Crossing the Colorado, we strike the desert district of California, which extends through the counties of San Bernardino and Kern, a distance of nearly three hundred miles. Adjoining these two counties on the north is Inyo county, into which the Carson and Colorado Railroad extends southward as far as Owen’s Lake. This county is remarkable for embracing a region of extraordinary wonders, greater, indeed, in several respects, than any other district in the world. In the northern part is a marvelous depression, 159 feet below sea level, and nearly 150 miles in circumference, known as Death Valley. It is distinctly a volcanic region, in which, however, the fires are long since burned out, leaving the desert a vast field of cinders, so parched that no drop of water exists within its borders, though rivers of lava ramify it in every direction. Many have perished in an effort to cross this fiery plain; and looking across it from the margin, the observer sees a shimmer in the air, as if a furnace were in active blast beneath. Here the temperature rises to 122 degrees, and the air hangs in a hot envelope, lazily swinging to and fro, rising and falling in waves of heat, and making the sands blaze with an almost blinding light. Scorched, burned- out and furnace-like though the region be, it is, nevertheless, the abode of life, but no less curious than is the valley itself. The centipede, scorpion and horned-toad find here a congenial habitation; and, strange to say, a species of kangaroo-rat is peculiar to this cursed spot, burrowing in the hot sand and feeding on insects. Thunder-storms beat around the valley, but no drop of rain ever moistens its burning lips. The dryness of the air is such a preserver of dead bodies that decay is impossible, and the animals that die within its borders are mummified until they become like parchment. This cursed spot, sown as it is with dragon’s teeth, is not entirely without its attractions, though they are as dangerous as were the soft, lute-like voices of the Sirens. It is the field of wonderful illusion, from which spring into the quivering air the most astounding and alluring mirages: rippling brooks, waving palms, floral meadows, ships under sail, banks of thyme, and travelers moving in procession across a landscape more beautiful than an oriental vision.