Thirty Men Starved to Death.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 67, 23 March 1904, Page 4

Thirty Men Starved to Death.

A telegram from Las Vegas, Nevada, states that a party of railway surveyors has made a gruesome discovery of 30 bodies of dead labourers in the middle of the Southern Neva-da desert. The surveyors had been laying plans for Senator Clark's new railway, from Salt Lake City across the desert to San Pedro and Los Angeles, California.

The bodies, most of which were found within a quarter of a mile of Dead Man's Well, were surrounded by buzzards. The railway line only reached the town of Calrentes, Nevada, and the liO labourers, who had been employed on the railway, had started for California without providing themselves with sufficient food and water. There is 710 water for 200 miles except the Dead Man's Well,, which was sunk years ago about halfway between Calientes and Las Vegas for wayfarers to refresh themselves. Of late years, however, the well, which is 120 ft deep, has turned brackish, and its waters are poisonous. It is said to make those who drink of it insane.

Apparently the labourers' provisions gave out some time before they reached the Dead Man's Well, several dying of thirst before they could get there. Others drank of its poisous waters and died. Six bodies were found within a hundred feet of the well, and their remains were torn by coyotes and buzzards. One body was partly buried in the sand, this oflice having ljeen performed by a companion who must have died in the attempt, as his body was lying alongside the parily buried one. The surveyor buried in the desert where they lay those bodies which were badly mutilated, and carried the others with them to Vegas.