The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-07-31
HOTTEST PLACE IN THE UNITED
STATES.
From 100 to 1913 Degrees in tho Shade Or
dinaryDaily Temperature in Yuma.

From 100 to 1913 Degrees in tho Shade Or
dinaryDaily Temperature in Yuma.
| (Arizona Letter in New York SUM-
Eastern people who pirate about heated
terms and fee TO the mountains or sea-
shore upon the approach of brief period
when the temperature is among the nine
ties, should consider the case of town
where the temperature from about the
middle of June to early October ranges
all the way from 80 degrees to 100 degrees
in the shade and occasionally goes to 1923
for few hours. What would they tn ink
| of temperature for full month of not
less than 81 degrees, of two weeks at a
time when the temperature has varied
from 108 degrees to lis degrees, and of II
week when the thermo meter he's stood at
over 1l2 degrees in the shade? That is
what the residents of this quaint old
town of Yuma experience regularly eve
ry summer. So far this season Yuma
has had two spells of weather when the
mercury olim bed up to lit degrees in the
shade every morning for q few successive
days, and descended to 06 degrees and 100
degrees at night. From June 10 to IA
the daily temperature here raEged from
l07 degrees to ia degrees. From June
Is to June q inclusive, the high temper
allure on aoh afternoon went al high as
III degrees in the shade.
Yuma has been the banner hot town
of America for 40 or 50 years. That an.
Client, palsied and weather beaten st DRY
about the soldier who lived and died in
the garrison at Yuma and whose ghost
came back one night for his army
blankets for use down in chilly, frosty
hell, has gone everywhere-even Ur.
Depew recently told it to group of re-
porters who welcomed him homo in New
YORK from his tour on the Pacific coast
-and IN its ravels throughout the world
mas given certain fame to the town.
All conditions seem to units to make
Yuma the hot summer spot it is. 1t is
located in a kind of basin on the edge of
the lazy, muddy Colorado river, which
meanders through desert sands and adobe
SOIL down to the gulf Of California.
away to the west, across the river, and
TO the south stretches the Colorado desert,
several thousand square miles in area.
1t Is so merciless, ghostiy and fierce
DESERT waste that We dare not GROSS it by
wagon or on foot in the summer months,
and In winter or early spring travellers
are careful to be accompanied by COM
panlon or two and supplied with an
abundance of drinking water and food,
Every summer venturesome miners lose
their lives in trying to cross the desert
by being oyertaken by sand storm or
III a To Il A. H. L. y
heat. 10 the north there are vast
plains and uplands of barren, sun-baked
adobe soil and peculiar formation of
lava and soft granite, the remains of nu-
meroua extinct volcanoes. This are Alb
serbs the suns heat by day and distri-
butes 1T by night To the east are mil
lions OF acres that are the next thing to
except by irrigation, and then only scan
tlly; where no one lives who can exist
elsewhere. For over 100 miles about
Yuma not tree grows naturally, and
none OF the forest trees that the people
of the New England or the Middle States
know can be grown even artificially.
There is not q thing in nature anywhere
in the region to add degree of GOODNESS
to the atmosphere. There are no balrny
breezss from any where, no sea or lake air
to come once in while as O relief after
hours of steady downpouring of solar
heat; not mountain Or brooke canyon
or dell, grove or beach throughout a
whole country to which one may resort
for so much AS a moment of GOODNESS.
One may gaze in any direction from the
highest place in Yuma, and the only
color in nature to be seen is dull, red |
dish brown under blazing sky. Even |
the sluggish river takes on the hue of
the surrounding territory.
Rain falls in Yuma and the region
about but four or five times in year,
and only in the early winter months. |
There are. however, some very heavy |
floods here in the months of February
and March, when the watar in the Color |
ado river rises and oyerhows the banks |
because of the melting SHOWS away up |
in the mountains of Colorado and north |
ern Arizona and of the heavy rains in |
Routhern California. When the water |
reoedes and leaves bare some thousands |
of acres of rich bottom lands the Indians |
plant their mesquite beans and melon |
seeds for their annual crop, just as the |
Egyptians do their annual planting |
along the banks of the Nile, when the |
floods are past. The fertility of these |
bottom lands has attracted attention, |
and iu recent years enterprsing Yankees |
have taken up hundreds of acres and are |
growing to a small extent fruits and |
melons which are first in the market
oven in seIni-tropic southern California |
and Los Angeles.
The town of Yuma has population of
5000. About hall Of these are Americans
from the Eastern States, and the rest are
MexicanS. The place took its name
from a tribe of Indians who have lived
in the vicinity for some 200 years.