Death Valley

Satellite photo of Death Valley

   The floor of Death Val­ley is the lowest land in the Americas. It is 280 feet below sea level. This valley is in California near the Nevada border. There are ranges of mountains all around it. Death Valley, which is about 140 miles long, contains about two million acres of sun-baked, ghostly desert land.
   The valley is one of the hottest places in the world. We think that a day when the temperature goes up to 100 degrees is very hot. In Death Valley the temperature sometimes goes above 130 degrees!
   Death Valley holds the record for the highest temperature in the Western hemisphere, 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913, just short of the world record, 136 °F (57.8 °C) in 'Aziziya, Libya, on September 13, 1922.
   Death Valley is usually very dry. At times torrents of water rush down the Amargosa River into it. But as a rule the bed of the river is like a big, dry ditch.
   Only the hardiest of desert plants and animals can live in Death Valley. There are some cactus and grease wood plants. There are a few desert rats, rattlesnakes, and horned toads. For the most part there is nothing but bare sand. In some places it has a coating of borax.
   The valley got its name in 1849 when some of the people who were rushing to California to find gold died of thirst there. Now the valley has good roads and good hotels for winter tourists. But the tourists who visit it are glad that they do not have to stay there the year round.