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. The summer is the dreaded season in Death Valley. A temperature of one hundred and thirty-seven degrees has been reported by the Pacific Coast Borax Company at the mouth of Furnace Creek. This temperature was recorded in the shade, and is the hottest ever experienced in the United States. In the sun it is of course much hotter. Many a person has lost his life in trying to cross the heated valley in the middle of a summer day instead of making the journey at night. [Illustration: FIG. 73.--ENTERING DEATH VALLEY] Dangerous as this region is, even now when we know so much about it, it was of course much more dangerous for the first white men who entered it. Only those who have had some experience upon the desert can realize the difficulties and dangers which beset the first emigrants who attempted to cross the deserts lying between Salt Lake City and the Sierra Nevada mountains. The story of the sufferings and final escape of that party which, by taking the wrong course, was lost in the great sink, is extremely interesting although sad. The valley received its name from the experiences of the members of this party.