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Updated: May 27, 2025
There is no water ahead until we reach Saratoga Springs, a dozen miles beyond, and it is well that we take a small supply along, as the water there is unfit for either man or beast. There is a difference between Saratoga Springs, New York, and the springs bearing this high-sounding name in the Amargosa sink. Boiling Springs are a night's ride perhaps twenty miles beyond.
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. 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.
After they had crossed the mesa, the route became more rugged and more precipitous, so, in order to lighten the wagon-loads, one by one many articles of furniture were left behind. When the company reached the head of Amargosa Valley they began to separate. At length one party found looming up before it the streaked and many-colored Funeral Range of mountains.
East away from the Sierras, south from Panamint and Amargosa, east and south many an uncounted mile, is the Country of Lost Borders. Ute, Paiute, Mojave, and Shoshone inhabit its frontiers, and as far into the heart of it as a man dare go. Not the law, but the land sets the limit. Desert is the name it wears upon the maps, but the Indian's is the better word.
The westernmost part of the triangle, at an elevation of about 3000 feet, is occupied by the great Amargosa desert, which descends abruptly on the California side into the sink of Death Valley to below sea level. There has been no development of large value in this strip. Its interest to Arizona is merely historical.
But the "boiling" industry apparently is taking a vacation, for the water is not too warm for one's hands and face and certainly it is refreshing. We are in a "sink," or the dry bed of a lake, and the cliffs of clay have been sculptured into existence by the Amargosa River.
The Panamint Range looks down upon Death Valley with a bold and almost impassable front, while still other broad deserts lie between this range and the real Sierras. Upon reaching the head of the Amargosa River the party began to separate, for by this time many thought only of saving their lives at any cost.
Sometimes, when a dissipated cloud tumbles its contents into the region, the Amargosa is filled bank full with water; but few prospectors have seen more than a trickling stream flowing in its bed. We turn our way out of the wagon-trail toward Funeral Range to find the canyon of Furnace Creek, and in time we are clambering up a narrow gulch between the multicolored strata of clay buttes.
East away from the Sierras, south from Panamint and Amargosa, east and south many an uncounted mile, is the Country of Lost Borders. Ute, Paiute, Mojave, and Shoshone inhabit its frontiers, and as far into the heart of it as a man dare go. Not the law, but the land sets the limit. Desert is the name it wears upon the maps, but the Indian's is the better word.
They decided at first that they had better follow the stream southward, but after a little time, feeling the sickness caused by the water, they saw it was no advantage and turned west again, bearing to the north toward a sort of pass they could now see in the mountains in that direction. This stream is now known as the Amargosa, or bitter, river.
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