Death Valley Lore ed. by Richard E. Lingenfelter and Richard A. Dwyer

Abstract

Reviews 95 Although the book would benefit from inclusion of a section telling us something about the contributors, As Far As I Can See should appeal not only to many readers of the Great Plains, but also to students, for whom it would be an excellent literary introduction to their own historical and cultural heritage. ROBERT G. STEENSMA University of Utah Death Valley Lore. Edited by Richard E. Lingenfelter and Richard A. Dwyer. (Reno and Las Vegas: University of Nevada Press, 1988. 344 pages, $22.50.) Editors Richard Lingenfelter and Richard Dwyer researched archives and libraries to locate lore which created the image of Death Valley. They selected a variety of prose and poetry for this anthology which captures the stereotype that haunts Death Valley even today. Legends, myths, and tall tales are rife in the history of this often maligned desert. In some cases when it ishard to tell fact from fiction, the editors offer brief introductory comments. The first authors are forty-niners Manly and Brier, who crossed Death Valley to get to the California gold fields. Their trek was an ordeal that those who followed often repeated and distorted: prospectors, mining promoters, adventuresome journalists, poets, and raconteurs. The collection of these early pioneer accounts captures the essence of Death Valley intrigue. The reader smells the pungent sage and greasewood, feels the prickle of salt crystallizing in evaporation, and hears both the sidewinder’s rattle and the roar of furnace heat. One account after another describes the early life-and-death situations; authors stack superlatives like rock cairns leading to the most desolate, God­ forsaken land, the reputedly hottest place on earth. Fortunately not all tales were of life-threatening incidents. In one section authors defined the wit and humor of con-artist Death Valley Scotty who enticed easterners to speculate in his mining adventures. He mined their pockets and ultimately built a mansion called Scotty’s Castle, a tourist sight for today’s visitor. The final section of the book contains four tall tales: fish with canteens attached to their tails, solar armor made of sponge, a lime-like substance that can be reduced to water, and a poisonous gas that covers the valley floor. Because of the volume of references to geographical places, a more detailed map than the one provided would have been helpful. When the authors refer to so many springs, passes, peaks, and mining sites, a map for reference points is important. Consequently, I supplemented my reading with an inadequate road atlas and many glasses of water. I felt like I was back home in Death Valley where I lived for five years, four of which were in Fur­ nace Creek. MARY ELLEN ACKERMAN Cape Cod, Massachusetts 96 Western American Literature REPRINTS OF NOTE BisonBooks. University of Nebraska Press. Adams, Ramon F. The Old-Time Cowhand. $27.95/$11.95. Aldrich, Bess Streeter. The Cutters. $8.95. Burke, John. The Legend of Baby Doe: The Life and Times of the Silver Queen of the West. $8.95. Outright, Paul Russell. Lewis and Clark, Pioneering Naturalists. $14.95. Dickson, Albert Jerome. Covered Wagon Days, From the Private Journals of Albert Jerome Dickson. Edited by Arthur Jerome Dickson, with an Intro­ duction by A. B. Guthrie, Jr. $8.95. Mattes, Merrill J. Indians, Infants and Infantry. Andrew and Elizabeth Burt on the Frontier. $8.95. Minnesota Historical SocietyPress. Duncan, Kunigunde, with an introduction by Bruce D. Forbes. Blue Star: The Story of Corabelle Fellows, Teacher at Dakota Missions, 1884—1888. $8.95. Southern Methodist University Press. Reynolds, Clay. The Vigil. $8.95. Swallow Press/Ohio University Press. Waters, Frank. Mexico Mystique. The Coming Sixth World of Consciousness. $11.95. Texas A&MUniversity Press. White, Jon Manchip. A World Elsewhere: Life in the American Southwest. $13.95. TexasWesternPress. Allen, Martha Mitten. Traveling West: Nineteenth-Century Women on the Overland Routes. $7.50. Walker, Dale L. C. L. Sonnichsen: Grassroots Historian. $12.00/$7.50 University of Illinois Press. Bristol, Rev. Sherlock. The Pioneer Preacher, $32.50/$11.95. University of Nevada Press. Lewis, Oscar. I Remember Christine, with a foreword by Lawrence Clark Powell. $8.95. University of Oklahoma Press. Mathews, John Joseph. Sundown. With an introduction...