34 



NATUEAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



ready for transplanting. The na- 

 tive flora in the garden will be pre- 

 served. The trees will be care- 

 fully] labeled. Aquatic and bog 

 plants will be cultivated in the 

 Bronx River and on the marsh land 

 in the garden. 



The engineers have surveyed 

 the garden and made topographi- 

 cal maps on a scale of 50 feet to 

 the inch, showing every detail of 

 the garden. These will be shown 

 on the evening of March 26, at the 

 reception of the New York Acade- 

 my of Sciences, in the American 

 Museum of Natural History. It is 

 expected that several years' time 

 will be required before all the plans 

 for the garden can be realized. — 

 New York Times. 



California Borax Mines. 



Though every now and then re- 

 ports come from the desert of rich 

 finds of gold and silver, yet the 

 greatest industry of Death Valley 

 and the desert is the mining and 

 working of borax. Twenty years 

 ago borax was first discovered in 

 California, west of the Slate range, 

 seventy-eight miles from Mojave, 

 the discover, John W. Searles, 

 forming a company known as the 

 San Bernardino Borax Mining 

 Company, erected works which 

 have been in constant operation 

 ever since. 



The borax in the crude state 

 forms a crust over the marsh. 

 This crust is removed, hauled to 

 the works and placed in solution 

 in immense tanks heated by steam. 

 After allowing the solution to set- 

 tle, it is drawn off into cement vats, 

 where it is allowed to crystallize. 

 This operation is again repeated, 

 when the borax is ready to be 

 sacked and shipped to market. 

 After the removal of the borax 

 from the marsh, crystals of tincal 

 again begin to form, which are 

 worked but once, when they are 

 in a salable condition. In order 

 to facilitate this operation, water 

 from the marsh is pumped into 

 large tanks, in which the tincal 

 forms. 



These works are models of 

 mechanical construction, and are 

 the best equipped on the desert. 

 To the uninitiated, borax working 

 is but a repetition of boiling, set- 

 tling and crystallizing. The fuel 

 used is crude petroleum, which is 

 hauled in huge tanks from Mojave. 



The teams used in the transpor- 

 tation of the refined product are 

 curiosities in their way — a wonder 

 to the tenderfoot and a surprise to 



the teamster. As these wagons 

 are the greatest in existence, carry 

 the heaviest loads and are seen no 

 other place, a description is in 

 order. The hind wheels are seven 

 feet in diameter, front wheels five 

 feet; hubs, eighteen inches in diam- 

 eter by twenty-two inches in 

 length; tires, six inches wide and 

 an inch thick; steel axles, three 

 and one-half inches in diameter; 

 bed, sixteen feet long, four feet 

 wide and six feet deep. Each 

 wagon weighs about 8,000 pounds 

 and is capable of carrying 20,000 

 pounds at a load. Two wagons 

 loaded with borax and an oil tank 

 on a third wagon completed the 

 train hauled by the borax team. 

 The team consists of eighteen 

 mules and two hores — twenty ani- 

 mals in all, which are driven by a 

 bell cord, used as a jerk line. A 

 carload (40,000 pounds) of borax 

 is hauled each trip from the works 

 to Mojave, and a tank of oil and 

 two loads are hauled on the return 

 trip. 



It takes eight days to make the 

 trip, and in nearly twenty years 

 not a trip has been missed. Sta- 

 tions at which water can be had, 

 and where feed is stored, have 

 been erected for the borax teams 

 to put up. The borax company 

 has done much to assist in the de- 

 velopment of the desert, as water 

 is furnished free of charge at all 

 their stations. 



From the borax mine, twelve 

 miles from Daggett, wagons of the 

 same style and teams similar in 

 makeup are used by the borax 

 company. Not all the borax of 

 Death Valley and the desert is 

 found in marshes, and all the 

 marshes, while having the same 

 appearance, do not contain borax. 



In Furnace Creek canon of the 

 Funeral mountains, and in the 

 Death Valley marsh, borax is found 

 in the shape of cotton balls, while 

 in the San Bernardino Company's 

 march none of these are found. 

 The cotton balls are borate of lime 

 and are scientifically known as 

 urexite. On taking them from the 

 ground they can be pulverized 

 easily, but after exposure to the 

 air they become very dry and 

 hard. They become so hard that 

 it is necessary to put them through 

 a crusher. 



For months after the discovery 

 of borax hundreds of prospectors 

 braved the terrors of Death Valley, 

 and many left their bones to bleach 

 in that terrible sinkhole. Borax 

 was searched for in unheard of loc- 

 alities, but it was only known to 

 exist in marshes and beds of old 



lakes. It was not until the discov- 

 ery of silver in the Calico moun- 

 tains that borax was known to ex- 

 ist in deposits or veins. A miner, 

 more curious than his fellows, had 

 a piece of white looking rock as- 

 sayed, and made the wonderful 

 discovery that hundreds of pros- 

 pectors had traveled over a vein of 

 boracic acid more valuable than 

 any marsh then known. This was 

 a set-back to all preconceived no- 

 tions of borax mining, and the sup- 

 posed-to-be valueless white rock of 

 the Calico mountains became sud- 

 denly valuable. This is only an- 

 other case of where the values at 

 home' were overlooked for the 

 much-talked-of treasures of a far- 

 off land. The deposit at Calico is 

 owned by the Pacific Coast Borax 

 Company, and the product is ship- 

 ped to their works at Alameda for 

 reduction. 



Another and larger deposit of 

 the same class was found at Monte 

 Blanco, in a . branch of Furnace 

 Creek canon, but its great distance 

 from a railroad made the working 

 of it an impossibility. • 



In Death Valley are the rotting 

 remnants of two borax works — in- 

 stitutions which promised, for a 

 time, to make their owners rich. 

 With a fall in the price of borax 

 and the establishment of more ac- 

 cessible rivals, abandonment was 

 forced upon the owners. The 

 works north of furnace Creek, 

 which were erected to utilize the 

 product of Winter's discovery, 

 closed in 1888, after a run of five 

 years. The Eagle works, erected 

 at a marsh belonging to a French- 

 man named Daunet, have also 

 been closed down for several years. 



Throughout all this country, 

 with the exception of Death Val- 

 ley, may be found the stakes of 

 the railroad surveyor, and several 

 practical routes for a railroad have 

 been found, though none have yet 

 been decided upon. ' At the time 

 of the discovery of borax in Cali- 

 fornia, the wholesale price was 50 

 cents a pound. At present (1894) it is 

 worth about 8 cents. Over 20,000 

 tons are used annually, about one- 

 third of which is produced in the 

 United States. — Scientific American. 



Dr. H. H. Rusby. — The famous 

 botanical collector, who has done 

 so much for our knowledge of 

 southern botany, has started to ex- 

 plore the Orinoco region. — Mec- 

 Zian's Monthly for April. 



