From the August 1, 1931, issue
By Science News
THE TRUTH ABOUT DEATH VALLEY
Death Valley is a deep trough between two mountain ranges. It is something over 100 miles long and averages 10 miles wide. Within less than 100 miles of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the United States proper, it sinks its lowest depression to 276 feet below sea level. This is official measurement; there may be lower spots in the valley still awaiting the surveyors telescopic eye.
For ages it has been the catch-basin of desert streams and, it is claimed, was once the scene of geyser action that would have made even Yellowstone look tame; there is on its arid floor a vast accumulation of concentrated mineral salts of various kinds, including the famous borax deposits that until a few years ago supplied the world. It got its name in the epic gold rush days of 1849, when a starved and decimated party of emigrants, who had struggled through it with infinite sufferings, looked back and gave it the sinister title that has clung to it to this day.