The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1912-05-30
Of
DEATH VALLEY

Three wellknown mining men had
an experience Friday which they
will not want to repeat and inciden-
tally Clyde Heller demonstrated that
he is an expert with the shovel. On
Thursday last J. X. Turner, the Gold
field mining engineer, Clyde A. Heller,
president of the Tonopah Belmont and
jim Butler Mining companies and
wealthy Philadelphian, whom anyone
would take for a prime tenderfoot, and
Frederick Bradshaw, general superin-
tendent of the Tonopah Belmont, left
here in Mr.. Bradshaw car for the
south, driven by the Belmont company
chauffeur.
The party spent the night at Rhyo-
lite and leaving there at O'Clock
Friday morning started for Ballarat,
west of the Panamint range of noun
tains, in lnyo county, California. To
reach that thriving town from Rhyo-
lite it is necessary to cross Death Val
ley at the Hole in the Wall,' going
to the right of Skidoo and bound for
Emigrant Springs. They expected to
reach Ballarat that evening.
In Death Valley the wind blows Mr.
Heller can vouch for that and explain
in manner most graphic and express
sive just how hard it blows. Mr.
Bradshaw also is impressed with the
same fact and declares he is going to
get him a 90-horsepower car that can
travel through the sand of that ro-
mantle and torrid depression in the
earth 8 contour. At a point eighteen
miles from the nearest water at the
edge of the valley and two or three
miles from Mesquite Flat and from
Stovepipe Wells, which is 215 feet be-
low sea level and where little mois-
ture can be obtained in a so-called
well, after cleaning it of dead mice,
rats and -winders, the tired auto
came to a stop and refued to bulge
The sand in the valley blows like
drifting snow. A plain road becomes
obliterated in an hour or less and
great impossible drifts rise to the
height of house where before there
was a flat plain. The travellers re-
sorted to shoveling; they wound ropes
about the wheels and finally deflated
the tires. They knew the trick of lay
ing canvas ahead of the machine but
the wind was too strong for thesn to
hold down the canvas and the sand
blew cutting blizzard, filing in be-
fore the wheels as fast as it could
/ b shoveled out and giving the COM
lpletion a sandpaper finish.
For most of the day the travellers
worked under the scorching sun. The
water was getting low and it was fear
ed the tired men would be compelled
to hike back to the Hole in the Wall.
Finally, by lifting, shoveling, coaxing
and cursing the machine was turned
about and the trip was successfully
made back to Rhyolite. At the hotel
/ there Mr.. Heller secured a copy of the
Goldfield Tribune with a report that he
had attended a banquet at the Gold
field hotel the evening before.
! Mr.. Heller, on this trip, learned to
express himself in true Nevada Ian
guage. When offered a glass of claret
he accepted with avidity. When asked
/ if he would take water with it he re-
piled: "'.!l y! !l!-no. Keep it for
the - engine.' His companions
/ took advantage of his abstraction,
while he was shoveling like beaver,
to sneak around sand hill and take
his photograph. Heller knows what
( Death Valley looks like from one side.
1 He isn't bit curious about its ap-
/ pearance from the other side, but he
1 is sure some shoveler.-Goldfeld