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LOOKING N o n r x Isro DEATHVALLEY FROM UANTI'S V~riv The lowest spot in the western hemisphere from an elevation of 6000 feet, in thc Black Mountains. Here lies a reserve of one billion tons of soda, salt, potash, borax, and other valuable chemicals, for the use of generations yet unborn.
STUDIES I N THE MINERAL AND CHEMICAL RESOURCES OF THE MOJAVE DESERT. I PARK LOVEJOY T U R R ~GLENDALE L. JUNIOR COLLEGE, GLENDALE, CALIFORNIA
Amazingly large quantities of chemicals are deposited i n Southern California and Narada. These masses are subject to further exploitation by capital, to extract therefrom substances useful to mankind. New discoveries are constantly being made. Such a oariety of chemical and mineral wealth is displayed that the author chooses to christen the region "America's Chemical Storehouse."
. . . . . .
Regional Boundaries In the region, in Southern California, roughly bounded by the 34th and 37th parallels, and the 115th and 118th meridians, Nature has deposited through the ages a collossal mass of chemicals, of interest- to the chemical profession, whether engaged in educational pursuits or industry. These great deposits, constituting as they do an economic asset-a portion of our "immense natural resources"-are located principally in San Bernardino, Kern, and Inyo Counties, California, and partly in Nye, and Clark Counties, Nevada. The approximate geographical center of this chemical storehouse is 175 miles northeast (airline) from Los Angeles, an easy day's run from Glendale by automobile, over paved and excellent "desert road," consisting principally of decomposed granite. Popular Concepts The popular conception of Death Valley and its environs, of which we will speak later, is that its sole chemical piace de ris&tance is borax. This is no doubt due to the publicity given the region by the late F. M. "Borax" Smith and his picturesque twenty-mute-team wagons, as familiar to the average housewife as her pots and pans (1). Borax Fifty years ago Death Valley lost its lead as the chief producer of borax, with the discovery in 1882 of colemanite (CazB60n.5Hz0,hydrous calcium borate) on the steep slopes of the Funeral Range, which forms, along with the Black Mountains, the eastern wall of this justly famous pit. More recently, with the discovery of a considerable quantity of kernite, or rasorite, seven miles northwest of Kramer, on the Mojave-Barstow road (see map, page 1320), the colemanite deposit a t Ryan has been abandoned, and another ghost town has been added to the long list of the dead cities of the desert. Rasorite was accidentally discovered by John K. Sukow, a physician of Los Angeles, while drilling for water on his ranch in 1913. The deposit is buried under surface detritus of sand and gravel, in open country, with nearest outcroppings of rock a mile away. "Rasorite," so named in honor of the chief mining engineer of the Pacific Coast Borax 1319
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Company, pioneers in the development of the deposit, is almost pure tetrahydrate of sodium tetraborate, and is one of the most remarkable minerals ever discovered. It occurs in huge masses, some of which are four to five feet long and a foot thick, embedded in the mother rock. A single
recrystallization and filtration is su£Iicient to recover commercial borax. The deposit of rasorite, associated with ulexite and colemanite, is several hundred feet thick, and begins at a point a few feet below "grass roots," to use a colloquial mining expression. It covers an area approximately two miles long by a quarter to a half mile wide. Its origin, from a geological
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Long alluvial fans strctch out from the barren hills. Cloudbursts of infrequent appearance but terrific intensity wash out p a t masses of rocks and debris from Steep canyons.
viewpoint, is likewise unknown. I t may be the suh-bed of an ancient lake long since covered over by surface detritus from desert cloudbursts, b u t this viewpoint has not been passed on by competent geologists. T h e limits of the deposit are only determinable by extensive underground exploration. The mineral masses are not distributed uniformly, but vary greatly with the nature of the faulting of the mother rock. The bottom of the present workings is over 300 feet. The borate minerals occur in clay shales of the tertiary age which have been tilted, faulted, and afterward deeply eroded. According to L. F. Noble of the United States Geological Survey, the borates were probably deposited as ulexite, and afterward altered to colemanite through lime-bearing surface or ground waters creeping in [(Z),pp. 45-61], (3).
