The Laurens Advertiser

THE FAMOUS DEATH VALLEY.

THREE ADVENTUROUS MEN FIND THE LONG LOST MINES.

Their Wagons Shriveled and Their Water Barrels Burst-Almost Perishing Before the Mountains Were Reached.

Los Angeles, Cal., September 27.-

There are now in this city three men who have recently crossed and recrossed the famous Death Valley of Southern California, and who have succeeded in solving a mine of mystery which has baffled the most daring and skillful prospectors for many years. The Gunsight placers were located in '49, but afterward lost, and though repeated attempts have been made to find them, most of the men engaged in the effort have perished.

About six weeks ago when A. I. Judson, A. D. Spring and Barney Carter announced that they were going after the Gunsight trail, their friends tried to dissuade them, and chance acquaintances laughingly bade them good-by forever. No one ever expected to see them again, and when they set out confidently on their mission they were given up as dead men might have been. So many such expeditions had left this and other towns only to meet death in its most horrible form that this one was regarded as especially fool-hardy.

About a week ago the three men returned. They came in by rail, ragged, emaciated and feeble, and one of them, Carter, sick abed. But all were enthusiastic over their achievements, and each had in his pockets nuggets to prove his assertion that the Gunsight mine had been found. The story of their trip would be incredible were they not here as living witnesses to its truth, their bodies bearing all too plainly the proofs of the sufferings which they have undergone.

Knowing that the discoverers of the Gunsight mines crossed the Death Valley, these adventurers sought, if possible, to make the same trail. Once through the Mojave desert, they soon came to the dazzling white sandy plain where no life can exist. Almost at the first step they were prostrated by the fierce heat from above and below. Their feet swelled so that they were compelled to rip open their shoes, and the goggles which they had prepared were but feeble protection for their eyes.

The men had two wagons, each drawn by two horses, and in these vehicles they carried water in barrels and other supplies. After an hour or two of the most painful locomotion, the heat becoming more intolerable at every stop, the party paused a few minutes for rest and refreshment. The poor beasts fairly groaned in their agony, and the men themselves did not dare look at each other lest they would read in each other's eyes the despair which all knew was settling upon them. On every hand they beheld the whitened skeletons of men, of horses and of burros. In some places they found the remains of what appeared to have been an expedition—ruined vehicles, with the skeletons of horses and men lying about. Vultures swooped down upon them with angry cries, and other birds of prey circled high above their heads, following them as they progressed.

When night came they followed the north star, one man trying to sleep while the others drove. At daybreak there was nothing to relieve the eye. All around them was the gleaming sand; overhead the brassy sky, and far away the rocky sides of mountains on which no vegetable life was ever found. Wearily they pressed on, confident that the worst was over, but when almost in sight of the east range of the Amargosas, to which they were bound, the blasting heat played them a merciless prank. The scorching which the men and beasts were enduring with reasonable fortitude were too much for the water barrels and their wagons. The wood of which they were made shrank and shrivelled until they fell to pieces, first the wagons and then the barrels. All attempts to keep them together were useless. With the water gone the party was well nigh in despair, but when the wagons, too, fell to pieces there was a minute when all recognized the probability that another expedition was to be added to the long list of those which had gone into that abode of death never to be heard of again. When things appeared at their worst, Carter spied something in the white sand a few rods away, and hurrying toward it, found the pieces of a wagon which had belonged to a miner whose skeleton lay close at hand. Wood never decays in that atmosphere, and of the three wrecked wagons the men were able to gear up one vehicle that would convey their remaining supplies and their tools.

This delay came very near being fatal to all concerned. One horse died in the harness, and Carter was prostrated so completely that for a time his life was despaired of. Toiling painfully along, now without water and with no hope of any until they could clear the desolate valley, Judson and Spring were at length compelled in their agony to dig deep into the sand in the hope of finding moisture with which to quench their intolerable thirst. At a depth of a few feet they came upon water, but it was salt. They drank of it, but it only served to increase their suffering, and when they gave some of it to their horses the beasts refused to swallow it. With a firm determination to press on to the utmost limit of their strength, the men continued their journey, and, at length, more dead than alive, they emerged from the valley and began the ascent of the mountains.

Here they found some bunch grass on which their horses feasted, and a spring of water, copious draughts of which soon revived the entire party. Tarrying at this spring for a day or two for the purpose of recuperating, the men finally pushed on, prospecting the country closely as they went. For a week no trace of gold or the previous presence of man was found, but on the eighth day as they were digging for water, they came upon gravel abounding in coarse gold in nuggets worth from $1 to $60 a piece. This, then, was in the vicinity of the far-famed Gunsight placers, and another day's investigation brought them upon the very ground where nearly forty years ago the mines had been staked out. Procuring many fine specimens, the men returned by a roundabout way
and on arriving here made known their discovery. The dilapidated appearance of the adventurers and the magnificent specimens which they had with them brought plenty of friends to their side, and already preparations are in progress for an expedition which is to have for its object the opening of the mines. This caravan will be supplied with wagons with steel wheels, and it will carry water in barrels made of sheet iron. The experience of the party has convinced them that wooden vehicles and reservoirs are useless in the parching atmosphere of Death Valley, and they will run no further risks with them. It is expected that a start will be made in about two weeks, the company this time being larger and going prepared for a winter campaign.