. Every acre is a blighted
Eden of mystery. and nature makes
an alternate play of roaring cloud
! bursts and blistering winds Now
and again sand hills are piled like
| temples, only to he plowed into
gorges and channels by torrential
rains of not infrequent occurrence.
The elemental forces of heat and
/ light, sunshine and storm, have work
ed wonders and carved weird statu-
airy in the canyons and dunes that
here and there break the monotony
of alkaline sands and virgin waters.
Miragas and arsenic springs fascinate
and torture the weary traveller. Cities
and fields, streams and groves melt
in thing air. Crows walking in the
white sands look like mounted war
riors, ard the rocks aer reflected in
the fantastic air until they bear the
/ appearance of temples of gold such
/ as Columbus and his followers hoped
to find beyond the mysterious Ind.
or in TAR Cathay
Yea after year mans curiosity
/ leads him closer to the storehouses
of wealth that are supposed to lie
/ buried in and around this arid re-
gion Stories of gold in the beds of
sunken rivers. tales of cowboys. who
know where the winds now and then
expose chimneys filled with nuggets,
and the careers of spectacular char
acters who plunge into the heart of
i this sunken furnace. then emerge
with the wealth of a Fortunatus-all
these infiame the imagination and
add to the haunting silence of the
wonderful pit that is at once the
most terrible and the most fascinat-
/ ing area on the globe.
/ Natare has located this guarde d
and forbidden spot in Inyo county,
/ California. near the Nevada linz, and
not far south from the Bullirog min
/ ing district The death of num-
/ Der of emigrants who tried to cross
the desert in 1S49 gave the mysteri-
ous sink its grewsome name Its
width is 30 miles. its length so. and
on every acre are parching roads
/ that lead down TO the gates of death.
The United .es geological sur
vey recently found by spirit level
measurements that the lowest depth
of the valley is j feet, its depres-
sion at BENEFITS Well, 266 feet. AS
Mount Whitney is only IS niles
away, towering $500 feet into the
clouds. 1nyo county has the di Tine
ton OF holding within her borders
both the lowest and highest levels of
dry land in the United States. The
great Salton sink was formerly 10
feet low er than Death valley, but the
sink is now a lake.
Nowhere else on earth is there so
desolate and, withal, so fascinating a
view as Death valley from such eleva-
tions as Grapevine range, Funeral
range, Reveille range. Telescope peak
or Marhel canyon. The colorings ev-
erywhere are weird and brilliant,
with mingled suggestions of the srm-
Der and repellant. In one place the
view is like Egypt and the Nile, in
another lige chasms and gloom, and
the effect on the mind is remarkable.
The surrounding country and valley
abound in sedimentary and volcanic
rocks. the predominating colors be-
Ing black, fiery red, green, yellow
and brown, with long stretches of
white and gray sands and alkali.
making a picture of solitude; but
/ there are elements of grandeur in
the vast distances the eternal silence
and the colors that change every
hour from dawn to sunset, and
through the silent watches of moon
lit nights.
The panam!nt desert and the Pan
amint mountains shut off the moist
winds from the ocean that might
otherwise temper tie desert air. To
the north is Ralston desert, and the
eastern boundary is another Saharan
furnace of sand In the summer
months the temperature of the vail
ley runs as high as 81 degrees Fab
renheit in the shade, with less than
one-half of | per cent of moisture
in the atmosphere.
Sandstorms often range with great
violence, and observers from the sur
rounding mountain ranges have esti-
mated that columns of sand are some
times forced 1000 feet above the des-
ert, terminating In bushy clouds that
hang like transparent veil across
:.