Borax from Death Valley first entered the markets about twenty years ago. It was mined from deposits found in the Calico Mountains and from one or two sinks in the valley, and it was hauled out of the valley and one hundred miles across the desert in wagons drawn by mule teams of from eighteen to thirty-two mules each.
During the five or six years following the opening of the mines, large quantities of borax were taken out and placed upon the market. Then, in the spring of 1888, the mines were closed because it was impossible to find men to work the mines or drive the mules. It became known that few men who went into the mines came out alive. At the end of six or seven months the miner succumbed to the terrific heat and the poisonous atmosphere, or else he was a broken-down invalid incapable of doing further work. It came to be considered simply a form of suicide to engage in the work, consequently the mine-owners were unable to continue operations.
[Illustration: A MONUMENT IN THE LAND OF THIRST From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.]
The desert borax wagons are a marvel of themselves. The wagon proper is made to hold ten tons of borax. It has a bed sixteen feet long by four feet wide and sides six feet high. The hind wheels are seven feet, and the front wheels five feet, in diameter. They are fitted with tires eight inches wide and an inch thick, and an empty wagon weighs seventy-eight hundred pounds. In addition to this combined weight of wagon and load, amounting to about fourteen tons, is the trailer, as is called the water wagon, which it is necessary to attach to the train in order that man and beast may not perish of thirst on the journey. Altogether, the plucky teams have to haul through the yielding sands about twenty tons--nearly or quite one ton to the beast.
A traction engine is also employed in hauling the product of the mines. This is a huge concern weighing hundreds of tons and doing the work of several mule teams. This machine has not been found adapted to all features of the work, however, and is not destined to supersede the mule wagons.
A little more than twenty years ago borax was worth, in this country, in the neighborhood of one dollar per pound. It is now being mined,--even under the present disadvantages,--prepared, and marketed at a profit at about ten cents a pound, with a prospect of still lower figures in the near future.