The Globe-republican., 1900-09-13

People in the east who complained of
the great heat OF August should con-
graduate themselves that they are not
forced to live in Yuma, Ariz-, the ban
ner hot town of the United States
Fancy everyday temperature
varying from 105 to 125 degrees in the
shade for four five months at
stretch Imagine village of several
hundred adobe, stone and brick squat
one-story houses and store buildings
all with clumsy porches in front ,strewn
along a dreary red brown roasting
bank of 4 drowsy, muddy stream;
where rude thoroughfares straggle up
and down naked hill shimmering un-
der the fercest, emptiest sky you ever
saw. Such is Yuma.
Imagine a region thousands of square
miles in area, of yellow sand, quaint
cacti, whitened powders, not one COM
manding mountain or Shape1y prOmi-
nence-a desolate. CHASTITY desert waste
under a fiery sun-and you have the
setting of Yuma Imagine yourself on
some vantage spot and looking over a
frontier town paralyzed in Overwhelm-
ing sunlight, where scantily clad,
swarthy Indians sprawl fast asleep on
hot earth in patch of shade, no white
person in sight, not sign of activity
anywhere, stores shut, houses bO1ted
and blinded, not a sound heard save a
rust1ing. of dried sage brush. And that
is life in Yuma during a midsummer
afternoon, writes a correspondent on
August 10.
The summer thus far this year in
Yuma has been an average one. From
May Ia to May 80 the temperature ev-
cry afternoon ranged from SO degrees
to 1O1. Then there was a week of COM
parative GOODNESS: the mercury never
rose above 80. From June to June
% the mercury varied from 105 to 113
Il a
business. The desert sand dunes had
become baked, and the foothills were
glowing For six weeks the mercury
never was below 1O2, and from that it
has gone to 122 degrees twice From
July to July 20 the average afternoon
temperature was rs degrees. During
nights the mercury sunk slowly to an
average of 1O5 at about a. With
the rising of each sun the mercury
climbed up steadily until about 3
O'Clock.
And the warmest weeks of the year
are yet to make their records. Last
summer the hottest day in Yuma was
August 26, when the mercury touched
1877. In September there were several
days when the temperature was at 121,
and few nights when the Their
mometer never registered lower than
los degrees In 1896 Yuma's red letter
hot day occurred. 1t was August Is,
when extra hot winds blew from off the
the mercury rose from 10 to 1913, and
by 4 O'Clock it rose to 129. Several
deaths among children occurred durin g
the heated spell.
geographically Yuma is situated for
the making of high records. AS far as
the eye can reach, and miles and miles
farther, in any direction, there is moth
ing but profound aridity through which
the Colorado drowsi1y meanders to the
gulf of California. From some points
nothing is in sight but a vast crumpled
sea of yellow sand and the horizon
Yuma is the heart of a region of ex-
tinct volcanoes barren hills and sterile
canyons; a region of mira ges, ella
monsters and reptiles that thrive amid
burning a1kalf wastes and deadly
thirstS, wnefe not a green thing in ma
ture may be seen far as vision
sweeps, except few sparse cotton
wood trees at the railway stations
where a whitening white sunshine
blazes from out cloud1ess sky twelve
hours a day, months at time; where
inf1amed eyes and even blindness from
the intense sunshine are common;
where the earth is so hot that white
people can scarcely walk upon it with
thin shoes, and where tough range
cattle sicken and die in a few weeks.
At night the whole population sleeps
out of doors, and many people slumber
under the open heavens 10 months in
the year.