The Arizona sentinel., 1896-08-29

myself with several fine specimens of empty tortoise shells which the ants had thoroughly cleansed, and which l found on the journey. More curious 1 than the Chuckawalla lizard IS the | ChuckaWalla bat In the caves, holes and creyices of the rocks of the noun tains and hills there are swarms of bats. One distinct and novel species must prove interesting to the natural ist. 1 know not how to class them They have four ears, and the Mex1cans assert that they are vampires. The screechy, ugly thing are certainly re- pulsive enough in appearnce to justify such reputation.
 Among the strange creatures of the desert more pleasant subject is the pack, or robber rat. Man hardly gets settled in his tent or hut before these robber rats put in their appearnce. They are domestic and sociable little animals, and it is hard to conjecture where they come from. They are nat ural kleptomaniacs, and have an ln- veterate habit of dragging off to their nests any and every object that they can move. Spoons, knives, forks bot ties, handkerchiefs, collars, potatoes, apples specimen pieces of ore, and many other articles stolen from the miners camp are found stored in their nests. They have q great propensity for robbing hens nests. Thomas Johnson, widely known in that region as 8 miner and a close observer, the owner of the American Curl mine, is my creditable authority for stating that the robber rat manages to steal eggs in this curious way; One rat gets down into the nest, and, lying on his side, clutches the egg with all four legs; then his pal takes him by the tail and drags rat and egg slowly to their nest hole, sometimes a hundred yards away.
 There are few birds on the desert. Occasionally may be seen a hawk, few hocks of black birds, some sparrows wrens and bee martins, and at long Tn tervals a covey of blue quail. Early one morning, about thirty miles east ot Mammoth Tanks, was surprised to see pair of mocking birds in the top oi an ironwood tree. The male sat swing ing and singing blithely and sweetly, as if among the rose vines, the orange and pepper trees of beautiful Los An geles.
 The common soil of the desert Is not, as generally supposed, deposit of barren silicious sand and gravel. Even the seemingly pure sand IS largely made up of decomposed soda, lime, and potash felspar, and has nearly all the chemical clements of the most fertile soil. It needs water only to convert 1t into rich, productive land. It could yield grain and fruit to sup port a million people. How to get water on these waste places is one Of the most urgent and wooing problems for the people of Southern California today.
 Seldom is there anything like gen. eral rain in this section. There are periods of drouth when several years pass without any rain at all. Now and
 then at varying distant points there
 is tbe downpour of a cloudburst
 Along the foothills and in the noun
 tains there are a few small living
 springs; and there are some natural basins in the rocks called tanks, which hold rain-water part of the year; but
 there are no rivers, brooks, or lake o fresh water. The atmosphere carries ) through the year less than per cent of moisture, and the air is almos ! constantly stirring day and night } usually in gentle breezes, but oftel 3 blowing in the most violent sant
 storms.
 3 This lack of humidity in the atmos : phere, it's constant agitation, and tn l burning heat cause the evaporation water to be simply enormous. s This fact with that other one, tn s dept of the porous and thirsty soil c q sand and gravel, leads me to believ
 that any scheme to irrigate the deser = lands by open canals from the Colorad a River, would cost untold thousands 'f dollars, and at last prove an utte 'f failure.
 : In many places the geological sign
 strongly indicate that the sinking t artesian wells would meet with sue l. cessfull issue. In the reigOns of butte 3- foothills and mountains which sen e tinel and flank the desert, and some D which are scattered Tn struggllr w wav on and across the desert, whi a there are no regular periodic rair It seasons, still there are seasons with d. three or four years when the rainfa