Death Valley

An angry sun beats down as though it might bubble the dust. Heat pours out of a merciless sky and heat swirls up from the scorching desert floor to meet it. Glimmering waves of heat dance out of the iron-hot Funeral Range and Panamint Mountain until it seems that the whole world lies waiting for one final and consuming igneous blast. . . . Then, on the waltzing surface of distant alkali, a lake of sweet cool waters appears. But the wise desert rat astride his fuzzy burro passes his tongue between cracked lips, smiles ironically and sets the portent down as Death Valley's crowning treachery, the mirage. And yet, last week, there was a lake in California's subsea level inferno. One Perry Brite, Kerr County supervisor, stood on Dante's Lookout and saw that 50 miles of the sink had become covered with water. In the memory of none of the inhabitants of the Valley region had so much rain fallen or so much seepage accumulated from distant snows. When the waters disappear the length and breadth of that blistering desert will be a wilderness of wildflowers, bluebells, poppies, buttercups, Indian paintbrush. A little moisture caused this to happen two years ago. Then the heat will come along again and mow them down with a fiery scythe.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.