VOL. I. | Recent Literature. 349 
cloud interrupting, from one year’s end to another. When the 
famous geologist, Prof. Gilbert, succeeded in crossing the valley, 
nearly twenty years ago, barely escaping death from thirst, the 
_ thermometer inside his saddle bag went up to 130 degrees and 
then burst. * * * Hundreds of people have lost their lives in 
Death Valley through starting off in the morning without knowing 
where they were going to find water at night. There will be no 
such foolishness as that indulged in by the expedition. With every 
precaution a sufficient amount of suffering will of necessity have to 
be undergone. Water is the great desideratum in that horrible 
place. * * * So rapid is this evaporation of the bodily moist- 
ure that three gallons of water a day are absolutely necessary for 
each individual. * * *” (Sic.) After reading columns of 
articles from week to week, of which the above is an extract, we can 
fairly imagine ourselves with Caliph Vathek as he journeyed to 
and into the Hall of Eblis.* ‘A deathlike stillness reigned over 
the mountain and through the air. * * * In the midst of this 
immense hall a vast multitude was incessantly passing. * * * 
They had all the livid paleness of death. Their eyes deep sunk 
in their sockets, resembled those phosphoric meteors that glimmer 
by night in places of interment. * * * Some, shrieking with 
agony, ran furiously about * * * whilst others, grinding their 
teeth in rage, foamed along more frantic than the wildest maniac. 
They all avoided each other * * * as if alone on a desert 
where no foot had trodden. * * * A funereal gloom prevailed 
over the whole scene.’’ The friends and relatives of the adventurous 
scientists who may have seen the articles alluded to must feel more 
than uneasy regarding the fate of some or all of these intrepid 
explorers, who in the ‘‘cause of science” undertake to cross 
fifteen miles or less of dry waste land, but to Californians, some of 
whom have been there before, it is all very amusing and in some 
lights perfectly ridiculous. For the benefit of the anxious ones 
a few extracts are here given from the latest published articles on 
- Death Valley. A reaction has evidently set in and it will be some 
months before the true facts are knowu. It may be some consola- 
tion, however, to hear what Mr. William B. Robertson says of the 
*Willam Beckford. 
