The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-02-19
THE DESERT RAIN STORMS
A LAND OF MIGHTY CLoUDBURsrs
AND TORNADOEs.

Railway Tracks and Embankments.
& Miners Death in a Canyon Shaft.
Pslmetto's Hour of Terror Death
Valleys Rain Storms.
From the Neby York Sun.
OF all the tales told by the white Arabs
of the Mojave desert few will stir the mind
Of hardy tourist as do those of the rain
storms that now and then deluge this arid
region. For practical purposes-for the
purpose Of agriculture or tha anelioration
OF the arid atmosphere-it is a rainless res
Rion. At intervals Of years general, or
whatthe weather sharps would call blanket
cain stormss do prevail, and then the desert
becomes thoroughly moistened and the
brown hard-baked sand disappears under
the most luxuriant, fragrant, charming
masses of flowers imaginable. But in or
binary years nothing Of the kind is seen
there. And yet the tales Of the downfall Of
immense masses of water are to be heard
from every old Arab, and the pbysi-
cal evidences of such downfalls are to
be seen on every hand in a journey
across the region. One does not have
20 leave the railroads TO see these evidences
=
the road runs for miles over mass Of what
looks like yellow clay that has baked and
cracked in all directions under the heat of
the sun. There is not pebble in sight. 1t
is a cracked sheet of EARTH that looks so
much like the bottom of the dried-out
ponds to be seen in the east that any tender
foot would recognize it as the bottom Of
desert dry lake. The wayfarer who drives
across the desert finds these dry lakes
thRra ia n how .abanad vo1tay ha-
tween mountain ridges, and sometimes on
what seem to be level nesas. That these dry
lakes are occasionally flooded need not be
doubted, for the water marks are visible.
But more impressive than the dry lakes
are the water marks wherever there is a
canyon or even depression leading down
from a mountain. In these canyons the
tourist drives or rides along the dry bed of
a torrent invariably, and it is in such places
as these that the guide tells his stories of
desert rain storms. The usual season for
these rains is, curiously enough, the dry
season, IL one may believe them. While the
sky is clear and flaming hot black cloud
appears Unexpectedly over some mountain
crest, where it sways about aud increases in
volume until its bottom strikes the mount-
ain top, add then, as if pierced by lancet,
it releases such a volume of water as would
pass belief did not one see the work done by
the floods in every canyon.
In the valley of the Amargosa lives old
Cub Lee. man VINO for nearly thirty years
has made the desert his home His house is
one of the shauties formerly used by the
workmen who gathered borax there. 1t
stands under cliffs of clay that are cut and
slsshed at frequent intervals by deep ifs
sures running from the river bed up toward
the mountains that rise on each side of the
valley. One day last winter he pointed to
a mark about three feet up on tho perpen-
dicular walls Of the assures on the Funeral
mountain side, and said: -,
1.-THE water came down so deep after a
cloud burst up yonder one day last sum-
mer."
The crest of the Funeral'mountain divide
was thirty miles away. The neares5 peak
was not less than ten, while gradually ris-
ing mesa swept back from the immediate
valley of the river for five or six miles to
the foot Of the nearest peak. This storm had
released its flood on the crests of mountains
from ten to twenty miles away. the water
had flowed down the canyons between those
mountains, had poured out over the mesa,
had filed the guches and assures In it's
route, and had at last rolled out through
the wide splits in the river hank solid
wave three feet high.
How long dio the flood lastf' wos asked.
Perhaps twenty minutes-nol a half
hour anyhow"
Did it rain in the valley7"
mot DROP
As described by Lee, this cloud was not
very much like the tornado common to
the prairie region east of the Rockies. 1t
was not a whirllng storm, nor did it travel
away from the place where it was formed
as tornado ooes. 1t was simply a great
mass of black vapor constantly ahame with
ztgzag lightning. 1t seemed TO gather a
tremendous bulk Of water from a stratum
OF cir above the mountain tops, to swell in
volume as it gathered the water, and finally,
when change of conditions was created by
touching the mountain tops, to release its
garnered floods instantly. The cloud was
streaked with lightning until after the
mountains were embraced, and then the
flashes disappeared and in short time the
cloud itself was dissipated. Lee did not no.
tice any unusual wind while the storm
lasted.
The effects of these cloudbursts can best
be realized by a consideration of some of
the authentic reports of such storms. For
instance, a cloudburst in the Humboldt
mountains, Nevada, on June 10, 1884.
flooded the valleys about Rye Patch and
badly damaged the Central Pacific tracks
for thirty miles. On March 10. the same
year a stretch of the Atlantic and Pacific
track six miles long was washed away Just
west Of Dagget, Cal, and on the same day
another cloudhurst near Yuma, Ariz. :,
washed away about as much more of the
track there. Three days early, March z,
1884, the streets of Florence, Ariz., were
flooded four feet deep by cloudburst at
the nearby mountains. The effect of such
food among the houses of a mining camp
may be imagined by New Workers if they
will consider what a tide four feet high would
do if it swept through the shanties in the
goat district.
A still more destructive flood IVES re-
ported from Arizona in 1887. On Sept. 9
several miles OF track and a number of
bridges were destroyed near Pentarro, while
another cloudburst on Sept. II washed
away five miles Of track and three bridges
on the Sonora railroad and washed out
eight miles Of railroad that was fifty feet
high near Dragon.
Among the dangers that beset the miner,
everybody ia familiar with falling rocks,
broken ropes that let the bucket or cage fly,
and cave-ins that crush or tmprison the men
at work. But in the mountains OF the desert
the cloudburst is an ever-present danger,
though it rarely takes the life OF a miner.
Many of the leads are discovered in canyons,
and some are worked so that
the mouth of the mine is right
in the bottom Of the canyon. A
case of the kind existed near Eureka, New.
On Aug. Z, 1884, a cloud burst on Ruoy hill.
When the food poured through Adams
Hill canyon it was in the form OF a wave
that opposite the Williamsburg mine was
thirty feet wide and seven feet deep. A
little farther on the mouth of the Titus
ukaFN II he sc NAn