ax have been freighted out by huge
wagons drawn by mules; indeed, "twenty-mule-team borax" has become
almost a household term. Borax is still mined here, but not so
extensively as formerly, more accessible borax deposits having been
found in Nevada and elsewhere--and the twenty-mule team is now a
motor-truck!

Nearly one-third of all of the borax of the world comes from the deserts
of California and Nevada. When borax was first discovered in California
the wholesale price in New York was about fifty cents a pound; now it is
about six cents.

The various applications of borax to industrial and domestic uses have
kept pace with its enormous production during the last twenty-five
years, until now it is used for more than fifty different purposes. The
meat-packers of the United States alone use several million pounds as a
preservative. It is also used with excellent results as an antiseptic in
dressing wounds and sores.

Furnace Creek enters the valley on the eastern side of Death Valley, but
its waters soon sink out of sight. The creek is used to irrigate a tract
of alfalfa, a small garden, and a few trees; and the small ranch, a
veritable oasis in a desert, is rightly called Greenland. A few men are
kept employed here by the borax company. Now and then, however, the
whole crowd, tiring of the extreme heat, desert in a body.

This region is now robbed of some of its terrors by the completion of
the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad, which touches Death Valley at the
old Amargosa Borax Works.

CHAPTER VI

THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE ANDES

At this period of the world's progress, when so many marvellous
inventions are taking place, one can scarcely realize the intense
interest that was awakened by the first discoveries made in the New
World. So great was the excitement that the most improbable stories were
readily believed.

There were fountains of perpetual youth, Amazonian warriors, mighty
giants, and rivers whose beds sparkled with gems and golden pebbles. The
reports of every returning adventurer, whatever had been his luck, were
tinged with the marvellous. In fact, a world of romance was now open to
all and the opportunities to achieve fame and fortune were numberless.
The first in the field stood the best chance to win the choicest prizes.
Stories that outrivalled the Arabian Nights clouded the realm of reason.

So extraordinary were the accounts that many of the cities of Spain were
depleted of their mo