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This popular home-brand of borax, familiar to every housewife, found its genesis in Teele's Marsh, Nevada. From there its headquarters moved to the Old Harmony Borax Mill and the Old Eagle Borax Mill in the heart of Death Valley. Thence with the discovery of colemanite on the steep slopes of Mesa Negro in the Funeral Mountains
Railroad that runs north to ~ohannesburg,in the heart of the Rand Mining District
A World Producer This kernite deposit is now being exploited by the Pacific Coast Borax Company. This company is doing its share toward contributing to the grand total of borax shipped from this region, for over Slyo of the world's present supply of borax, boric acid, and other boron compounds come from this one storehouse, peculiarly rich in the compounds of this metal. The American Potash and Chemical Corporation alone, extracting borax from the concentrated brines of Searles Lake, furnishes approximately 46% of the world's market of borax ( 4 ) . Borax was first discovered in Searles Lake in 1863 by J. W. Searles, and was first developed commercially about ten years later. In 1882 colemanite was discovered in the Calico Mountains north and east of Barstow, and was extensively mined. It was shipped a t Barstow and Daggett, and the ruins of the old mills bear mute testimony to the extent of the workings [(5),pp. 35-91, The mineral, colemanite, has been exploited in many other parts of the region, another large deposit having been uncovered near Shoshone some ten years ago (6). The deposit was discovered by a prospector looking for "fuller's earth" or "Bentonite," and although only a small outcropping
The total distance to be traversed by these "freight trains" from Death Valley to the railroad a t ~Mojavewas 1 6 i miles, 60 miles of which was through waterless country. "Twenty mules, trained to the task, hauled two giant wagons and a water tank. The wagons weighed about 7800 pounds each, the water tank carried 1200 gallons and each wagon held 10 to 12 tons of borax. The load pulled by the mules often amounted to 70,000 pounds (the capacity of a modern freight car)" (I).
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.Stci,hcm 11. 11 2 l l a r d , I ' o l t n . \ D r % n e ~ ,< e l > ) .
TWENTY-MUU-TEAM BORAXWAGONS AT FURXACE CREEKRANCH, DEATH VALLEV These interesting relics, the "largest, most capacious, and most economical ever built," were drawn in pairs by twenty mules, handled by one driver with a single 120-foot jerk line and generous amounts of profanity. The largest types were 16 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 6 feet deep. The dian~etersof the front and back wheels were 7 and 5 feet, respectively, with tires 8 inches wide and 1 inch thick of solid steel. These niant wanons were replaced by a narrow-gage railroad, for the hnnlinr: oi colc&nrtc our of Ryan in rlw Funeral \luuntamc 'The narrow-yuyt. railroad ha* nor. I,cm rum fur uw ulc:shcrr~, su I ~ u r a y8s 1,ring tran.p~,rtrcl 1.). ~ u c , c l c m >wt tlml;, r . P.. nmtor tnsck ;and standard-gage l u x cdr
was a t first noted, shaft developments disclosed an ore body averaging twenty to thirty feet in thickness and coxering an unknown area in extent. This deposit like the Ryan mine was worked by the Pacific Coast Borax Company for some time, until the discovery of the kernite layers near Krarner. According to Mr. Rasor, of this company, the Shoshone colemanite is the purest that is to he found in the whole desert region. Some years prior to this, borax deposits of the marsh or "playa" type were likewise worked near Zabriskie and Shoshone, and may have consisted of a mixture of sodium tetrahorate and "ulexite" [sodium calcium borate, NaCaBSO9.SH20]. This deposition probably owes its origin to surface washings and extraction from the mountainous veins, the ulexite being formed by metathesis with sodium carbonate collected in the ancient lake beds. Similar incrustations of ulexite, or "cotton halls," arefoundin other dry lake beds of the desert, indicative of colemanite veins in the surrounding mountains. The word "playa" is of Spanish origin, meaning "beach." The ulexite depositions occur on the beaches of the dry lake beds, where they pile up in masses, recalling to mind the familiar laboratory phenomenon of crystal "creeping." Borax is one of the oldest of chemicals, known to the ancients and used by Nero and his slaves. It originally came from a string of alkaline lakes in
