Los Angeles herald., 1891-07-08
SALTON WEATHER.
A DESCRIPTION WHICH WILL MAKE
YOU PERSPIRE..
A Place Where the Mercury Knocks the
Top Off the Thermometer-Peculiar
Features of Peculiar Weather in Pc
culiar Place.

culiar Place.
..ssJ. H. Gilmour, in Mondays San Fran
cisco Chronicle, gives description of a
cool day at Salton, from which the fol-
lowing extracts are taken:
Day is about to break. You can see
in the east a glow of pink, and the crests
| OF the barren mountains are simmer
ing with newborn light The sun is
creeping up. With what shudder you
watch the red rim as it shows itself
above the rugged billy outline. The air
is cool, cool for the desert and its oven.
like temperature, and it actually invites
repose. The pillows are saturated, and
the boards of the wooden veranda are
wetted from perspiration. Calm as is
ever the desert, it is never so calm as
before the sunrise. The sun climbs up
ward, broad bands of yellow scurry
across the sands and brighten the
mournful sage brush and make delicate
patches of light and shade among the
branches of the mesquite. Suddenly the
entire desert is aglow with heat.
Already the Indians are astir. Smoke
is curling through the apertures of their
illy-joined dwellings, proclaiming that
breakfast is under preparation. The
men are yawning and shaking them
selves as if they had not yet recovered
from the nights oppression, while the
squaws cheerfully cook.
But the sun is toiling upward and the
heat is growing momentaiily fiercer. The
sloth of sleep is thrown off, and for few
moments the Joints are stiff, and the
throat dry and the voice husky. You
have not experienced rest or refresh
ment. The night has been q hideous
one. You have been in continual
bath, sutfused with perspiration. You
have jumped from the bed and paced
the veranda; you have gone onto the
hot, burning sand, but the neat has
driven you back to the house. Not a
sound can be heard. 1t is true the tele-
graph wires whistle loud and shrill, but
only at intervals.
Then you hear the distinct burr of an
approaching freight train. Long before
the long line of cars is in sight their
rattle is heard, and sometimes the noise
is such that you would imagine they
were travelling over tunnel, and it may
be, too; for it is the common opinion
that the country hereabout is hollow,
the upper crust but thin, which may
any day fall in and entomb passing
train.
By O'Clock the thermometer is
climbing up at steady jog and the air
is still. You begin to feel thirsty, but
you refrain from drinking, for you
know that heat more terrific than you
can imagine has yet to be encountered.
The slightest exertion brings forth
a flood of perspiration, which in
the hot atmosphere speedily drys as
if the soaking garment had been
held before flaming furnace. The skin
is every now and then parched land some
exercise is necessary to induce moisture.
At II O'Clock the sun is in its glory. Dip
blanket into a pool of water, make it
wringing wet and expose it to the sun.
In few minutes it is hot and dry, as if
it had been kept in an oven. The water
that runs through a pipe from cistern
is at the boiling point, and not even an
Indian could touch it with the palm of
his hand and not get scalded, while iron
that has been left in the open air is soon
red hot.
Now comes the worst hour of the day.
At high noon the heat is fierce and the
SUMS rays so powerful that you would
imagine they would burn and scorch
anything living. In fact it does burn
the skin, for no man who lives here has
anything but copper-colored complex
ion, and this is solely due to the action
OF the sun. After long residence the skin
is so thoroughly burned that it never
loses that peculiar hue, and anyone who
has lived on the desert will know man
by his peculiar copper color. Some of
the Indians have this coloring, especial
ly the women. 1t is most singular and
rather effective, giving one the impress
sion that the person has been amusing
himself or herself by daubing the face
with iodine.
Up to p. m. the atmosphere is intol-
erable. The hot wind which has been
blowing freely from the southeast sud
denly dies away. and the air is hot,
heavy and still. Then you actually be-
gin to gasp for air. You move violently
about, so as to produce current of air.
You snatch at a newspaper and begin
to stir the air. The top of the head
grows hotter, perspiration ceases, and
you begin to feel frantic. You walk
faster to and fro; you snatch the can
teen and drain it. The gallons of water
that you have already poured into your
system seem to find no outlet.
They are absorbed internally, and
not passed away, except by per-
spiration, and now tAat perspira-
ton has ceased life is intolerable.
But just when the pangs OF madness al
most seize you breeze, hot as if escap-
ing from an oven, watts itself across the
desert and saves you.
After the sun has sunk a cooler breeze
often springs up and gives you short
respite from the torments of the heat.
But it is only short lived. 1t dies away,
and with the dark mantle of night and
her glittering stars comes stlhing
closeness which almost drives man to
think that the place where Beelzebub
reigns could not be hotter. The old
stony about Yuma loses, it's force here,
for men have been known to board in
desperation passing freight train and
60 to the alleged hottest place in the
United States to get respite from the
fercely overpowering heat of Salton.
This is not a War Rate, but very
cheap rate by the Surf Line to visit the
war stnannara Charleston op6 Ttata at