Nearly one-third of all of the borax of the world comes from the deserts of California and Nevada. When borax was first discovered in California the wholesale price in New York was about fifty cents a pound; now it is about six cents.
The various applications of borax to industrial and domestic uses have kept pace with its enormous production during the last twenty-five years, until now it is used for more than fifty different purposes. The meat-packers of the United States alone use several million pounds as a preservative. It is also used with excellent results as an antiseptic in dressing wounds and sores.
Furnace Creek enters the valley on the eastern side of Death Valley, but its waters soon sink out of sight. The creek is used to irrigate a tract of alfalfa, a small garden, and a few trees; and the small ranch, a veritable oasis in a desert, is rightly called Greenland. A few men are kept employed here by the borax company. Now and then, however, the whole crowd, tiring of the extreme heat, desert in a body.
This region is now robbed of some of its terrors by the completion of the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, which touches Death Valley at the old Amargosa Borax Works.
CHAPTER VI
THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANDES
At this period of the world's progress, when so many marvellous inventions are taking place, one can scarcely realize the intense interest that was awakened by the first discoveries made in the New World. So great was the excitement that the most improbable stories were readily believed.
There were fountains of perpetual youth, Amazonian warriors, mighty giants, and rivers whose beds sparkled with gems and golden pebbles. The reports of every returning adventurer, whatever had been his luck, were tinged with the marvellous. In fact, a world of romance was now open to all and the opportunities to achieve fame and fortune were numberless. The first in the field stood the best chance to win the choicest prizes. Stories that outrivalled the Arabian Nights clouded the realm of reason.