heat. But many prospecting parties go there looking for veins of ore
and to take out borax. The richest borax mines in the world are found
there. The valley is about 75 miles long by 10 miles wide. The lowest
point is near the center, where it is about 150 ft. below the level of
the sea. Just 15 miles west of this central point is Telescope peak,
11,000 ft. above the sea, and 15 miles east is Mt. Le Count, in the
Funeral mountains, 8,000 ft. high. The valley runs almost due north
and south, which is one reason for the extreme heat. The only stream
of water in or near the valley flows into its upper end and forms a
marsh in the bed of the valley. This marsh gives out a horrible odor
of sulphureted hydrogen, the gas which makes a rotten egg so
offensive. Where the water of this stream comes from is not very
definitely known, but in my opinion it comes from Owen's lake, beyond
the Telescope mountains to the west, flowing down into the valley by
some subterranean passage. The same impurities found in the stream are
also found in the lake, where the water is so saturated with salt,
boracic acid, etc., that one can no more sink in it than in the water
of the Great Salt lake; and I found it so saturated that after
swimming in it a little while the skin all over my body was gnawed and
made very sore by the acids. Another reason why I think the water of
the stream enters the valley by some fixed subterranean source is the
fact that, no matter what the season, the flow from the springs that
feed the marsh is always exactly the same.

"The heat there is intense. A man cannot go an hour without water
without becoming insane. While we were surveying there, we had the
same wooden cased thermometer that is used by the signal service. It
was hung in the shade on the side of our shed, with the only stream in
the country flowing directly under it, and it repeatedly registered
130°; and for 48 hours in 1883, when I was surveying there, the