



PLATE 3. 



DEATH VALLEY— THE MOST ARID SECTION IN THE WEST. 



A miner was rescued recently at point marked "A" and the skeletons 



of two other men were found within a radius of a few miles. 



At point "B" 60 people died from thirst, with water within six miles in 



one direction and fourteen miles across the valley, where is located the 



Keane Wonder Mine. Many other deaths have been reported during 



the last ten years. 



A catalogue of the fauna of this "great and terrible wilderness 

 wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground" can 

 be written in a very few lines: the jack-rabbit, the horned toad, the 

 scorpion and lizard, the kangaroo rat, the desert turtle and that 

 rattling subtil enemy of man which "stingeth like an adder," and of 

 which it is written, "it shall bruise they heel and thou shalt bruise his 

 head," and his more deadly but silent brother, the side-winder, and 

 the coyote whose cry alone breaks the profound silence of these 

 regions, embrace the list of those that are generally known. 



The voice of the mocking-bird and the sweet carols of our 

 feathered loves ever are mute, the only denizen of the sky being 

 the vulture whose shadow falls upon the desolate land as he sails 

 in search of his carrion food. 



The only aboriginal inhabitants are the remnants of the Piute 

 and Mojave Indian tribes whose day of total extermination is 

 rapidly approaching. 



But even the worst and most unpromising of these regions are 

 not without their material wealth. Zinc is found in paying quanti- 

 ties, and large saline deposits have been discovered mixed with borax 

 and nitre. Nitre claims are controlled by the mining laws of the 



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