The Western United States: A Geographical Reader

by Harold W. Fairbanks

To most of us Death Valley is thought of only as a mysterious region somewhere in the Southwest, a place which we are accustomed to picture to ourselves as being the embodiment of everything that is desolate and lifeless,—a region where there is no water, where there are no living things, simply bare rocks and sand upon which the sun beats pitilessly and over which the scorching winds blow in clouds of dust. The reality is hardly so bad as this, for there are living things in the valley, and water may occasionally be found. Nevertheless it is a fearful spot in summer, and has become the final resting place of many wanderers in these desert regions, who having drunk all their water failed to find more.

We have already learned something about the Great Basin: we know that it is made up of vast desert plains or valleys, separated by a few partly isolated mountain ranges. The valleys are peculiar in that they are basins without outlets, and for this reason are known as sinks. Many of the lakes once occupying the valleys are now quite or nearly dry, and the lower portions of their beds are either whitened with deposits of borax and soda, or have been transformed into barren expanses of hardened yellow clay.

The long, gentle slopes about the sinks, which have been built up by the waste rock from the mountains, as a result of the occasional cloudbursts are dotted with sage-brush, greasewood, or other low plants, and furnish a home for numerous animals.

Back of the gravel slopes rise the mountains, browned under the fierce rays of the summer sun. In some of their deeper cañons little springs and streams are found, but the water usually dries up before leaving the protecting shadows of the cliffs. Toward the mountain tops the desert juniper appears; and if the peaks rise high enough to get more of the moisture of the cooler air, they support groves of the piñon and possibly yellow pine.

The valleys are all much alike. In summer the days are unbearably hot, while in winter the air is cool and invigorating. The skies are overcast for only a few days in the year, but in the autumn and spring fierce winds, laden with dust and sand, sweep across the valleys and through the mountain passes.

Strange rock forms, of many contrasting colors, worn out by wind and water, mark the desert mountains. The granite wears a brown, sunburned coat, while the masses of black lava show here and there patches of pink, yellow, and red. The air is often so wondrously clear that distant mountains seem much nearer than they really are. During the hot summer days the mirage forms apparent lakes and shady groves, illusions which have lured many a thirsty traveller to his death.

Death Valley is the lowest and hottest of the desert basins. Its surface, over four hundred feet below the level of the sea, is the lowest dry land in the United States. The valley is long and narrow and enclosed by mountains. Those upon the east are known as the Funeral Mountains, while upon the west the peaks of the Panamint Range rise to a height of about ten thousand feet.

If the rainfall were greater, Death Valley would be occupied by a salt or alkaline lake, but in this dry region lakes cannot exist, and the bottom of the sink, sometimes marshy after exceptional winter rains, is in many places almost snowy white from deposits of salt, soda, or borax.

Death Valley, then, differs from scores of other valleys in the Great Basin by being a little lower, a little hotter, and a little more arid. Strange as it may seem, old prospectors say that Death Valley is the best watered of all the desert valleys. Since it is the lowest spot in all the surrounding country, the scanty water supply all flows toward it. But the water runs under the gravels of the old river beds instead of on the top, where it might be utilized. Occasionally, however, the water comes to the surface in the form of springs, which are marked by a few willows or mesquite trees and little patches of salt grass.

Long ago, when the rainfall was greater, Death Valley was a saline lake and received a number of streams, two of which were large enough to be called rivers. The Amargoza River, starting from Nevada and pursuing a roundabout way, entered the southern end of the valley. The Mohave River, which rises in the San Bernardino Range, also emptied into the valley at one time, but now its waters, absorbed by the thirsty air and by the sands, disappear in the sink of the Mohave fifty miles to the south.