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the plains of Tibet in western China, and was hauled across the Himalayas on the backs of men and animals. I t was first discovered in California, in 1856, not in the region herein described, but near Red Bluff. A quarter of a century later a poverty-stricken prospector at Ash Meadows, Nevada, discovered that some chemicals he had found on the "beach" of a dry lake burned with a green-tipped flame when alcohol was poured on them and set afire. A "Borax Rush" Immediately there was a stampede for these same chemicals, or "cotton balls," which were later found on analysis to be the ulexite previously mentioned. The subsequent rush for claims rivaled the hectic days of 1849, and once again the desert took its toll in men and capital. New discoveries were announced, and soon refineries were operating in t h c heart of Death Valley, sponsored by F. M. "Borax" Smith. One of these, the Harmony Borax Mill, was located two miles north of the present Furnace Creek Ranch; the other, the Eagle's Borax Works, at Bennett's Wells, twentyfour miles to the south. It was here that William Manly and his comrade. John Rogers, rescued the men, women, and children of the '49 BennettArcane party, after they had been twenty-six days on starvation rations. For historical aspects of the Mojave Desert Region, which for obvious reasons cannot be taken up here, the reader is referred to various histories of California, and particularly "Death Valley in '49," by William Manly, The Pacific Tree and Vine Company, San Jose, California, 1894 (recently republished by a Pasadena firm). E The subsequent discovery of colemanite veins in the Calico Mountains north of Barstow and in Mesa Negro of the Black Mountains caused the abandonment of the two Death Valley mills. I t is rather interesting to note that samples of partially purified borax can still be obtained, a half a century later, from mounds outside these mills. Desert rainfall, which, according to Colonel H. B.Hershey, Weather Bureau observer at Los Angeles, averages 1.19 inches per year for the last decade in Death Valley, has not appreciably washed down the old borax dumps, nor leached out the water-soluble constituents. The colemanite mines at Barstow and Daggett also gave way before the richer deposits found in Mesa Negro in the Black Mountains, and the latter were subsequently abandoned when the kernite, or rasorite, masses were uncovered at Kramer. Ryan has now been added, at least temporarily, to the long list of "ghost cities" of the desert. Borax and boric acid contribute largely to the ever-increasing tonnage of chemicals exported from the Los Angeles harbor. Thousands of tons of boric acid alone are shipped every year to foreign ports. I t is reported that only small amounts of the compounds of boron are produced in other
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PANAMIXT M O U N ~ A ~AND NS
Gypsum, associated with alluvial J'
countries, some in Chili and Asia Minor, and a few hundred tons a year in Czechoslovakia. Nitrates Nitrates are found in many of the saline desert playas or lakes, and due to the tremendous uses of nitrogen-bearing compounds during the Great War, search was greatly stimulated for possible raw materials for the manufacture of nitric acid. The United States Geological Survey conducted extensive investigations of nitrate deposits during 1917 and 1918, and although nitrates were found to be widely disseminated, no commercial production has been noted of this date. Extensive playa depositions around ancient lake beds, presumably of Pleistocene age, arelocated in the Middle Amargosa Drainage Basin, and have been actively prospected in an effort to locate a supply which would make the United States independent of either German or Chili saltpeter (7). Confidence Hills, near the Old Confidence Mill in the southern end of Death Valley, consist principally of playa or lake beds of clay interspersed with depositions of nitrates. The hills are about ten miles long and one
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h d d , I'iorur, I'oa2i,n,
