Show 1 k 1 ar ml I 1 ay iy DEATH VALLEY ONCE MORE GOLD COLD HAS BEEN BEL discovered THERE with bon vt of dead do aton now how the run funeral arll mountain bt got rbell name pate fate of ma an EnLi grant NCE more gold has been discovered to in death valley and ai the mojave deserts i I 1 I 1 says the new york herald once more I 1 the long arid leve ev I 1 a breathless treeless and lifeless will gleam with bones of prospectors and explorers once onca mare more wagons will stand in the hot white sands with shining tires until they rack apart and drop to pieces for want of moisture to hold them together take down your map and draw a line from latitude 35 to 37 and longitude to and you will have within the inclosure a block of desert comprising square miles this vast inclosure is dotted with the white bones of dead men and old yokes of dead oxen and the paraphernalia of 0 ancient emigrant trains drains no vulture wheels above in the bald blue sky no wolf or coyote howls from the sandy ridges it is a sepulcher where silence reigns forever the rush has already commenced and the flat levels along the mojave are marked with the deep wheel tracks of daring prospectors this is because it is winter and in winter the desert is ig comparatively kind let them find gold and let them hang bang to it as long as their strength strenge h lasts the desert will dream in placid silence until summer comes and then the prospectors will die like rats in a trap before they can get over the high stony ridges that surround death valley the area of the desert is traversed by numerous parallel valleys running from northwest to southeast and bounded by great ranges of treeless hills the center valley of these is the one that bears the name of death it is the hott hotts st on earth and vies in many ways with the bottomless pit aad no wonder it is from to feet below the level of the sea at various times since its discovery individuals have penetrated the arid waste once a government expedition passed hurriedly through it but could not spare time to make explorations lor for fear of losing their lives springs were found but they were not sufficient to quench the thirst of a suffering mule the average midnight heat during summer is said to be close to degrees much of which Is subterranean yet it is to this region and that of the mojave that the gold fevered miners minera iners are hurrying death valley is overhung on the east by the funeral mountains which rise above it in great bald ridges they are called the funeral mountains b because eba u be they witness witnessed sed one of the saddest tragedies that even the death valley has ever witnessed in the early an emigrant train steering south away from the regular trail sighted i a range of mountains on the far side of a wide blinding desert two days will take us across the desert and in the mountains we will find water they argued so they filled their water barrels and with cracking whips launched their white prairie ships over the white and motionless waves of the borax desert j forty miles fifty miles a nights encampment camp ment sixty seventy five miles and the blue mountains that had hung like a painting against the sky were reached no wood no water no grass no song of birds or sound other than the thirsty lowing of maddened oxen the cry of children and the wall wail of women men have instincts that are godlike in emergencies such as these they parcelled par celled out the precious store of food and the more than precious store of water giving the women and children two thirds of everything in sight then they pitched camp at the toot foot of the mountains on the next day with infinite trouble they gradually rolled the great wagons to the top of the mountains one behind the other in a long line they wheeled into a stony plateau at the top then a great cry broke from I 1 them to the west lay the shining white levels of as dead a land as god ever milde made there was nothing but grease wood and a few bare clumps of sagebrush in sight nothing but the silence of death and the austerity of utter desolation and yet it was a sight that would have filled the heart of a painter with delight to the northwest lay the ranges of the argus and the Sl sierras erras hundreds of miles away to the south they could see the pilot butte the calicas calicos Ca Call licos cos and the san ban bernardino range beyond which was safety these mountains were vere blue and faintly streaked with snow now to the north were range upon range of mountains nar nameless neless and unknown at their feet beyond the mesa which they reached later was a narrow valley ley all streaked with soda like ilka the white ribs of a ake skeleton aeton spotted with lava buttes and blotched with sage it was deith death to go back they could aver have survived the ibe journey they coald only plunge on into tho the unknown I 1 and so ls othey they lowered the waona wagons iby by ropes aown own to th the misa mesa or table tableland laud jubelow Jb elow 7 they could get 20 furth elj jl A melancholy meeting t atherl I 1 I 1 erab 1 I no lo 10 arl ia sad A I 1 04 I 1 miana V T W io tj I 1 wl fw alq k t 11 4 1 I 1 i c Z 1 I va R agi e 9 17 W 6 1 Z zm L they may resolved to separate each man 1 took his own whithersoever the husbands bep ere are went the wives taft betth fa and the lit th U chilli ChIlLS 11 I 1 A ere 93 aint emigrant named brand to tia lal children in his jkr ann and followed by his hie wife and two others mars struck off westward toward the Pesa pesamino mint range the others separ separated going according to their several idem ideas the two men following towne drove two oxen I 1 on top of the mountain range these were killed and some of the meat was wa dried prom from the top of these nw mountains looking back they could see black dots far out over the desert crawling along sluggishly and mt nt like there were other dots that lay jay on the white sand quiet and still in the horrible march of the next day brands two children died one after the other in his arms with hl his hands he scooped a grave tor for them la in the hot sands and lifting hla his wife on his shoulder walked on and on hour by hour until he began to rave and the woman had to guide him toward tow ard his objective point the tha western side of the argus range one day there staggered into a little a mining camp in eastern california a tall skeleton like man bearing a dead woman in his arms he sat down by b Y the side of a little stream where men were washing tor for gold with cradles when they came to him he snarled like a wild beast and would not let them touch the woman it was brand finally he was subdued by force and realizing his condition the miners gave him food and drink and in a week he was well the story he told was startling A rescue party was made up which hurried eastward along the trail which brand had bad traversed and scattered on either side they found thai the dry and remains of thirty men women and children As late as 1860 bones were still found far south of the camp on the mesa some of them were within yards of a spring which they had failed to reach |